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| Digital Rehab | (Videotape of teenage girls texting and surfing the Internet.)
TEENAGE GIRL: (From videotape.) It's just funner than homework. You just, like, shake it and it changes music.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: For these children, it's rehab time, believe it or not -- not drug rehab, not alcohol rehab -- another addiction, digital addiction, digital rehab. The first detox center for Internet addicts opened its doors last August for computer-related addictive behaviors in Fall City, Washington, for both adults and youth.
Young people today spend a lot of time with their hand-held electronic devices -- cell phones, iPods, BlackBerrys, sometimes laptop computers and TV sets. Electronic media are the newest drugs of choice of America's youth between the ages of eight and 18.
VICTORIA RIDEOUT (Kaiser Family Foundation vice president): (From videotape.) Kids are spending an average of more than seven and a half hours a day, seven days a week, using media. That's more than 53 hours a week. I mean, that's a full-time job.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: That adds up to an hour and 17 minutes more media intake than five years ago. And it's not only multihours. It's also multitasking. And get this: Some youngsters can achieve simultaneity besides sequentiality. In other words, they can do four things at once: Facebook and Twitter on their computers, talk to their friends on their cell phones, watch television on a hand-held TV, all at the same time -- the McLaughlin Group, doubtless, on the TV -- all while listening to Lady Gaga on their iPods.
Question: What's the scientific evidence of the emotional impact of constantly socializing through electronic devices? Clarence Page.
MR. PAGE: Well, it's somewhat in dispute, but there's little question that it's affecting attention spans. It's affecting relationships. It's making it more difficult for young people to be engaged by that homework. As the young lady said, it's less fun than the video games. But the extent of the scientific impact is still being studied.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: What about this wanting to have a friend or increase your number of friends that call you? Is that obsessional?
MS. CROWLEY: That is -- well, that's an outgrowth of these social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, and it be in constant communication.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Do you have any friends?
MS. CROWLEY: I have a lot of real friends. MR. PAGE: (Laughs.) Thank you.
MS. CROWLEY: Virtual friends -- I don't do the Facebook or the Twitter thing yet. But a lot of people do, and a lot of people find it -- it's very gratifying to stay in touch with people who don't live close by you. But I will say that in terms of young people, teenagers and even younger, there is some scientific evidence to suggest that all of this media interaction, BlackBerrys and video games, actually does improve eye-to-hand coordination. It's making the brain react faster. So there may be some, some, educational value to all this.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Do you understand this?
MR. BUCHANAN: No, John. I was thinking of that. You and I grew up even before the television age. And, quite frankly --
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Why is socializing --
MR. BUCHANAN: -- radio and books and things like that and cards and games you played, I think it was interacting with people. It seemed to me it was an awful lot better for socializing and maturing people than sitting there with these little --
MR. PAGE: And engage the mind too.
MR. BUCHANAN: I mean, after the younger generation, the '50s, they all had a TV set. I mean, they're watching TV six hours a day.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Do you think when they grow to be adults, they're going to be able to take care of our government needs by having a political life? Will they be able to write a speech? Will they be able to shake hands?
MR. PAGE: No, but great pilots for electronic drones.
| | Do you think when they grow to be adults, they're going to be able to take care of our government needs by having a political life? Will they be able to write a speech? Will they be able to shake hands? | -John McLaughlin | 
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| You Ought To Know Better | PRESIDENT OBAMA: (From videotape.) With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections. (Applause.)
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Question: Was this political oratory okay, or was it demagogic and dangerous? I ask you, Eleanor.
MS. CLIFT: Liberals loved it. This Supreme Court decision overruled 100 years of legal doctrine on this particular issue, and it does open the door for corporate contributions, and union contributions as well. But it seems to be generally agreement --
MR. PAGE: And possibly overseas. MS. CLIFT: And possibly overseas. So I think the president, if he had not remarked upon it, it would have been an omission.
I also want to point out that the White House has allowed its critics to conflate the short-term deficit spending that he did to dig us out of the hole and pull the economy back from the brink of destruction with the structural deficits, which are a serious problem and will have to be considered. But the spending he did this year -- last year -- was essential.
| | I also want to point out that the White House has allowed its critics to conflate the short-term deficit spending that he did to dig us out of the hole and pull the economy back from the brink of destruction with the structural deficits, which are a serious problem and will have to be considered. But the spending he did this year -- last year -- was essential. | -Eleanor Clift |
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| The Terror Trial | MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Okay. Item: The terror trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The Obama administration is now considering taking the trial out of New York. What's the story, Clarence?
MR. PAGE: Well, the story here is that all of a sudden Mayor Bloomberg is getting very nervous about the cost involved and the inconvenience there in New York. It's intriguing. I mean, it's spurred all kinds of speculation, which we would never do on this show. But if we did, we might wonder, does Bloomberg know something or was Obama really thoroughly consulted in the first place by Holder before doing this? MS. CLIFT: Yeah, it looks like the Defense Department wasn't willing to pony up the billion dollars that Bloomberg said that it would cost. And it looks like a likely possible compromise is to have a federal trial, but do it on a military base, which would placate both sides.
MR. BUCHANAN: It would be absurd to have that thing in downtown Manhattan, John; the security problems. All you need is one terrible explosion there. It would be a disaster for the country. Frankly, it would cost Obama his presidency if it happened.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: What price does Obama pay if the administration moves the trial to a military base?
MR. BUCHANAN: He pays nothing. I'll tell you this. If they turn this trial into a circle and the lawyer for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is walking out there putting America on trial every day, he's going to pay a hellish price.
| | Well, the story here is that all of a sudden Mayor Bloomberg is getting very nervous about the cost involved and the inconvenience there in New York. It's intriguing. I mean, it's spurred all kinds of speculation, which we would never do on this show. But if we did, we might wonder, does Bloomberg know something or was Obama really thoroughly consulted in the first place by Holder before doing this? | -Clarence Page |
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| Obama Rebooted | PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: (From videotape.) The worst of the storm has passed. But the devastation remains.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: President Obama, in his State of the Union speech this week, described the economic devastation that continues in the wake of the nation's worst economic recession in 75 years.
Here's the devastation.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: (From videotape.) One in 10 Americans still cannot find work. Many businesses have shuttered. Home values have declined. Small towns and rural communities have been hit especially hard. And for those who'd already known poverty, life's become that much harder.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Question: President Obama faced three imperatives this week: The Democrats -- they were dispirited, they needed rallying; the independents -- they were alienated; and the Republicans -- they needed wooing.
President Obama had to do this with his State of the Union address. Did he satisfy all of these political constituencies? Pat.
MR. BUCHANAN: No, you can't satisfy them all, because the tea- party types, the independents who were with him, are very anti- government. The progressives are pro-government, big programs. You can't satisfy both of them. He sort of lectured the Republicans. I don't think he really satisfied any of them, John.
But to your key point, I hope the president is right when he says things -- that we're really out of this thing. But I believe we're in a bubble. I think the back-to-back 10 percent deficits and the doubling of the money supply has created another bubble. I'm afraid it's going to pop, and I think we could head downward into what people call that W and that sort of recession. I hope not, but it looks to me very bad, because, I mean, the consumer has not gone back into the stores.
| | No, you can't satisfy them all, because the tea- party types, the independents who were with him, are very anti- government. The progressives are pro-government, big programs. You can't satisfy both of them. He sort of lectured the Republicans. I don't think he really satisfied any of them, John. | -Pat Buchanan |
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| Hey, Big Spender | PRESIDENT OBAMA: (From videotape.) I'm proposing specific steps to pay for the trillion dollars that it took to rescue the economy last year. Starting in 2011, we are prepared to freeze government spending for three years.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Question: Why the spend-now-pay-later plan? Why doesn't the president propose his freeze on this year's budget?
MR. PAGE: Well, the reasons are half-political and half- practical. As a practical matter, he wants to get spending out there because he wants to try to stimulate the economy and not cut things off the way Roosevelt did halfway into his recovery plan, and you got that double dip right afterwards.
It's partly political because he is a liberal, he is a Democrat, and they believe in spending more money right away.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Well, we also have another event this year. We have an election in November.
MR. BUCHANAN: Yeah.
MR. PAGE: Right.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Maybe that's --
MR. BUCHANAN: John, here's --
MR. PAGE: Maybe that's part of it.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Maybe that's the timing of the freeze.
MR. PAGE: Well, you know, Monica's right in that people have not seen Obama addressing the economy and jobs enough.
MR. BUCHANAN: Here's the problem --
MR. PAGE: A president can only do so much. But they at least want to know the president is engaged with them and feels the pain.
MR. BUCHANAN: John, here's his problem --
MS. CLIFT: Well, it's stunning --
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Hold on. Eleanor. MS. CLIFT: It's stunning to me that the White House lost such control of the message. Health-care costs rising on an unsustainable basis feeds into the economic problems that we have. And certainly climate change and a green economy is the way forward. That they didn't create a narrative that this is all part of this country's economic recovery, really it's criminal negligence.
MR. BUCHANAN: John --
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: You mean, the fact that they didn't do this linkage.
MS. CLIFT: Yeah. They didn't connect the dots.
MR. BUCHANAN: John --
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: They weren't more didactic and present it to the people. I couldn't agree with you more.
MR. BUCHANAN: Here's the crisis. Here's the crisis of the party of government. When you talk about a freeze on spending, that's good fiscal conservatism. And here are the progressives out there saying, "Where, in heaven's name, is health care? Where's cap and trade? Where is the progressive era you promised us?" And so Obama's moving back and forth between these folks that want to cut the government and these folks that want to grow the government. He's got a hellish problem.
MS. CROWLEY: Pat is absolutely right. The State of the Union looked like the state of confusion, because if he wanted to tie the economy to health care and cap and trade, the reason he lost the disconnect is because, in the middle of this great recession, he wanted to go forward with a $2.5 trillion health-care entitlement and cap and trade, which would be tantamount to the largest tax increase in the history of the world. He couldn't connect all of those things, given the economic dire straits.
| | Pat is absolutely right. The State of the Union looked like the state of confusion, because if he wanted to tie the economy to health care and cap and trade, the reason he lost the disconnect is because, in the middle of this great recession, he wanted to go forward with a $2.5 trillion health-care entitlement and cap and trade, which would be tantamount to the largest tax increase in the history of the world. He couldn't connect all of those things, given the economic dire straits. | -Monica Crowley |
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