losing world war ii, but we in would not be the internationalist force that we are inr. the world today without fdr. so i'm a little nuanced in my interpretation or analysis or's esteem -- or esteem for fdr, an r.c. is just going to have to up there in the heavens, he's just going to a have to accept the ft that i have a good word or two about fdr. as but that's about it, one or two. ..ut influences and favorite books and et cetera, he sent back quite a long e-mail. now, he has published -- we cut it down a little bit an edited it and didn't take anything out, but the word, he has published that entire e-mail he sent us on his westbound at spectator.org and you can go to spectator.org

and go to his blog and you can see exactly what he sent us as far as the e-mail, we ask all of our authors what their favorite books are influences, et cetera. cheetah in dalton, texas, you're on with r. emmett tyrrell. please go ahead with your question on booktv. >> caller: ben stein one of your contributors to the american spectators suggested that the gop recruit president obama into its ranks. mr. stein said it would be a good fit. can you personally strange this strange introduction other conservatives who are so opposed to obama's liberal views, especially obamacare, his economic and his immigration policy? >> i think i explained once ben stein was being ironic. and irony will get you no place in public today, ben so cut out

the jokes. >> darcy, mount clemens, michigan. good afternoon. >> caller: i want to you further elaborate how when it comes to the conservatives or if you would like to say the liberals who are now become the progressives, hasn't it always been the conservatives or the right wing who have started these social programs to enhance the lives of the minorities as in abe lincoln, a republican. wasn't it eisenhower who wanted to get the civil rights but it didn't get past until lbj came along? and all those types of deals and as far as being pro-life. they are looking out for the minorities when isn't the it the democratic parties or the progressives aren't they the one funding for the abortion and all a that when the conservatives do look out for the minorities if

ways that other liberals will never be able to possibly acknowledge? >> i don't understand the question. i'm sorry. >> moline, illinois. jerry, hi >> caller: thank you for a very interesting interview. mr. tyrrell, you mentioned a couple of wonderful english authors. i'm curious to know whether you've read by anything by g.k. chesterston and if so if chesterton had any influence on you as a writer or more importantly if he had any influence on you personally. thank you, and i'll hang up. >> jerry, do you read chesterton? >> caller: yes, i think he's just a very -- he should be a lot more well-known than he is. and, you know, so i'm just taking advantage of this opportunity, i guess, both to a

public conversation. >> sure, what it is about his writing that impresses you? >> caller: well, it's probably his wisdom, his wit, his joyful exuberance but mostly i think it's his ability to stand solidly on the idea that there are absolute truths and that truths are knowable and that we can defend them in very civilized ways. >> thank you. mr. tyrrell? >> well, years and years and years ago i read g.k. chesterton and read him with relish. and i was -- i would agree with what you've said. and he's a very valuable writer in that regard. but i haven't read him in recent years. and i'm not as familiar with him as you are. i wish i were, but i have nothing bad to say about him. maybe when i'm a little older and a little grayer you'll return to g.k. chesterton.

>> g.w.s. self-identified moderate from wisconsin emails to you, ronald reagan has been called the great communicator but is bill clinton more deserving of that moniker and would it be more accurate to refer to reagan as the great american. >> the what? >> rather than the great american rather than the great communicator? >> well, i like the great american. i guess you want -- let me talk a little bit about bill clinton. somewhere in my books, in my last two books to talk about the chronic campaigner. and that would be bill clinton. that would be hillary clinton. that would be john francois kerry. that would be newt gingrich.

it's the 1960s generation that developed -- it was most political of generations and as i say, it's been a disaster for the country. luckily in the 1990s there was no reason to -- we didn't have to be on guard all the time and we could put up with an amiable huckster like the clintons. but the chronic campaigner campaigns all the time, is campaigning in office and here he is out of office. he's still campaigning. he campaigns all the time but what he doesn't want, he doesn't want to be president when anything serious is going on. and for that matter he fobs off the serious decision-making that the administration and some other administrations is glad to

fob them off to the courts or to regulatory commissions or things . >> and that's the kind of thing bill clinton is. he lights up a room and all of that but i don't think george washington ever lit up a room. i'm sure abe lincoln didn't light up a room but those people made difficult decision which is they had to be made. the chronic campaigner doesn't make those difficult decisions. he's all show. he's a peacock. bill clinton was a peacock. when he lost his temper with me in the jockey club in '96, '95, in 1995, he started -- he exercised about a piece that we did in the american spectator. came over and wanted me to talk and schmooze. he turned the whole conversation

to my daughter 'cause he thought he could kind of chat her up and get past this difficult moment. and i asked him instead, what did you think about the airport piece, he went off like a rocket and he immediately called out of his card catalog of his mind -- he called back l.d. brown. l.d. brown was an arkansas state trooper involved with the airport and he had -- he went through the whole litany of criticisms he had of l.d. brown. and i was astonished at how the president of the united states could bring back this crisis of 10 years before and bring back the talking points that he had on that, on that particular crisis. and also i was astonished that the president of the united states was screaming at me in public and yet i wasn't the least bit alarmed.

i don't think gorbachev would have been alarmed or god knows stalin would have been alarmed. it was kind of like tinkerbell in a snip. and i finally had to say, mr. president, please go over there and sit down. you're going to spoil your meal. and he went over. he actually went over and sat down. now, i want to tell you, knowing nixon, i knew ronald reagan, i've known both bushes, and i can't imagine jimmy carter being told to sit down by a public citizen. that he went over and sat down and i didn't see him for another 10 years until i saw him in toronto at his 60th birthday. as i said earlier, but then he was kind of a shrunken man. >> who is richard melon scaife and what's your relationship with him? >> dick scaife has been a supporter of the american spectator for years. he's not now. he's a philanthropist.

he's one of the very important philanthropists of the conservative movement. he's an extremely nice man. he's a philanthropist to the white house and to various -- his philanthropy is vast. and the day -- was it january 21st, '1997, '98, the day that hillary got on the morning talk shows and talked of whatever it was, and talked about the vast right wing conspiracy, she then went back to the white house and that night had to have a reception for a philanthropist who paid for the redeck race of the white house and who's there at her -- in front of her butt? the handsome patrician silver haired richard melon scaife.

and he was not -- he was perfectly happy to say hello to her, but he told me later, he said, you know, bill was -- he's as red as a furnace, furnace-faced at the time. it took -- they had their pictures taken together at the white house. and generally you get your picture, the picture is returned to you in a month. it took him -- it took dick scaife numerous phone calls to get the picture, but he finally did get the picture back and to dick scaife's credit, i'll tell you that scaife has since taken an interest in the president's initiative in africa, i think. and the philanthropist he is, dick scaife has given money to the clinton charity or whatever

it's called, and so he's helpful in that regard. but i don't think he's helpful with any political procedures that the ongoing president has. in the clinton crackup, to talk about back in -- once back up at chappaqua, he was deciding what to do and he floated -- clinton floated the idea of becoming mayor of new york, and, no, that wouldn't work and so why not -- he floated the idea if he becomes the u.n. secretary generally and he made some kind of effort to become a u.n. secretary-general which only reminds me of my earlier remark which is that the chronic campaigner is forever campaigning and even retirement, clinton is interested in high

office. >> why did you write the clinton crackup in '07, seven years after the end of his presidency? >> well, because i wanted -- first of all, it took a while to write it. i had a team of researchers following clinton and, you know, and he raised millions and millions of dollars for himself and for his foundation. it's all in the book and so i wanted to see what he was going to do it in private life and i also wanted to see what hillary was going to do. in that book i prophesied that hillary is going to have a difficult time if '07 and '08 getting the domination because i thought her day had passed. and i was proven right. there's another thing in that

book. to talk about hillary's reliance on private investigators, and i knew about of all of them, and i talk about them in that book and what they did for the clintons and what -- the clintons used extra-governmental agents throughout their careers to do tricks and to gather information and carl bernstein had a book coming out at the same time, and i happen to know that carl bernstein knew the identity of the private security people that hillary used and he would never reveal these people's names. i find it very curious. i don't know why you would keep that from your readers.

but i let my readers know about it. >> and in your twhur book, "madam hillary," you write the resiliency of the clintons is without precedent in american history or for that matter any history that i'm aware of. the clinton supporters and the journalists always forgive and forget mainly forget. a little less than an hour left with our guest here on "in depth." r. emmett tyrrell, this email what is your opinion of michael savage and his banning from brooklyn? [laughter] >> well, i don't know anything about it. i don't have any particular opinion of michael savage and his banning from britain. i don't know anything about it but frankly i don't think earthquake get in. >> you're as impactful to ronald reagan to our family in the 1980s. we loved the american spectator. if i could ask why was ron burr pushed out?

>> he wasn't pushed out and he was given severance pay for a year and a half, two years. and we all moved on. >> next call for mr. tyrrell comes from spencer, virginia, go ahead, jeff. >> caller: yes. mr. tyrrell, first of all, i want to say that two of your favorite authors are mine favorite. fitzgerald and hemingway. everyone should read them. i consider myself a middle of the line independent that i take a little bit from both parties with what i agree with and that's how i vote. so with that said -- my main question to you is i would like to address world war ii. up until world war ii, america -- we were not nearly as

large as what we've become. in your opinion do you think world war ii propelled us as the dominant country in the world? >> well, it left us the dominant country in the world. and we've never been the same. we've been -- in writing this introductory piece to the -- to the death of liberalism in the "wall street journal" a few weeks back, i pointed out that america had sort of settled down. we were leading the world in the cold war against the soviet union. but we sort of settled down from

putting out brushfires all over the world and under eisenhower and under john kennedy there's that great speech that he gave in which he said we'll pay any price. and all that kind of poetry on behalf of liberty and the defense of liberty. and that speech excited, aroused the soviet union and it roused communist fires all over the world, i suspect. and i suspect that iraq and afghanistan are the most recent nations to be visited by the armies of the united states. and all of this was set in

motion by john kennedy. and is it escapable? i don't know. it certainly -- we have bourne every burden, and we have paid a high price. and the rest of the world now is sort of facing up to the fact that maybe the russians ought to pay some of the price and western europe ought to pay some of the price. and maybe china ought to try to stabilize the world and not leave it to us and make us out to be the world's bad guy where as a matter of fact, since the arrival of roosevelt and internationalism in washington, we've been the international good guy and we have bourne a

price to defend the world. and we don't get credit for it. we don't take credit for it. but without us, an awful lot of people wouldn't be free, they wouldn't be alive. >> white bird, idaho, john, you're on with r. emmett tyrrell go ahead. >> caller: i'm quite concerned that an increasingly smaller percentage of our society is bearing the burden of our combat. the rapidly diminishing middle class lower end and i have difficult politicians who never served or politicians who will send other sons and daughter to battle but their own are too good to go. i think it was bebegin said when an empire is rising the sons of our best to defend to defend her when they are declining they sacrifice their nco's their

noncommissioned officers. for me it would be mitt romney. i very much like him as a potential chief executive but i'm very bothered that his sons serve their country by working in daddy's campaign. can you comment on that and i'll listen to your answer. thank you, sir. >> you know, you remind on this sentinel of ronald reagan. and every time i disagreed with ronald reagan he was right and i was wrong. and i thought the volunteer army was a mistake. and i opposed it. and he was right, and it turned out to be good for the country. we have the most effective fighting force in the world or darn near the most effective fighting force in the world. but i share your sense that

those brave war on terrorism don't get their recognition that they deserve and more so, if i sense your -- the undercurrent of your observations, you feel that people who don't serve the military ought to serve in some other capacity for a period of time. and i share that notion, but how we get to there, i don't know. but you raise a legitimate point. on the other hand, i wouldn't be -- if i might follow up on my own remark, i wouldn't be bitter about this situation. mr. romney is probably very sorry he made that idiotic statement.

i wouldn't be very bitter about it because those men and women who have served, they must have a great sense of fulfillment and i hope we as a nation can give them even more of a sense of fulfillment? >> chuck in tucson, arizona, good afternoon to you. caller: well, good afternoon to you and this is a real pleasure to be able to come on your show. >> i mentioned to the one who spoke to me that i am a conservative, and i would like to hear mr. tyrrell's comments about entitlements and how to control them and i'd like to throw out just one asked which seems to me has not been toss out quite enough and that is the question of changing entitlements into a means test approach so that only the people who actually need medicare or actually need social security would get it. i think that's in line with

ronald reagan's idea of government should provide a safety net and i'd like to hear your comments. >> well, after the hangover, the conservatives rode to recovery. i have a blueprint, i have an agenda of things that i think should be done. and one of the things that i think we should follow is -- we should take on entitlements. we must take on entitlements. we're going to take on entitlements. i think that in the case of medicare and social security -- i think you should social security but i don't know if you mean that, we can have a means test. but we've got to get a policy in place right now. i think in the book i say people 55 and older we can keep the policies in place for them as they are. but people younger, who are in

danger of not getting their entitlement 50 years from now or 30 years from now when it comes due have got to start thinking about health savings accounts, personal savings accounts in the case of social security. and we've got to think about -- and i think we have, a way to keep -- the medical care from growing at the rapid rate it is. it's growing something like 5% a year. and i think that -- the argument that i lay out in the book, that kind of growth can end. we're not at a dead-end by any means. in fact, we're at the beginning of a new day in which we can have -- we can do something about entitlements, and i think

that it's very promising. i think inasmuch just between you and me, i plagiarize from anyone, i plagiarize from paul ryan's roadmap to america in this section of my book. and i think his roadmap for america is a good starting point for a basket of policies that can get us over this terrible, terrible entitlement crunch. >> zoo bug 64 tweets into you? >> what? >> that's his online moniker, matt harris, pandering pauls like hillary often claim the american people are smart or that the voters aren't stupid. do you share that notion? >> she tells us that the american people are smart and that the voters aren't stupid. she's talking about people in new york that voted for her.

now that she's secretary of state and i don't think she's planning to run for anything, she probably thinks they're pretty stupid because they elected her husband twice. >> in 1997, you came out with the impeachment of william jefferson clinton, a political dock udrama you call it. what gave you the idea to write impeachment in 1997, prior to it actually happening? >> well, you know, that's an interesting book. i wrote it with anonymous and you will never know who anonymous is. and the dialogue is terrific. it sounds just like hillary be. it sounds just like pat moynihan and we -- we really got the scenario down right. and it today down to pat moynihan deciding if -- to vote

for impeachment when the all went up the hill -- when they went down to the white house and told them impeachment was a done deal. it came down to pat moynihan. i talked to pat after he mentioned impeachmentton has lid about an affair with monica lewinsky -- i think i have this right -- that's impeachable. and i talked to him and i said, pat, that took a lot of courage to say that. he said, tell that to my wife. [laughter] but he's a guy that turned around and voted against impeachment months later. and by his own -- and by his own admission, it

was an impeachable offense and he should have been impeached. you don't lie under oath about a thing as negligible as an affair with a white house intern and get away with it. you shouldn't. and, of course, he didn't. he was impeached. >> dave in allegheny county, maryland, you're on with bob tyrrell. >> caller: yes, good afternoon. interesting conversation. let me give you a history lesson in modern politics. what is true to the republican party will look appear to be force what is force to be republican party will make to appear true. george wallace ran for president i think in 68 pox or '72 and he got the midwest, okay, that today is known as the tea party, the same counties, the same states, same areas. that is the tea party. that's a lesson in modern politics, okay. now, when you have a to do is

write about that and then you'll find yourself writing about something quite interesting. thank you. bye-bye. >> people are often trying to tell me what i should write about but rarely do they tell me to write about something that preposterous. the truth of the matter is -- i take it he's trying to say the tea party is somehow racist. i don't think any racism in the tea party. i see racism in the klu klux klan and the black panthers who come out and say they're racist but i don't see it in the tea party. i think the tea party is a very promising wave of civic action in this country and i applaud them and i their interest in the

constitution will get us all -- to reintroduce us to the constitution. again my friend has written a wonderful book about the constitution. a readers guide of what is it again. the readers guide of the constitution or something like that. a citizens guide to the constitution and i urge people to get that book because it's challenging even if it's wrong. it challenges your sense of government's limits of the enumerated powers of the constitution and these are things that i think we're going to be discussing in the years ahead. and i think the book is a good place to starred. >> this email, do you know any neoconservatives? and if so, what is your opinion about them? laugh plaintiff >> i know a lot of neoconservatives. and my opinion is that they're a

force for good in the world. >> you started writing about neoconservatives in 1984, the liberal crackup. >> yeah. and i suspect they were in the american spectator as early as '76. my god, they were there in the early '70s, irving and norman and all of them. there's a fit with conservatism and it's almost like a seamless fit. this iraq war, the seams were pulled apart a little bit because some traditional conservatives opposed the iraq war. i think they're all back together again. >> this email is have you read the just-published book neoconservativetism an obituary

by professor bradley thomso? >> i think it's nonsense. >> robert emails in, have the right wing think tanks like the hudson institute been promoting a new mem for the last 30 years that promotes public, enemy number one. the next caller is from warrick, new york, go ahead, dell. >> caller: hello, mr. tyrrell. i'm so thrilled to be able to speak to you. i've never read your magazine. and i never read any of your books but it made me very curious. i find your opinions and your ideas despicable. >> why, caller?

>> caller: you should be ashamed of the things you say. >> caller, can you give us is specific example. >> caller: talking about the liberals, the way he does. the president and clinton but what about bush's presidency, eight years of disaster? what is his opinion of that? >> i don't think it's eight years of disaster. i think towards the end and i tried to tell the president this myself that you're spending too much money. and as donald rumsfeld wrote in his new book, there was a different way that washington could have been executed. and the immediate aftermath of the war, i think, was bungled. but as for the lovely compliment from that woman, i take the

compliment and the flattery and thank her very much for it. >> r.j. dankert emails in to you about the conservative crackup book. ultimately this book is frustrating because it does not maintain a level of seriousness about what is behind the name-calling on the right and the inability so far to reach agreement on what conservatives should stand for and fight for in the new world. should the right try heroically to return to the fight for smaller, less expensive government or should it aim at increasing revenues that would allow us to get the books right and fund what pat buchanan has called jaishgs kemp's big rock candy mountain? mr. tyrrell does not address this and other questions with depth. >> i'm sorry. i'll try to do better in t in t

next book. >> in the conservative crackup, are there remedies in that book. >> that book points out that there's fissures in the american movement without doubt because conservatism has brought in the neocons and it's brought in the christian right and now the tea party movement. it brought in the reagan -- so there will be fissures but i said interestingly that when it comes time to vote, all these fissures are as nothing. when placed against the menace of liberalism. and generally the conservatives have hung together. and i never quite understood this, when they opposed george h.w. bush, who i knew him. i was in the white house with him. i tried to tell him that tax increases were the wrong way to

go, but he did it anyway -- that's the one time that the conservatives stayed home or supported ross perot and they gave bill clinton with, i think, 41% of the vote the white house. and we had eight years of -- well, appalling high jinxes in my opinion made in the name of the american spectator for a long time to come, but it was -- it wasn't really very good for the country. and i think that that george h.w. bush would have done a far better job over the next four years than bill clinton did. >> conservative crackup written and published -- or published in 1992. here's a quote from it. what caused the conservative crackup was not an overactive political gland but the conservative's deep disrelish for politics. by the late 1980s, many

conservatives simply ditched politics and went home. >> yeah, that's what happened. i mean, and i frankly -- i think that they should have tried to prevail on george bush to keep taxes down or they should have in the next administration prevailed on him to regret -- to change his tax policy, but i don't think that -- i don't think that bill clinton was good for the country. i think it was -- it was indeed a holiday from history. >> if people go back and read the liberal crackup written in 1984 and the conservative crackup in 1992, are they going to set something out of it still? >> it's wonderfully instructive, i think. i think i hit on something years

and years ago. i hit on the absurdity of the 1960s generation. i mean, i've been a critic of my generation from day 1 and i've been right. it's been an appalling generation and i look for younger generations to revoke the 1960 generation's so-called charter. and you'll see in the liberal crackup and in the conservative -- in the liberal crackup, you'll see the fissures that destroyed american liberalism. shaun in a recent book on ronald reagan talks about the destructive drive amongst liberals for identity politics and for the things that have

broken down the liberal commonality. i pointed out in the liberal crackup years before, so i think that's very much worth reading and i think the conservative crackup is a little different but i think that -- i talk about the fissures there. and i talk about how the fissures in the end don't really matter. and then, of course -- i think actually all those books that you've cited, they are a kind of ongoing work and the ongoing work is following the growth of american liberalism -- the growth of american conservatism for 40 years. and the decline of american liberalism. after the hangover the conservatives rode to recovery. much of it is in there.

but you see, the thing about history is at any one given point -- any any one given point in a historic epic things have changed. tax cuts which were our tax policy under ronald reagan was supply-side economics. that's different. tax policy of ronald reagan in the 1980s was you different than the tax policy of robert a. taft in the 1950s and the '40s. he was supposedly a conservative and he was a conservative. but conservatism changed. his policy -- he would be for balanced budget. the idea of ronald reagan supply side would have been appalling

to him. so i think -- one of the problems you have in talking about a historic figure -- what would fdr do today? well -- or what would ronald reagan do tomorrow? it's hard to say because in every period things change. but it's worth thinking and talking about, but it's a little difficult to say exactly. >> our next call comes from oklahoma city, i believe. please go ahead. >> caller: my mouth -- i mean, i'm just sitting here i can't believe what this guy is saying. i mean, where do i start? >> can you give an example? >> caller: let me -- let me take it from my point of view. >> as far as him saying that the tea baggers aren't racist. i mean, all you have to do -- when you have a sign that's called the president a monkey, a monkey boy, i think you are racist, okay? second thing is now do you think that we should cut our money

from israel? i mean, we don't want to supply egypt with any more money do you think we should cut, you know -- cut the money from israel and, of course, you'll say no. >> can i ask a question. >> sure, hang on there. >> what does tea bagger mean. tell me what it means? >> caller: what's a tea bagger? >> yeah. a tea bagger is when george bush, okay, was basically bleeding america, the tea baggers did not have anything to say. now -- >> now, wait a second. that's not what that means. >> caller: until a black man to president, now you tea baggers want to come and form a group against a black president. the reason why we're in the deficit is because what george bush did. and this is the thing. if president obama said that he wants to get out of both wars, then he's tea baggers would sit up here and they would say -- >> tell you what. we've got your side now let's

hear from our guest, r. emmett tyrrell. >> well, first of all, tea baggers is a dirty word of disparagement. if you don't know what that is, that's what it is. secondly, the best thing i can say about obama is that he's black and that's a good thing. it's good to have a black man president of the united states. we can put racism behind us. and mainstream america has put racism behind it. and that is a good thing. and so that's where i stand. as far as this ongoing rant of yours about racism, i'd say the person -- the first person to raise the question of racism in the conversation is often the person who's a racist. >> longmeadow, massachusetts, frank, you're on with our "in depth" guest on "in depth" booktv as we talk about books and ideas.

please go ahead. >> my issue is the debt of the last 35 years. we've collectively spent regardless of who was in power, we have collectively spent $15 trillion and promised up full faith and credit to pay back that bill. my question then is, if we could implement a 2% tax on each seller and a 2% tax on each buyer of any credit product, for example, the last wal-mart purchase of $2 billion of stores in south africa we would have given south africa 2% of that billion and we would have given 2% of the buyer from wal-mart and in effect solved the whole world's debt. since we already have spent, why don't we simply tax. so tax enough already is not adequate because it is not honorable. >> all right.

the answer to your question, if it was a question, is a thax impedes growth will create even a large carry-overhang what we have to have is a mix of taxes of tax cuts that enhance growth. and a budgetary cuts that enhance -- that cut back the deficits. so you don't want to impede growth. you want growth to be enhanced. and you don't want this budgetary taxfest to continue so you want some kind of budgetary cuts. again, my -- i put my money on paul ryan. and these questions are highly technical and i'm not particularly capable of

answering them but i don't think you are either when you come up with some simple thing -- we just raise taxes and taxes will -- they'll retire the debt and on we are to a happier -- happier, glad and happy morn. i don't think we're on to a glad and happy morn. i think we'll get any more of a budgetary mess with growth being impeded. >> jay kasino emails in to you mr. tyrrell. is it possible the show men on the conservative side, rush limbaugh, present an image which offsets to a large degree the arguments and positions of thoughtful, intelligent observers like krauthammer, david lynn because and others? >> i think we all talk to different audiences.

and to some degree, i've seen the conservative movement grow from a movement of a handful of intellectuals to a movement of a whole armful of intellectuals. a popular movement now. and a popular movement we shouldn't be surprised a popular movement will have spokesman and i think that's perfectly normal and i'm glad we have rush and sean and bill o'reilly and i think they serve a good purpose but i want have them editing the american spectator. >> red forest tweets in, could you please get mr. tyrrell's view on the revolts in tunisia and egypt? >> well, i don't -- i mean,

anything that imperils peace in the middle east is a very dangerous situation. of course, the greatest danger to the middle east right now is mubarak and egypt. and i would like to think that they're over the short run solving that situation. i don't think we should run out on mubarak the way we ran out on the shah. and i don't know that we are. but i would like to think that that situation is going to work itself out over the short run. over the long run, i'm very concerned about the muslim brotherhood. >> just a few minutes left with our "in depth" guest this month. chesapeake, virginia, hi, ronald. >> caller: good afternoon,

gentlemen. mr. tyrrell, of course, i compliment you on being an iu graduate, i myself being a displaced hoosier. [laughter] >> caller: but i want to comment on what you said about to be a good writer you must be a good reader. and i recall as a young student back in indiana a little grade school by the name in kiker in frankfurt that i had a fifth grade teacher -- because i was a poor kid, and i was the one left in the parking lot when our classes went on school trips. but she said if you learn how to read and write, you'll never be poor. and i recall -- i took that to heart. and i became an avid reader. the library was my earliest university. when i started my college career, i began by taking up a party of klep tests at our

university and in one afternoon left with 23 college credits all because i read. and as a college professor later on in life, i used to teach my students, books are paper professors. the words -- the printed word is what they're saying to you. the white space are the questions you're asking them. so just don't be a listener to a lecturer. be a learner and read. can you make a comment on that, please. thank you. >> well, only that i celebrate you and i celebrate the sentiment you expressed. i remember one of my great professors at indiana university, was robert h. farrell. and he used to -- he was a fanatic for reading. i once pulled up in a parking

lot in a very fancy car -- i was a student at the time. and farrell look at me, hi, robert, how are you? i said, well, i'm fine. you looked at my car, what a shame. do you know how many books you could buy with the money you spent on that car. i've now purchased a lot of books. i sold the car and bought books. >> do you write every day? >> i write practically every day. i write every week. but a couple days -- or three days a week i have to administer the magazine. >> morning, evening do you write? >> i generally -- i write all day. when i have a project at work, i write all day. >> your last book after the hangover was published by thomas nelson, other books of mr. tyrrell's have been

published by regnery, basic. next call, washington, d.c., and simon and schuster. washington, d.c., go ahead, emily. >> caller: hello, i disagree with what you all just said about reading. it's absolutely the best thing in the world to be able to learn is read all you can. i've never read any of mr. tyrrell's books because it seems to be more opinion than fact. and just then he was talking about the impeachment of clinton and i think he got -- i know he got the impeachment wrong but i'd like to hear him say an opinion about what happens with mr. nixon. should everybody impeached? -- should he be impeached? he did high crimes and misdemeanors. clinton did not so i would like to hear that. >> before we get that answer, emily, can you tell us what you're reading right now? what book are you reading? >> the book sort.

>> by michael lewis. >> caller: yes. >> thanks. should nixon have been impeached? >> i remember looking into his behavior after he left office. i don't recall much about it during the presidency. and i was appalled at the intelligence-gathering operations that he had set up. they weren't roughing people up or anything like that. clinton's people did stuff like that. my people were threatened down in little rock. i don't know if the president put them up to it. i don't suppose that he did but they were roughed up probably by

little rock police officers off duty. but president nixon did things that i think were wrong. i think he probably did step above and beyond the law. interestingly in this -- in this new book that i'm preparing, i point out that there are -- there's formal and informal politics. and in informal -- and in formal politics, you don't break the law. and informal politics, some things are done that aren't quite proper but they're minor things. in the case of a loose canon on your staff, you say take care of it. get that guy out of here, something like that, i assume that's what nixon did with

watergate. he didn't know about the break-in but i think he probably -- i think he knew all about a lot of this stuff that was going on. i think that when we decided to jump nixon, we probably should have jumped nixon and should than kind of breaking of the law it should have ended there and this informal politics should have ended there. but i think they are two different creatures, two different activities. and interestingly enough, you're a true believer or you aren't. but clinton's lifelong brushes with the law began back in his campaign for -- the first campaign for the house of representatives against

hammerschmitt in 1967 i think it is. his long-standing run-ins with the laws. they were all the same. they were bank fraud, shaky loans, shaky loans to his campaign. they were white water, i mean, look there were so many documents destroyed in white water, starrr is look if he got half of the documents involved there. and needless to say, monica lewinski was, i think, a serious transgression. so i think it was a different kind of breach of the law with clinton and i think it was a very serious breach of the law. >> delan, florida, go ahead, carol. >> caller: hello? >> please, go ahead. >> caller: can you hear me now?

>> we're listening. caller: i want to comment on what the mr. tyrrell said about the "wall street journal" and i just discovered this "wall street journal" about this information about books and that's what i like to do is read and i find you get a wide variety of different types of books from their reviews. >> and, carol, what are you currently reading? >> caller: well, i just picked up a book that i've read for a long ago. it's by an english woman called molly hughes and it's about her life growing up at the end of the 19th century? london. and i just finished going through that again. >> all right. well, thank you for calling in today. we appreciate it. we'll move on to bob in kokomo, indiana, hi, bob? >> caller: hi, how are you doing today? >> good. >> caller: i have a question for your guest there. i think we could agree possibly that facebook is a pretty powerful tool as far as getting out at the people but something

i found very interesting is the other day i went to the moveon.org page on facebook and i posted something that said very relevant to the subject. i can that moveon.org has claimed to have more than 5 million members nationwide but still only has 111,000 members on facebook. how is this possible? the numbers don't seem to jive and then immediately i was basically ejected or banned from that page and my comment was removed. what do you think your -- what is your opinion on some kind of behavior like that? and that's pretty much the only question i've got. >> all right, thanks for calling in. mr. tyrrell? >> well, they're certainly not in favor of transparency, are they? and i think this kind of goes on quite often. in ideological politics you've got to go pretty far out on the right to get to