it was only during the last part of the career that i was able to see. the higher up, the more i could see and became aware of the practices that they engaged in to get rid of people who were sick. and to meet wall street's expectation. i wouldn't have stayed if i knew everything towards the end of my career i knew at the beginning. >> wendell potter's book, speaks out on how corporate pr is killing health care and deceiving americans. booktv did a long interview which you can book at booktv.org. :

c-span: nina j. easton, who is -- or who are the gang of five? guest: the gang of five are -- bill kristol, ralph reed, david mcintosh, grover norquist and clint bullock comprise my gang of five. c-span: and who are they? guest: well, what i tried to do in this book was look at what i call the flip side of the baby boom generation. these are folks who ar --o emerged on campus in the 1970s -- social pariahs, really on campus, to be a conservativen at that time -- came to washington with ronald reagan, came to washington behind areag victor.

buthey were part of e baby boom generation, so they have the same personality qualities that you find among 1960's leftists. contraryianism. they remain so today. who they are specifically, bill kristol i'm sure most of your viewers know. he is frequently giving opinions on major networks. he's a publisher of "the weekly standard" an influential conservative magazine. grover norquest is an anti-tax lobbyist. but that's only part of it. if you think of this mythical right wing conspiracy we hear so much of from hillary clinton and others, it would probably be taking place every week in grover norquest's conference room. david macintosh, congressman from indiana, graduate of the university of chicago law school.

came to congress with the so-called republican reef illusion in 1995 and was the co-leader of that freshmen class who we all remember was quite -- raised quite a raucous in washington. clint bullock is a constitutional lawyer. he's at the institute for justice here in washington, which he co-founded. he is a leader of the school choice movemt in -- throughout the country, really. is also famous for sinking the nomination of loni quinneer during the early years othe clinton administration, civil rights appointy. so he's an anti-affirmative action activist as well. ralph reid is also very family to your viewers as well. he was -- built th christian coalition into a major political power house in the 1990's.

>> where did you get this idea? >> i was with the "the los angeles times" and i had written a number of pieces abo the conservative movement. i wrote about bill kristol and bill bennett. sort of early the early stream of the compassionate conservativism we hear today. they use a lot of the same ideas inhe welfare reform debate. but i wrote about libertarians, and i found, brian, it wasn't being covered in depth. it was fresh territory. and i think it is interesting. i think there is a lot of working press. there does tend to be a liberal bias. and certainly among liberal political people there is ignorance, frankly. they know far less about conservatives than conservatives know about them. i find it fresh territory. i kind it a hidden history of american politics. because the influence and rise to influence of this particular generation of conservatives has

tremendously influenced the politicadebate. we look at everything from political muck raking to abortion politics to the budget battles of the 1990's, and these guys were very key in helping shape those debates. >> what kind of cooperation did you get out of the five. >> it varied. mostly given the fact i was from the, quote, establishment media, and there was probably some reason to distrust somebody coming from there, they were pretty cooperative. i sat for -- they sat for anywhere between six and a dozen interviews themselves. long interviews, taped interviews. i interviewed all of their families. i interviewed their friends. their fellow students, i went back to their hometowns. so they didn't put any blockades in my way, and that was helpful. >> did grover more quest --

norquest let you in his wednesday meeting? >> yeah. >> how often. >> i was there during the 1996 election, and it was interesting because his group was looking at how to impeach bill clinton. evenhen when we were just talking about whitewater and so on, and there was a lot of talk in the conference room then. there was a lot of presumption that clinton was going to pardon key whitewater figures, and if he pardons them, can we impeach him? we should get it out in the election. dialogue suggesting to voters that this is a possibility. well, of course, it didn't happen. it would take amonica lewinsky to bring the impeachment business to fore. >> it is one of those parts of washington that the public doesn't see, these meetings. i mean, you talk about paul wyrick's king ston meetings.

are they the forerunner to those? >> they are very much the forerunner. i think grover tried to be more inclusive. because believe it or not, despite this notion of a right wing conspiracy, there are a lot of divisions and rivalries within the movement. grover tried to make it a more diverse, inclusive, a big room kind of meeting and i think it was generationly different. he's a different generation. this generation came -- and this is really important to remember -- they play to win. they think they are going to win, as opposed to the barry goldwater generation who played really on the fringe of politics for so long or you saw paul wye rick after the last election and the impeachment battle in the number not being on their side during that. he wrote that memo, basically, saying he was going t check out of politics. he was through with it. these guys don't play like that.

they want to return to the days of ronald reagan, and they think they will. and there is a sense of -- even though there's a sense of being -- there's somewhat a sense of being an underdog and they feel they have battled a liberal press, they feel they have battled liberal groups that are standing with the press in washington. they also believe themselves part of the process winners. they are part -- it is not an accident that they really became an important part of the republican party. >> let's talk a little about them. grover norquest comes from what era? is he married? does he have kids? >> grover is known sort of for his bachelorhood. he borrows a lot of lenon and

marxist rhetoric to make his point. grover is interesting, because he's the son of an engineer, and he looks at politics systems. when he was fighting the clinton health care plan, for example, he viewed that -- he said clinton's health re plan was an attempt to put more democrats on the payroll, because government workers vote democratic and it is going to expand the government. that's how he views politics, like systems. he has a lot of that thinking himself. he went to harvard. he came down to washington, started with the national taxpayers union. he went back to harvard to finish his mba, really just to satisfy his father. he grew up in a very, very tiny suburb of boston. beautiful area, where, as i point out inhe book, it is the kind of relling legislation that grover hates, zing and

everything, it actually is a very nice suburb. a lot of strict zoning. two-acre plots. >> did you go there? >> yeah, i went there. i wept to his parents' home. >> well, i made anppointment with them. >> i mean, what did they think of talking about their son? >> they were very happy to talk about their son and themselves. they were shy, though. there was a shyness and discomfort with people that we also see with grover. grover norqut is very good at dealing with groups of people. groups of people, as somebody in the book said. groups of gun owners, groups of tax activists, but he is not really good on one-on-one, and it kind of has led h into -- as some of his friends point out -- led him to misjudge people along the way. but his parents were quite forthcoming, and pulled out their own college year books. his father told the story of how he picked out his wife. he pulled out his -- he pulled

out the yearbook, he was interested in a wife with these qualities, 15 qualities, the angular face and republican and a nonsmoker, and he lood at the honor society at the university of michigan, and he picked o who he would be interested in dating, and called her, and that was it. >> how long have they been married? >> a long time. dating back to the 1950's. they have been married a long tifmente had a nice family life. his father is a polaroid executive. >> and congressman macintosh, a congressman against franco banon, who is the incumbent. what's his storey -- story? >> he comes from a small town nind independent. he lost his father when he was five years old. they were living in san francisco at the time. his mother is a nurse. this is interesting, too, because i think a lot of liberals think that republins and conservatives just come from elite backgrounds, and most of these guys -- well, half of them don't.

and he's a good example. his mother struggled. she had four children. he was the oldest. he was kind of in charge of them. very unathleti boy, but brilliant. he would sit in his room reading math books while the kids outside were playing, and ty would say david, come out, and he wouldn't come out. his family was known for -- his mother expected her children to be able to debate, to build a fine argument a reasoned argument, and they -- this was a trait handed down from her side of the family, known as the slows, was her last name, and they cald them slow-slares, the folks in the family that could argue the best, and if you couldn't make a good argument at the table and stand up and ason your way out of an issue you wanted to defend, you could be laughed off the table. so that trait is part of his family, and led t him being quite articulate, but also led

to him bng a bit combative and moving toward debate. >> with where did -- >> where did he go to school? >> he went to yale. and he moved into the debat society. liberalism in the 1970's did hold sway. it held the moral high ground, if you will, and a lot of conservatives were written off. this idea of political correctness that we talked about in the 1980's and 1990's, a term that wasn't invented in the 1970's, in my book, i wrote of ho political orthodoxy held sways. you had conservative views, you could be dismissed, ignored, laughed at. david actually started as a democrat. but because of the liberal orthodoxy on the -- that he and

like-minded colleagues felt at yale, they moved into the direction of what was known as the party of the right in the yale political union, which was willing to debate really fundamental issues. was willing to risk fundamental debates, willing to risk being called anti-democratic or racist if they challenged affirmative action ideas, for example. david took that and he went to that great school, university of chicago lawchool, where great minds do challenge conventional wisdom, particularly in the 1970's. ' free market oriented school. -- very free market oriented school. graduated from there and went on to become a foe of regulation. did doing away with regulation became his kind of forte. >> one of the things we learn of in your book. all of these five men have people in their past, writers

that they admire, but also, there are all kinds of groups. you mention grover norquest's wednesday meetings, and then also around david macintosh, the federal society. we cover a lot of the federal society. who are they? >> david was a co-founder of the federalist society with some of his colleagues fr yale, steven calabrisi and lee lieberman. it started as a student group but soon got funding from bill simons organization. >> former secretary of treasury. >> the olian fndation, a -- olan foundation. by the way in the 1980's it became a clearing house for anybody who is conservative who wanted to work for the reagan administration for a judge, a clerk, and so on. it became much more of a professional society as well as a campus society, and today it

still, as you know, is an important fixture on the washington scene and elsewhere, and in a very important fixture in the conservative legal movement. >> where did clinton grow up and where did he go -- where did clint bullock grow up and where did he go to school? scott: he grew up in new jerse the son of a welder. his father died when he was 12. they also struggled financial. he went to u.c. law school the year after the famed backy decision. >> cifornia. >> california. at the time the bocky decion, of course, was this so-called angry white male challenging affirmative action programs. and the supreme court said the u.c. davis program went too far, but generally taking race into consideration is ok. clint went to davis at a time when the campus was prickly and sensitive about issues of race,

wanting to prove its commitment to diversity. he got caught up in an interesting subplot where he was the lone opponent of the affirmative action program thrfment it was a lonely and bitter battle. >> what's he like? >> he's a very idealistic person. i ow we are not supposed to find idealists on the right, but he is. he tends to wear his heart o hisleeve, and he tends to not let these kind of battles roll off him. but they hurt. >> you said he's a libertarian and a follower of tom payne? >> that's right. s he's a libertarian. it was difficult the terms in this book, because libertarians don't always like to be called conservatives. libertarians believe in, as we know, a limited government, people should be left alone. sometimes, especially when clint

ran in the 1907's, as a libertarian in 1980's, they were bear left on issues, like drug legalization, for example, or carter's draft registration and they would be to the right on budget issues. so he is a libertarian, in that he's ce to call himself a big government libertarian in that he does view more of a role for government than a lot of the libertarian purists, and often he gets in trouble with them for that rein. >> a lot of conservatives don't like him. why does he like him and follow tom payne? >> he likes him because he coined an anti-government sentiment that he latched on to. he was willing to stand up against the king, to stand up against slavery. he was also, however, a proponent of the french revolution.

was a ruthless guy. he was hardly a temple of traditional family values. a lot of conservatives keep saying to clint, don't use thomas payne, really. but clint luff loves that phrase "we have the power to begin the world over again," thomas payne said, and clint uses that a lot. >> are they all friends? >> they are some friends and some bitter rivals. >> who is the biggest rival? >> the biggest rival is the circle around grover norquest and the circle around bill kristol. partly because norquest tends to be a populist type. he tends to draw the gun crowd around him. he tends to talk in a language we heard around the mid 1990's,

revolutionary rhetoric. kristol talks more about virtue and the importance of family, and the chrisening of the culture, and grover norquest listens to janice joplin. he doesn't care about those things. so there is this undercurrent -- norquest feels -- they write, they talk, they get on these big tv shows, but what have they done for the cause lately? they are also viewed as loyal, kristol is, because he is willing to view fellow conservatives. and that does not go over well in the grover camp. and that's pro probably the difference. someone like bill kristol who is willing to criticize, an during the bob le campaign, he was a thorn in that man's side through the entire campaign, and that wrangled a lot of loyal

republican conservatives. >> mention a lot of these national politicians and they differ on them. take bob dole and let's go around the horn before we go around some of these -- go on with some of these characters. clint bull -- bullock, what does he think of bob dole? >> he did try to get him take an anti--affirmative action stance, but other than that, he didn't get involved. >> david macintosh. >> a good republican soldier, bob dole is fine if he can win. >> gver norquest. grover, for all his revolutionary rhetoric, he's a republican. >> ralph reid? >> ralph of course behind-t-scenes, the christian coalition did a lot for bob dole and that rankled the rank and filen the christian coalition. that was an untold story. that was a very difficult time

for ralph. >> you found some rough edges on ralph reid? >> there are two sides of ralph. there is hardball, play to win at any cost politico on one side, and this very considerate brilliant strategist with good motivati on the other. they kind of run together. he went to the university of georgia. first of all, let me back up a bit. he spent most of his youth in miami. his father was a military man, they moved around a lot. then he moved to miami. then they moved to a small town in grgia for the last few years of high school, and he's often seen as someone from the south, small town bible belt. in fact, h did not fit in at all. he did not fit in with this bible belt town at all. they saw him as this mousey little guy who was willing to elbow anybody aside to get where he wanted go. he wasot well liked in high

school. he went to the uversity of georgia. he built the college republicans from about five people. they used to call themselves the closet republicans, they could all fit into a closet. he built them into a power house. there is another side. he stole a college election. >> how? >> he came to the group so you could sign up that day and become a member and therefore vote. and he went up and solicited all these particularly fraternity brothers, who he wasn't in a fraternity, but he would solicit from the frats and promise them a beer keg party afterwards, give me your $5. he apparently even kicked in the $5. >> it was legal? >>t was legal. >> he got the constitution changed? >> he gothe constitution changed. it was very upsetting tthe people around him, though.

very upsetting. the meeting at which they voted his ally in, the original candidate, he was trying to get his ally elected. there were tears, there was anger. the main group of college republicans broke off and became "young republicans." they were so angry. it was an ugly period for him. he was also fired for plagiarism from the school newspaper where he wrote from terrific brilliant columns but also some that just went over the edge. but the pgiarism incident was the most difficult. >> what did he plagiarize? >> he plagiarized a review of the ghandi movie. and we all remember "ghandi" the richard at bureau -- attenboro moe that came out, and he wrote a review of it and he

quoted verbatim the review, and it is a pretty fair assessment that he took pre huge -- a pretty fair assessment that he took huge pieces of t that was a difficult time for him. he was distrusted enough on campus. the debate society was doing -- they black balled him t first time he wanted to get in. literally they voted people in by placing in black balls and white balls. when he first applied to be a member. here is a guy that wrote brilliant articles and could run circles around others, but one of his friends stood up and said, we can't trust him. >> how did you find this out? >> interviewed all these classmates of his. i was surprised for all the profiles that have been done of

ralph how many people hadn't been interviewed. and these are the closest friends of his. and in fact the friend that stood up and gave the speech said this was the hardest time in my life, because i felt him to be a friend and i knew he w a friend, but i was worried he would drag the society down into the mud. just to finish the story, to be fair to ralph, he mended his ways in the eyes of the society and they did elect him in a year later: >> we see glimpses of him as an automobile -- of him as a kid in an automobile, drinking. >> there is this danger in ralph. which i say in the book in a bigger boy might have been sifeoned off into athletics, but he wasn't big, he was small, and there was this dangerous edge to

him. one friend told a story that they were in the back of a pickup truck and he would shoot blanks at people with his rifle to scare them on a saturday night. there is the other story about him walking along a ravine with a couple friends, and he threw himself over the ravine just for laughs to shock everybo. t there was this shock value. in fact, one of the things i write about in the book, at the university of georgia, in outpouring of sentiment about the iranian hostage situation. where people came out angry, furious, feeling that americans were cow-towing to these fanatics, but then people were carrying sig like "nuke them." muke the students -- they wand

to kick out the iranian students at t university of georgia. it got edgy and ugly. and ralph was taken with that. he liked that. d he was drawn to that. the fact he was drawn to this kind of edgy side mad a lot of his friends nervous about him, even in the college republicans where he and grover norquest went onto the national college republicans. well, grover was already there. and basically turned it in a model of the right. they built up the conservatives. they changed the constitution to eliminate entires body where the moderates were on. they cvinced moderates to vote themselves out of office. so in the 1980's you had this republican membehip, access to republicanoney, which the republican party wasn't happy

about, by the way, because they felt they were angry and wasting money, but access to republican money and running some hardcore campaigns. >> what is the average age of these folks? >> the average age is late 30's, early 40's. >> what is the message, if you are a mung person, you discuss these folks andre interested in politics, forget whether they are republicans, democrats, libertarians, what is the message about w you get involv based on how you g involved with these five? >> they all got involvein college. thone thing that motivated them was the fact they felt th were not able to speak. that they were not -- they were being shut out of the process. they went in and they made themselves a part of the process. >> is there anything about their background that comes together? >> that's what i lik about this group. they are actually from very different backgrounds

you have bill kristol from a very elite background. his mother is aell known vic attorney scholar. he grew up in manhattan. >> d. hammel farb he went to a very upscale and intellectually rigorous prep school, went to harvard. very much a part of the establishment. and then there is clint bullock. >>wo harvards, one yale, one u.s., u.c. davis, sacramento, and the other from the university of georgia. what about grades? >> they all were pretty good grades. these are smart people. the other ing they did, they tended to have mentors. they tended to, for example, bill kristol at harvard frrks

harvey man's field shaped his thinking. >> still going at harvard. >> still going at harvard. somebody like clint bullock, his mentors are interesting. one was a city councilman in his new jersey town who was a lone republican, but not much of a republican. he use today say, when you vote for the donkey or the he will fapt, that's what youet. but was very much an embattled battler, if you will, of the democratic machine in the town. and he had a ver bad ending in which the machine leaked some material about his personal life that destroyed him. anyway, clint sought him out as a mentor. later o sought out clarence thomas as a mentor. claren thom thomas was a godfather -- >> at the eeoc. >> he would talk for hours about clarence thomas' background,

starting a business. this shaped clint's politics. >> what about david macintosh? >> a lot of his mentors, i think, were peers. they were the fellow founders of the federalist society who had grown up in more inintellectually elite circumstances than he had. he, of course, rose quickly to his level. another mentor was richard enstein at the university of chicago -- epstein at the university of chicago that believed regulation is best of somebody else. transferring assets, whether it is welfare payments or a prerogative tax system takes away from somebody else and therefore that person should be compensated. >> what about ralph reid. ? >> he didn't really have a mentor. he looked toup grover norquest. when he was a college republican, he very much looked toup grover norquest and the chairman of the college republicans at the time. a guy by the name of jack abramov.

a guy still very much active in town. he looked up to thefment but as far as an older mentor, he didn't really have that. in fact, he went to emory and got his ph.d. in histo, and his professor there was a liberal, dan carter, who found ralph a very brilliant writer, somebody who could put together oquent arguments and kw history. >> who did you come close to picking that you didn't profile out of the gang of five? was there close to be age gang of seven? >> actually, there was a gang of seven. >> were the other two? >> one was a woman -- i don't want to say it because she decided she didn't want to do it , so i don want to go down that road, the other person was john fund, who was an editoral writer of the wall strt journal. that was a difficult dision. i dropped him really because we

kneed to cut -- there were too many characters to follow and a lot of his views could be seen through either -- such as grover norquest -- figures that were in the book anyway. one thing i didn't do, they are all men, and they are all white, and that bothered me. i kept trying to think, should i just pick somebody -- do i have to have a woman in here? i thought at the end of the day, no, i'm not going to force this. each of them are in there for a reason. each of these men represent a different piece of the movement, a different school of thought, and they also are of that generation, they are the tail end of the baby boom generation, and they tell a generational story and their stories are interwoven enough that i can marry a story that keeps the 1970's, 1980's, and 1990's going. i interweave their stories so you can understand their stories and make it a little more novelistic, a little more interesting. >> what was the reason the woman

didn't want to participate some -- didn't want to participate? >> she was going on to other things, having a baby and so forth and moving on. >> were you concerned if they weren't going to cooperate it wasn't worth doing the profile? >> yes. and e was not going to cooperate, it was clear, so i wasn't going to force that issue. >> when did you start a, what year? >> i started the book in 1996. i put together a 60-ge proposal in the early 1990 -- in early 1996. it went out forbid in the spring. two houses were interested. simon, shuster & warner books. simon & shuster ended up with the contract. so it was a four-year project. >> and you start and you acknowledge in the back, there's a young lady -- i don't know if she's young, but a woman at the kato institute, a lynn totalitarian group, that played a role in this.

>> anna mcal center -- mcallister. she was very important in this. becae it s her job to look at these people as people. she's a libertarian. she's no longer at the kato institute. -- at the cato institute. but she had health issues and wasn't able to continue on the project, but she came to me with the broad idea -- i turn td into this narrative of these five figures -- but she was the one that saw that this was fresh territory and would make an interesting story. >> where do you come from originally? >> i come from los angeles. outside los angeles. >> where did you grow up? >> in a suburb of los angeles lled palos verde. i wept to school at u.c. berkeley. i worke on the "daily cal" there, and i came to washington right after graduation. >> what about your own family? were your parents involved?

>> my father comes from aerospace, an engineer, and he is now retired, and my mother was -- raised us. >> how many? >> the was four of us. three -- i have an older brother, a young brother right in a row, and then we have a caboose, my sister, marty who came along 12 years after. >> when did you get interested in journalism? >> i got interested in journalism right in college. i started writing for the school paper, and it never left my blood. in fact, at o point, at berkeley i volunteered for a congressman for a while, and realized this was not for me. >> which one? >> dellums. >> what impact did that have on you? what was that like? >> it just wasn't what i was interested in. i think i am more of an observer than an advocate. i do better at telling stories

and observing, and that's what i would like to do. >> what did you see at berkeley? anyone listening says, berkeley, these are conservatives. >> that's right. i think there was definitely -- funny when i look back on this, this is my generation, these folks are my age, and when i look back there was definitely a liberal orthodoxy on campus. "the daily cal" which i work forward and helped run was very much dismissive of conservative views. and i didn't really think about it at that time. that's just the way it was. it took a while to, i think, become more open-minded about more points of view. but berkeley was a terrific institution and lively. it is a terrific place to be. >> you spnd -- spend so much time on the impact of these five. what impact did you have? did you a teacher or philosopher you followed? >> well, berkeley is a big

school, so no. i think really the impact was the -- again, working on the campus paper. i studied political science. i stud i'd third world development, and i didn't up going that direction. i was much more interested in foreign affairs. i thought i would move in that direction and i didn't for a variety of reans. but i think that's where my interest lay at the time? -- where my interest lay at the time. >> how did you get to washington? >> i answered an ad looking for writers for ralph nader, and it turns out that the man who became my husband placed that ad, ron brownsteen. i came to washington as a journalist for ralph. i worked on his personal staff. and again, i didn't come as an activist. i was reluctant, to some extent, to come work for an activist group like that, but it was the opportunity presented. and it turned out to be

terrific. because we were given wide breadth to write op-eds, magazine articles, we are covering national politics, and we are doing this at 22 years old. we wrote this book, reagan's ruling class, which profiled the top 100 people in the reagan administration. because the assistant to casper weinberger, the secretary at the time, because he had been a raider in the 1970's, he got us an interview with casper weinberger, we used that to get interviews with everyone from william casey to frank carlucci. we got probably 60 interviews outf that. >> whoas the mayor's raider that worked for wineberg? >> it was robert taft. >> iv? >> yes. >> grandson? >> yes. we put a lot of energy in this, the enormous energy you have

when you are young, and we ce up with this book. we were 23 years old. it was a terrific opportunity. >> how did it come that ron bern stein placed the ad and how you met and got married. >> he included the berkeley thing at the last minute as a chan. and those things happen. he came out to washington, and we wrote that book together, and that's how we -- >> whatas he doing? >> he was working for ralph nader as well. >> now, "the los angeles times" gets in there somewhere. >> yeah, i worked for ralph and i decided i needed to be a journalist's journalist, and i wanted to -- at the time it was for the imrtant fo

journalists to specialize. so i worked for legal time covering the s.e.c. and a number of regulatory agencies and i worked for the american banke i covered the savings and loan crisis, if you remember in maryland. i got to be in on the entire savings and loan crash of the 1980's, when the whole system crashed. i covered a lot of that, it was actually quite exciting, i went to "business week" in los angeles, and then decided that that wasn't really for me. i had been writing some freelance pieces for the "the los angeles times" sunday magazine, and i went to shelby coppy, who i knew to be a fan of my writing, and i said please, shelby, give me a position here and he did. and i covered entertainment. that was available at the me. i covered the entertainment industry, and then went to the subpoenaed magazine.

-- sunday magazine that's when i was able to do the kind of work that resonated with me. >> how long were you and ron brown together at "the los angeles times"? >> well, he was at the national journal for many years. i started at "the los angeles times" two years before i did. he is still there and i'm not. i would have to ad up the years. >> and there's a couple kids in the middle of this? >> a couple kids. we have two sources of boundless energy and enthusiasm for life, one is taylor, who is 10 years old, and one is danny, who is 6. they are a lot of fun, and they were very patient with mom through this whole process. books are more overwhelming than people expect them them to be when they go into it, i think. going back to the five -- clint bullock, david macintosh, bill kristol, ralph reid, and grover norquest -- what other new things did you find out that no one has ever written about these peop that you think will

be helpful for people trying to understand? >> well, bill kristol, a very important thing to understand about the school of philosophy he comes from, these are not people of faith, shall we say religion. they believe in religion for other people, but not for themselves, so thishole crop of graduate students, followers of leo strauss, the philosopher, who, by the way, believed that a virtuous citizenry is much more important than equality or opportunity or all these things that we have come to believe are important. >> when did he live, by the way? >> he lived until 1973. he was a german philosopher who came to the united states. and bill kristol was the second generation of straussians, and these people became influential, particularly in the reagan administration. >> did leo strauss teach bill k.

ris -- kristol? >> no. but one of his followers taught bill. and the thing about the straussians, and i think very much not known, is they defend religion up and down. they defended the creation battle, the pro-creationists in kansas, they defended the religious right in the 1990's, but they tmselves were not religious. >> what about mr. reid. he started the religious coalition. is he a christian person? >> ralph found faith in993. he became born again. >> what does that mean? >> he decided to turn his life over toesus and that to be his

motivating factor in life. he was not a big church goer before that. he was at the time really living dangerously, living on the edge, if you will. and this came at a very important time in his life. >> is he religious now, if you think? >> he is still religious. he goes to church. his wife is religious. yes,hey go to evangelical -- protestant evangelical church. >> you did tell us about his wife. >> yes. >> and they met when he was like 16? >> yes, i think he waited until she was 18 or 19 to get married. but they met when she was 16 and he was 25, i believe. >> how did they meet? >> they met at a jesse helms victory celebration in 1984, and she had her eye on him, and she watched him for years, and he

knew she was too young and stayed away until it was more appropriate. but they started going out after her high school graduation. >> so you found they were for religion, but not religious. the five? >> no, that would be just bill kristol. >> what about the religion of the others? >> clint bullock, for example, was eighthiest, -- was atheist, mostf his life. he describes himself aa "recovering atheist." but he was very much in the libertarian school of and with atheist -- the ian rand libertarian school of atheist. >> how many people followeder writing, ian rand? >> in the book or -- >> no, in their lives. you nam leo strauss.

did anyone els follow leo strauss besides bill kristol? >> of the five in there, no. but a lot of other conservatives did. so what i did with the book is kristol rresents the straussians and let's understand where they are coming from because they have had an enormous impact on the coervativeovement. clint represents libertarians, let's see where they are coming from. david macintosh, chicago school, let's see whe that goes. >> who in the chicago school would they have followed that wrote books >> epstein -- i'm talking about the legal side. the chicago school economist i won't get into, but scalia, supreme court justice, borque, robert borque. >> so david macintosh is following that crowd from the unersityf chicago law school. but you also mentioned mill milton friedman?

>> right. he is of course a libertarian free marketer and so forth. he comes into the book mostly as someone for them to look up to in the 1970's, but also for somebody like clint bullock, his work on the voucher movement. he and clint kind of got involved in that. milton friedman, i don't make him a huge mentor figure in the book. >> you quote him about an interview you had with him? >> i had an interview at his incredibly beautiful san francisco apartment. s, but we talked mostly about this generation of conservatives, and how it was different from the previous generation. and he talked a lot about wha was going on in the 1970's. potholes. long lines at bureaucracies. sort of this dissatisfacon with government that was so prevalent in the 1970's. so yes, it became very easy to

develop a more conservative view or anti-government view. >> who followed the whittaker chamber's group, witness? >> that was grover norque. witness, i think people needo understand how important "witness" is to the conservative mosme. whittaker chambers, of course, was the -- conservative movement. whittaker chambers was the former communist operative who came forward and claimed albert hess also was a communist operative. but his book was important in the 1970 he's, because hess at the time was being defended by parts of the liberal establishment who still believed he was at any time. he was defended by the aclu, even though he had been convicted on perjury charges early yemple so -- charges earlie

so for a young conservative saying, is everything the beral press tells me really right? and if you read whittaker chambers, no. there is this bias, this conspiracy, if you will, of these liberal ivy league gentlemen who keep conservative like us, anti-communists like us down, and who wrote off the whole problem of communist operatives in the 1950's and 1940's. >> were there other authors that they follow? other books important to these conservatives? >> they are. there is sortf a whole cannon, if you will, of books that conservatives read -- >> still? >> still. and what's interesting if you suscribe to "the national

review" for example, they will send you a pamphlet of the constituon, this is a federalist papers, and maybe some burke, and there is this cannon of literature from edmont mond burke on up with a heavy emphasis on the founding document that these folks read. i find that quite impressive. d often they can quote from it. >> what about "the weekly standard" which is the basis of bill kristol? what's that philosophy? who owns "the weekly standard"? >> rupeert murdoch owns "the weekly standard." which is a sticky situation for bill kristol. because you have rupert murdoch who ownsabloids and not exactly promoting a healthy culture for our children.

>> did you have any idea why murdoch supports "the weekly standard"? >> i sat with someone who is on murdoch's board and said it is his play toy. he likes it. it is s politics, and -- >> any sense of howuch he spends on it a year? >> i don't know that. and i -- i know how much he put into it initially, and i can' recall it right now. it is not making money. keep in mind, liberal magazines don't make money either. these magazines tend to be kept alive by somebody who has, you know, got an interest in it, or has an interest -- >> let me assume that you sit around from time to time with a group of liberal journalists. is that an accurate statement? >> uh-hu >> and now that you have been inside -- >> uh-huh. >> do they ever say, tell me what ds like inside the conservative movement.

>> the "wall street journal" called me the diane fosse of the conservative institution. i have come down from the mist to explain these conservatives to liberals. i have found a tendency to ba these guys in a way, and that is the farthest that their interest in the movement goes. as a result they are msing an important piece of the history of this history and politics. what i would tell them is you need to understand these schools of thought. that underpin each of these. t buchanan is not the face of modern conservativism. these guys are pro-immigration, for example. there are divisions over issues like gays. you will find clint bullock saying, i can't stand the homophobia in the movement and

the gay bashing, and you will find somebody like bill kristol saying that the gay rights movement is the most important and troubling movement in the recent political history. you know, that this is something we don't undstand the breakdown of family or however he would couch it is something we will really not understand until later, but this is something we need to focus on and do it. >> what aboutersonally? >> personally, i think there tends to be -- what holds these together? >> no, were there horns? did they have horns when you got up close to the family? how did they treat other human beings? >> again, it varies. that's the problem with sticking them in a box marked "right winger." you have -- it varies.

they were all very approachable with me. ralph reid was not comfortable having me look in his past. but i mean, he has personal reasons for that. it is not easy being the subject of a biography. so they were polite. they were forthcoming. some of their families were just lovely, and i -- and then there are people like gror norquest who are just so colorful and interesting. you sit down with this guy and you look at the way his min works and you stand up, and it is just breataking. again, going back to how he views everything in the systems, interacting competing systems, and it is just so interesting. >> 20 years from now, where will these five be? who would you predict would be the most visible in 20 years? >> i think bill kristol will remain exceedingly visible. he knows how to stay visible.

he knows how -- he got fired from abc and he is now on "meet the press" all the time. he knows. he understands visibility. >> david macintosh. will he win anything in litics? did mactosh i think will continue on. i think they are all going to continue on. that's why i chose them. ihink they are long lasting. i don't know if he will win the governor's race, but i do think we will see him in politics. he likes it. he thrives on it. i think we will see him continue. f -- clint bullock is looking towardo the day where he can walk the steps of the supreme court where he can fight a school choice case that he is convinced will change the lives of city kids throughout america. and who did we leave out? ralph reid. maybe ralph will run for office some day. who knows. >> we're out of time. our guest has been anyonia j. easton, and the book looks like this, it is called "gang of five."

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