November 6, 2011

Best of CSPAN Video

Today we’ll look at C-SPAN and the selection of videos we’ve added from them. While these are all videos, most of them can just be listened to without the video component so you can play them while you do other things on your computer or around the house. We’ll start off by highlighting some of the best programs from C-SPAN.

We’ve added over 100 titles featuring videos and speakers on the C-SPAN video library. C-SPAN has been broadcasting since 1979 and they now offer a complete, freely accessible video archive going back to 1987. They offer over 250,000 video programs in the C-SPAN video library! We can’t say that we went through all of the programs, but we went through a lot of them. And we found that the C-SPAN video library is much more than hours and hours of Senate committee meetings, White House press briefings, and House sessions (although that stuff is all there if you’re interested). If you would like to go way back you can check out their:

First Televised House Session (featuring Al Gore)

But mostly we’ve picked out special programs from the most well known political figures, the most highly regarded authors, and some of the most popular thinkers that we feature on our site. Many of the people we feature have numerous videos on C-SPAN and for them we are linking to the page on C-SPAN that features all of their C-SPAN appearances. We’ve embedded many of these videos, and we saw on C-SPAN’s video library blog that for many of their programs they are now offering the MP3 audio downloads for $0.99 per program. A small price to pay for some of these recorded gems if you want them “on-the-go” on audio. You can check out all the C-SPAN offerings we’ve added along with a lot of free C-SPAN offerings on audio download from Audible.com and free C-SPAN podcasts right here:

Browse Over 200 Titles from C-SPAN

C-SPAN features a number of series in their video library. For example they feature 2-3 hour “life portraits” of some of the most popular presidents of all time. You can check out all of their Peabody Award winning series on American Presidents right here:

American Presidents Series on C-SPAN

And here are some of the presidents they feature:

Life Portrait of Abraham Lincoln

Life Portrait of George Washington

Life Portrait of Thomas Jefferson

Life Portrait of Theodore Roosevelt

In addition to these portraits, we’ve added links to all of the videos for every president of the past 100 years from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Barack Obama. Here are some of them:

Franklin D. Roosevelt Videos on C-SPAN

John F. Kennedy Videos on C-SPAN

Richard Nixon Videos on C-SPAN

Ronald Reagan Videos on C-SPAN

Barack Obama Videos on C-SPAN

C-SPAN also offers some of their own unique programming. They’ve produced special feature documentaries on the American institutions hold our three branches of government. They’ve also done a re-creation of the seven Lincoln-Douglas debates, they’ve retraced the journey of Alexis de Tocqueville, and they’ve done features on every presidential library. Check out these C-SPAN unique programs:

The Capitol – History, art, and architecture of the U.S. Capitol.

The White House: Inside America’s Most Famous Home, 2011 Edition – A documentary-style look behind the scenes at White House operations and history of the president’s home.

The Supreme Court: Home to America’s Highest Court, 2010 Edition – A look into the role, traditions, and history of the Supreme Court featuring interviews with all the sitting and retired Justices.

Tocqueville Series on C-SPAN – C-SPAN retrace the steps of Alexis de Tocqueville, author of Democracy in America, who traveled throughout the U.S. in 1831.

Lincoln Douglas Debates Series on C-SPAN – A re-enactment of the series of seven historic debates held in each of the original seven towns.

Presidential Library Series on C-SPAN – A look inside all 12 of the nation’s presidential libraries.

And if you’d like to hear some political figures we also have featured the videos of some of the leading political voices on the right and the left. We’ll divide them up here:

Leading Conservative Voices:

Ann Coulter Videos on C-SPAN

Bill O’Reilly Videos on C-SPAN

Glenn Beck Remarks to Conservative Political Action Conference and Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and Others at the Restoring Honor Rally

Michael Medved Videos on C-SPAN

Mitt Romney Videos on C-SPAN

Ron Paul Videos on C-SPAN

William F. Buckley, Jr. Videos on C-SPAN

William Kristol Videos on C-SPAN

Leading Liberal Voices:

Arianna Huffington Videos on C-SPAN

Dennis Kucinich Videos on C-SPAN

Gloria Steinem Videos on C-SPAN

Jesse Jackson Videos on C-SPAN

Michael Moore Videos on C-SPAN

Noam Chomsky Videos on C-SPAN

Ralph Nader Videos on C-SPAN

Robert Reich Videos on C-SPAN

And there are a lot of other great individual videos we discovered in the C-SPAN video library that we thought would be of interest. Here are some of C-SPAN’s top videos:

2011 State of the Union Address by Barack Obama

The Atomic Bomb by J. Robert Oppenheimer

Drugs and Public Policy by Dr. Andrew Weil

Financial Future of American Youth by Warren Buffett

Future of Space Travel by Stephen Hawking

Gay Marriage Debate by Evan Wolfson & David Blankenhorn

Interview with Ayn Rand

Tony Blair and Christopher Hitchens Debate Religion

Israel and Palestine After Disengagement – Debate between Noam Chomsky & Alan Dershowitz

Author James Baldwin National Press Club Speech

Leadership Styles & Ethics by Steven R. Covey

Martin Luther King, Jr. and Foreign Policy by Clayborne Carson

Mike Wallace Interview with Eleanor Roosevelt

Nixon-Khrushchev Kitchen Debate

Richard Nixon & John F. Kennedy First Presidential Debate

And of course there is much, much more to discover from the C-SPAN video library. Search some of your favorite authors there from the past 30 years and chances are you’ll find some videos of them. You can check out their programs right here:

www.c-spanvideo.org