blagojevich in his first administration and the first half of his second half of his administration. what did they tell him either on the record or off the record? what impression did they have of him and what did you learn in talking to those people? ,ñ,ñ

i talked to enough people who mentioned this to me that i finally went and talked to several psychiatrists who never good enough psychiatrists so they wouldn't want give a diagnosis of because i haven't examined him but they did appoint a toward the male clinic definition of a narcissistic personality disorder which is someone who has an overall need for attention and has to be in the middle of things, much of which is to cover up a basic lack of self-esteem and many of his staff members really thought this fit into a tea because they remembered so many of the times when they couldn't get him out of the office or at of his house which is most likely, to go to an event or a political event, to talk about his policies and he was so passionate about. he didn't want to go. he just didn't want that kind of confrontation with anyone that would challenge him which makes you wonder about this basic lack of self-esteem our basic lack of

>> but they said when he did go he was fabulous. he always turned around the room. so they were just as troubled and puzzled by it, you know, as everybody else. and i think you have to say he's a man who had his demons and we saw how it played out in illinois. >> that's a pretty serious thing to talk about. whether someone is mentally ill who is the governor of your state. on the other hand is he just sort of a garden-variety politician who made some bad moves along the way. >> i don't think he's a venal politician. he is a very likable guy, if you can get him out of his house. [laughter] >> you know, i do have a master degree in social work but i'm not going to diagnose rod blagojevich. >> oh, come on. >> but i do think this narcissistic personality disorder, which is, you know, it's not psychotic. schizophrenic. it is a personality disorder.

i think some kind of diagnosis like this could be used to interpret many of rod blagojevich's actions. right now as we name the book, this whole national media tour which has become a whole political sideshow. every defense attorney that i have spoken to think this is just crazy. you know, if you're going to be out, if you're going to be under indictment you're supposed to be at home as the judge told him preparing for trial. you're not supposed to be going public at every opportunity. but he just can't leave it alone. 's press secretary told me the saddest thing for rod blagojevich was going to be when he was out of office and no longer able to talk to the press, because he did that adulation. he needed to be on stage or he couldn't let it go, and as we have seen he can't. >> he allegedly or supposedly writing his own biography or autobiography right now. are you looking forward to reading that?

[laughter] >> i mean, i'm wondering if you think he has the inside of self-knowledge by his own autobiography. >> yes, i'm looking forward to reading it. i can't wait to see how i know how hard it was to write a book. so i can't wait to see how he does. i think it will be interesting in terms of how he, what he says about other illinois politicians. because i think he certainly is in a position to say a lot about what goes on in springfield, particularly with michael madigan and i think that's going to be one of the most interesting chapters to see what he has to say about michael. about as much insight it has, i think we will see if he has a ghost writer in question from the audience? >> it's great to listen to you both. i was wondering, i agree with that observation of him being very opportunistic. i was just wondering can you put this in context of the rest of illinois and politics. do we just look at rod blagojevich as this is just a case of rod blagojevich, or how does this fit into the rest of

upstate chicago politics and obviously what is going on in the governor's office, like is this just in illinois affliction or what's going on here? >> i do have a chapter in my book devoted to, the second chapter devoted to the history of illinois corruption spec just one chapter? [laughter] >> yeah, it could've been much longer. there is no doubt, we live in a state that has a strong sordid history of political corruption. 1853 governor masten found $200,000 which he said he found in a shoebox which sort of goes right along to paul powell who kept all his ill-gotten gains in a shoebox. i thought it was funny when i reread some of the story about paul powell. when you wanted to get, you just wrote a check to paul powell. it turned out that a lot of those checks really did go to paul powell. [laughter] >> and it goes on and on.

for the last governor's will wind up in jail. so there certainly is a long history of political corruption, but i do think, i did like what patrick fitzgerald said when he said this was paid to play on steroids with rod blagojevich. so i think he did manage to take it to a new level. >> so i guess the question, when you talk about the answer to his question and the previous question, is whether blagojevich is going to try his harper valley pta mode as somebody put it in. they were wondering when he gave a speech at the end of his impeachment trial is going to stand up there with the harper valley pta and say yeah, and they run with you and you and you. >> he did that. >> but only a little taste of what might come. >> read the book. >> but the other question, is he going to do that. but the other question is is he going to be able or can we put this into sort of well, this is how business got done in illinois.

on steroids, but just a version of what everyone else had been doing for a long time. that seems to be his view of the actions of a longtime. don't get me wrong, everybody does is. everyone did this all along. >> absolutely. and i thought he was much too harsh. i thought his speech before the senate who was about to impeach him and threw him out of office was masterful. showed rod blagojevich, the doubt he could have been. it was just a terrific speech i thought. i believe a lot of it. i do have to say that i was a bit disturbed when the illinois reform commission which just had all these new reforms really coming out what happened to rod blagojevich, you know, patrick collins has this commission. he was chief prosecutor in the george ryan case, and they did a magnificent job. these reform for all before our state legislature which is now adjourned without passing hardly any of them.

they did pass on. they were watered down. so i was beginning to believe rod blagojevich was more of an exception then maybe i am now willing to say after the dismal performance of the legislators passing any of these reforms to try to change the culture in illinois. >> 's argument for himself as he had to raise all this money because he had to go around because of the power structure in the state legislator and general assembly wasn't going to budge. >> and there is some truth to that. michael madigan did not want to have rod blagojevich pass any kind of meaningful legislation primarily because he wanted to see lisa madigan wind up becoming governor, which she very well may. so there were entrenched interests that he was trying to go around, but on the other hand he did absolutely nothing to form any political relationship with any of these people that might have gotten some of this legislation. >> but he did have an alliance

with. >> yes, sir. did. >> which actually made a complete gridlock at the time because nothing really is moving it away. >> exactly. i did interview him for the book who is still very angry about what happened to rod blagojevich and characterized the impeachment as a political lynching. so he did have some support in the senate in springfield, but it was still, he made no attempt really to have any kind of a relationship other than one of total anger with michael madigan. >> yes, sir. >> about the ethic of the landfill should it have been on its merit? or was it stopped when it should have gone ahead? >> that's a good question. i think there were some questions about the landfill, but in the end after the illinois epa shut it down, there will be more hearings. and they reopened it and

eventually it did pretty much get a clean bill of health. >> it seems to me, we have another question but the question and that was so much, and the same thing is true with a lot of the things that blagojevich wanted to do. it's not what he wanted to do but how he wanted to do it. did anyone ever heard him to leave the house and go to work? there's a lot of jobs you can do at home. you do have to show up and just be their. >> guestco he was recalling urged to leave the house and go to work. lucile would go over there every morning and he would sort of go over the days events and it was his job to drag him out of the house and get into some political event, if he had to be there to make a speech or whatever. but even though he lived four blocks away and he would go over there every morning, he never was invited into his house. so he was sitting in his car for like an hour or two trying to get together out of the house to

go where he wanted to go. so he just didn't want to leave his house. >> is there a doctor in the house? >> i wonder how much what's going on has to do with how much we would like to believe what the politicians say. i wonder if these, people were so surprise how blagojevich behaved in the beginning that was inconsistent with the things that he said. a lot of us feel that we knew ahead of time that that was going to happen. >> if we knew it, if the voters knew it, they elected him again. so apparently we didn't hear it enough. i was surprised -- i was surprised at the extent to how early the corruption began and that his whole plan for raising money began really when he was running for governor. that many of the seeds as a fitzgerald called it, is a

criminal enterprise began even before yo he took office. >> the way i see it as a person who has lived in chicago since 1974, as a member of the media, you're basically ceding into his bag is. he loves to be on tv. he loves to have his name written up in the newspapers. almost impossible, what as members of the media could you do to sway it to make it better for us as citizens of chicago want to remain here in the city to get a better life for the city of chicago with the way things are kind of falling apart, politics aside? >> i know i said a lot. >> i'm not quite sure that's our job as a member of the media. [laughter] >> really what we are trying to do is bring as much information as we can as to what is happening in government. and somebody said to media the day so what happened in the media? why didn't you guys tell us about this? well, i then had lunch with the

reporter at the federal building who said, i wrote 457 stories with what was going on with rod blagojevich. so i think we may, you know, take some of the blame, but i think we are trying to dig out as much information as we can and what's going on at state, local, county government and put it out there and it does have to be up to the voters to read and respond to. >> unfortunately we have given the hour another on c-span. is pay to play by elizabeth bracken. i urge you that are here to come out and meet elizabeth and have her sign a copy of the book for you. does of you who are watching order it or buy it from your bookstore. thanks for coming out, elizabeth. [applause] >> elizabeth bracken is a correspondent for pbs news hour with jim where.

stack the solution is probably going to be choice. right now we have no choice. you drove presumably. if you want to go somewhere 95% of the time you are driving. 98% of the energy in that car is oil. we have no choice in vehicle but we have no choice in fuel.

and that's the biggest problem so we have to start thinking about different types of cars that are more efficient using different types of fuels like electricity. and then so is not always a car that you have to pick. if you are old and/or you are young or you're disabled or you are injured or poor, you don't have a car. cars are not an object and that is a big part of this population here and everywhere in the world. so we need to have much more creative incentive, you know, differentiated ways of moving ourselves around. >> in your book you talk about some alternative fuels, former administration of president bush put a big investment into hydrogen. is that sustainable? >> hydrogen is a real interesting case. it has always been 25 years out. when i started working in the steel 20 years ago it was when he fighters out and today it's still 25 years out. the thing about hydrogen is it's

in everything. so finding it and getting it and it's very small. is the smallest molecule, containing it, storing it. it's very challenging. many of us think it could ultimately be the carrier but in the meantime we're going to have electric motors, where you can plug in hybrids now and hybrid electric vehicles on the road. and in more work is going into liquid biofuels, not corn ethanol. that so we have seen so far. not going to food and then back to fuel. but grass and algae and garbage. that will be useful for liquid fuels and drug. >> is that still 25 years out? >> no, i think that is much more closer and. and a big part has been the very cheap oil. we have had 25 years of standstill that we haven't done much research. the oil industry, the art industry, the government just hasn't done that much. .com he was such that oil was really high. and then we had just bought last

summer and people realize it might not be as stable. many of us have been saying for a long time that oil could beat any price. it's a global market. it in a rational market. caught up in wars and skirmishes. so the price could be anything looking ahead, and that's what gives the way for change. >> some of the energy crisis that we faced in this country in the 1970s, 2008, have they improved our efficiency? has the marketplace responded? >> it interesting to see, at the moment of crises back in 1973 and 1974 and 1978, 1979 and then last summer how quickly people respond to price. i think that's heartening, actually, to say that there are price point where people will actually change their behavior, companies will actually change their product and the government will stand up and say this is actually a good thing. but what happens in between has been in the valley of death. so in between these crises we

have plummeted in the last 15 years of very long floor on oil of $40 a barrel, $60 a barrel and now a dollar 85 at the pump where there is no motivation to do anything. >> do we rely on the marketplace in your view or should the u.s. government step in? should it be a global effort? i don't think we can rely on the marketplace i think the market won't do it alone. it's just too cyclical and is very much caught up in a global market like i said which is dysfunctional. so it will pick up your it will take federal policy that are going to have more inefficiency built in, alternative fuels, basic research, incentives for consumers. again, consumers are reacting to the price that they see. so when the price rose to $4 a gallon last summer, everyone stepped away from suvs and trucks. and now it is ever suvs and trucks as our backup because the

price is low. we will need the government to stabilize whether its price floor on oil, and in fuel economy standards. is going to take regulation incentive to change the behavior of consumers and corporations. >> how did you become a transportation analyst? >> i started out actually very interesting in alternative fuels in college as a chemical engineer. and when i graduated from college, i'm telling my age here, when i graduated from college it was 1982 and the price of oil plummeted. every job, every exciting future oriented job that i was interested in dried-up overnight. and i ended up doing transportation or the energy side of transportation policy. as opposed to alternative fuels because there was no market and their has been no market. the one big transformation could be energy company instead of oil companies. it's interesting for very little in this time when gm is, you know, and crisis.

exxon is not really speaking up and i find that curious because they are the other side of the coin. the car and the oil. it's both sides now with transportation. so i would like to see energy companies, true energy companies that are thinking beyond oil. >> you worked with china and is there a national policy on transportation in china that you think the u.s. could perhaps withdraw from? >> china actually adopted fuel economy standard a couple of years ago and they are more stringent than america which tells you something. because we have our standards from the first oil crisis and then they sat at the very low levels of date set at 27 and a half miles per cars for 25 years and then they just have been raised after the price of oil spike. so already china is jumping and i think with its feetfirst. and interestingly, china and i think indian both jumped in ahead of america on this. they don't have indigenous oil

either. like us they have a lot of coil and not oil. do you have the u.s., china and india, the three largest transportation oil consumers and then the two will consumers, china and india are they'll have the oil that is going to fuel the fleets that they are matching they will have. i think that will create either tremendous political turmoil on the downside or on the upside tremendous innovation. and the hope is that america will be the innovator and we will sell the world cars. but that is left to be seen. it might just be that china and india sell us their cars connect everybody watching this is wondering do you have a car? >> i do have a car. and i have a car that i am breathing life into. it's 11 years old, and it's hobbling along. and i certainly want a very fuel efficient hybrid station wagon, and they don't make one or.

>> you lived in southern california and you lived in northern california. you now live here in charlottesville virginia. are you able to get around on public transportation? >> i am able not to get around here, this is a very wrote out the. i was able to in san francisco and oakland and also in la. i walked a lot where i lived. here it's a very rural. i mean, really, it's not, it's gorgeous but not to my mind the book of the most sustainable to build patterns with large lots. so we have a beautiful large lot with trees, but it's far away. i try to in a trip combine my trips. i do telecommute. i spent a lot of time in front of my computer in front of my death. but i would like to be more on foot and be closer and eventually. >> do you know where the picture on the front of the book was taken. >> i believe -- i need to check. i think that's the border crossing in mexico see that who is your co-author daniel

sperling. >> i have known for 25 years. he is from uc davis and i spent so much time at berkeley and a northern california. i knew him very well. five years ago that and decided we really want to write a book like this. and we did. and like i said got to gather very few times actually wrote this all virtually, basically. on the computer back and forth back and forth. and he now is on the california resources board where he is able to really help regulate these policies in california which we both argue there's a chapter on california in the book, it is head of the game in terms of pushing innovation. certainly california is ahead of the u.s. in terms of thinking ahead. the u.s. has been much slower as a nation, compared to definitely all of the western european nations, much slower to innovate a much lower than california's. >> and forward by governor schwarzenegger. >> yes! what does he say. >> governor schwarzenegger has

been, it's nice to get a bipartisan message. for many years we talked about the environment and the economy not be in battling. they are not peaked against each other. it's a good thing. for the environment and the economy when the environment is clean and the economy is working. in california that's been a big issue. oil imports are a huge economic issue for california. so he is saying listen, take heart in these messages because we need to think ahead. california hopefully will be the export of these technologies. >> co-author of 2 billion cars. driving towards sustainability. possible without publisher support and the publisher partnership we have built. so this morning >> so this morning we have four excellent authors brought to you

by four amazing publishers. i'm going to sort of go in order almost. we have joe scarborough who will be hosting the event this morning with crown publishers. we have richard russo. guyot collins with little brown and pete dexter from grand central publishing. please join me in thanking their publishers for making this event possible this morning. [applause] >> and so with literally no further ado please enjoy the delicious breakfast and teacher body but more importantly feed your mind dirk leas welcome joe scarborough to the platform upon the. >> thank so much for having me here. i'm very, very excited. i was told you are a very, very conservative group. [laughter] >> so i'm trying to remember my favorite dick cheney an antidot. just to tell you a little about

myself. i ran for office for the first time in 1994, and i am from northwest florida. which is also known in our parts as the redneck riviera. la, lower alabama. americas albania. i mean, the names go on and on and on. but a republican had not been elected their since 1872, and i think they own the last one that they sent up to washington. so when i ran, i couldn't run as a republican. i could not go out and run the party line. that was a damn good thing since the republican party on the local state and national level was trying to kill my candidacy every step of the way. but i got up to washington, d.c., and i was fascinated by my experience of their. and i write about it in my book that actuall y