>> thank you very much. very much putting this. back here. somebody said. to be here in the early hours. >> when we pick the place, central. >> just watch. >> yes. >> comes down here. >> the paper. >> el. >> ten months. actually, probably two months i worked for the first chapter. then i kind of just poked around and then about february a straight through september. then i submit it.

they came back. no, my gosh. another six, eight weeks. >> good. >> yes. yes. >> editing. unexpected, the books i work done. >> so, i did not get out of anything. in new york. too many. what is this? this is not go here. so i literally, stories in the second chapter, but that there should be in the first. well, the second chapter, of course i had reasoning for putting it in the first and holding off. up in new york. and so the right side. but it forced me to put it back together and say, why is it that she needs to be here this early? and so then maybe a sentence or paragraph. >> the morning, the evening.

>> all day. you know, when that deadline is coming at you, the editing especially. >> the books. i get no good answer at all. he no to you have those. the afternoon for two hours. first thing in the morning. selectable, in each event, i get up and read from five to eight. work through the day. three hours. i get tired late in the day. as long as i'm not writing. >> is she? >> nice to see you.

think you very much for coming. >> that's right. oh, my god. totally. set the scene. give us something. >> mike kelly. >> that's one. >> really important. excited. a have to work. >> the canon. >> thank you both for coming. thank you. appreciate. nice to meet you. >> you know, i have written a whole lot. this one was right from the

heart. you know how tough it can be. so now i tell you, i was pregnant with my third born, for your role that the two year-old. [background noises] to said there were not. they're great kids. behaved very, very well. we will see. coming on the east coast. divorce, two children, just graduated from law school. so, yes. he has done extraordinarily well. has a position. and then my second one is on wall street. he is working in california. i don't know.

and the youngest is at home now. recovering from a medical condition. >> yes. i was hoping you would decide. at least, i think eventually it will. those in mind. it's nice. thank you very much. good luck to you. thank you. >> oh, my gosh. [background noises] >> nothing wrong with that. >> my husband, he will tell you the same thing. [background noises] [background noises]

[background noises] the people of right. but alitalia,. [background noises] >> you know, some people, so many men, very successful now. and they tell me things. nobody knows about it. they didn't go around saying, oh, my gosh. do you know what i had to do? >> your right. >> and someone, you know, introduced to me. posting. in know what she did for us? should turn down this job and it did that kind of working in putting things together. >> tom?

can be involved. [background noises] >> the man when i get. [background noises] >> it is the kind of thing. how much to work, where you work, what you do. the afternoon. but my kids to bed. the paper. seventy-nine, ten. and then now be on the phone for the morning making sure we had the right number of people in the field. you can work around them. work for my brother. the only family. for election night. i would fly into the states that

state overnight before, and i was back wednesday night. i would not. and that's why. i didn't consider. >> you were traveling. >> exactly. at the time. >> of right. [background noises] >> i realized. you know, you have to do it. you can. [background noises] and so how i -- i think that. [inaudible] [background noises] the most important male in their life. so i highly recommend that you try to keep the family together. to everything that you can. that is the greatest gift that you can give the kids.

what i did not give them was a dad and the home, and that always bothered me. so i did everything i could to compensate for that, but i knew that that was a terrible loss for them. they truly missed something important. so i don't care. you know, it doesn't matter to me. a single mom, we are in this together. it's all the same. any kind of makes toward trouble , in the book i write about a gallon in from earlier days. i knew she married and had children. it said, i was so embarrassed to tell you i was divorced. and this is a few months after i had. and some come in a, i don't care about the divorce. we all go through that.

responsibility of yours. no, those are all natural emotions that you have to travel through. to it as quickly as you can because you have kids, and they need unity in their life. they can be kids. you know, you want them feeling nervous and concerned. that is for you to keep to yourself. you figure of those things out. you do it, especially in your case, you have to have a great time. >> tonight. change in what happens. i mean, you guys are already. >> remarkably. i mean, that campaign really takes it one step at a time. and they realized, they weren't

going to make the assumption. so they didn't serve hiring. they didn't start talking. they were applauding. out there in pennsylvania. in know, once it became clear the others had dropped out. suppose to be over, that is when they started making phone calls, you know, it has been a very deliberate. adult expected to change. then there exactly where they want to be and where they want to be. the party is unified. >> in this anything changed? and me commend the approach? >> no. >> in general? >> no, i think he is focused. focused on running against the obama record. they set out what the agenda is

going to be. what the issue is this week. they impose the failed policy of the president. i think that's it. thank you. thank you so much. appreciate it. i wish i was. [background noises] [background noises] >> everyone. [background noises] >> i did. [background noises]

[background noises] [background noises] [background noises] >> come to my book party and get in trouble. [background noises] [background noises] [background noises] >> yes. i am.

[background noises] [background noises] [background noises] [background noises] [background noises] [background noises] >> this book is from my heart.

this one is -- it means a great deal to me. it is my life, the story of my kids, and more importantly i did it -- i wrote it for other people to offer in particular single moms. i never get letters from grandfathers' sang a much they loved it and it reminded them of when they were being raised and have their debt traveled and their mom played with them. i have a story in my book about a bb gun and how my kids ended up instead of shooting the target, shooting each other in my front door. he writes the story. he wrote the story about the bb gun. i remember. i had three but it -- three brothers. my dad came home and brought as bow and arrows. my brother immediately shot me in the arm. and different kind of be began. but it is just a lot of people remembering some great times that they have been raised and raising their own children. but out tell you why i actually wrote this book. as i was raising those children

and night, as i say again, at downtown to of a single mom, when i was pregnant with my third, for your role to my two year-old and three months pregnant with stuart. and, you know, you kind of -- i was raised in a big old catholic family, irish catholic family. two brothers are here, i might add. we had this great home. and it was -- you know, we had at least 11 people at the dinner table is not 13. and at the end of the table seven nights a week was my dad. he was always there. he was an anchor in that home. i remember going to college thinking, the greatest family in the world. it is not that we were perfect. perfectly glad to tell you. we were far from perfect. a lot of interaction, a lot of energy, but i thought it was the most wonderful family. i had played a critical role in that, in that home. and so when i became a single mom i started thinking back and

saying, no, my gosh, i have such a great childhood and i hope to give my kids the same kind. yet, the father was so important, and that did not have that option anymore. so, how can i possibly give them the kind of life that i had? and as i read in the book, you know, when i became a single parent i became a better single parent. i became a better mom when i became a single mom. because come up to that time i had always said, you know, i am always pointed to fathom going to make my kids first. this is how it is going to beat. and did not know what it meant to put your children first until i became a single mom. putting them first every day in every decision that you make. your life is secondary. i used to go on television shows. i had my own province for a while. people would come on and read stories and articles. lots of feminists would come on. the key is, women have to have their private time, their private space. they have to have time to

themselves. i used to look at these people. what are you talking about? in your home. i said to my home? i take a shower and they come and. what are you talking about. the kendis template so the big brothers to beat him up while i'm in the shower. i mean, there is no -- this is it. my time is there time, my spaces' their space. i put a tv in my bedroom. i thought, i'll sneak appear occasionally and watched some great pride and prejudice. i must have lost on mind. next thing i knew i had boys up their calling on the rule of the house which is we pick a movie, the majority pitch the movie. well, pride and prejudice was history. and then, there were saying, ridiculous idea. there was no way i was going to have private time. a tv upstairs command that became the next place the almanac. we got that out of their command returns down to the den. but, you know, one of the

things, and i learned this from my dad. he told me one day, i came down the steps laid it night. it was a school. he was down there just sitting in a chair and relaxing. he said to me out of nowhere, he told me this story about how his dad left him when he was in about the third grade, i think it was. his dad came to the school. he was in a boarding school in maryland. said he was leaving. how it affected him and how he always told me he looked ahead for that tall gray haired man if he saw one on a street corner or the school hall and would run ahead to see if it was his father. and he did this for years. and i thought to myself, here is a man, enormously successful and has a wonderful family. he is well recognized in his community and in his profession. here he is 60 years after the

episode talking about the day his father left him. and i thought, my gosh, divorce is just, you can't say the boys are not going to be affected. they're going to be affected, they're going to remember and carry these days with them. i have to do something. i have to see what it is that i can give them that he gave me and my brothers and sisters in that family, as did my mother. and so that is what i did. i put my kids first. and really, i kind of straight debate. when i was raising them in those early days i would be on television a lot because i already had somewhat of a career in politics. i've watched my friends, all of our friends get on television with the latest statistics. and the statistics are absolutely correct, and they would go out there and say, look , here are more statistics and facts that show without question it is far better for children to be raised with two

parents and the home. and otherwise i have the numbers in here. four times more likely for a child to drop out -- fail in school if they don't have a mother and father in the home, five times more likely to be incarcerated, three times more likely to have illnesses. in east and looking at this stuff and think, gee, you know, is there any other message? is there one for us? i can't have a dad in the home. what do i do? serve marijuana for dessert? is going to get in that the way. because it was no, ever any message of encouragement or rope, no guide to misstatement. look, something i absolutely agree with. and i understood that if they went off of their message, if they said, but if you don't have a dad and the hon hear something you could do, i think they get the sense that it would undermine their argument of the importance of a dad. they made an argument that you could do it is single parent it

might undermine that argument. so for that reason there was never a message of hope or courage and for single moms coming from the conservative side. it was always how important a dad is. i used to think, look, what a great movement. we are a powerful movement with truth on our side. truly, we have a message. what those women out there and men who are raising their children alone to succeed. we want their children to thrive. and if it is against them, let's figure out why that is and what those parents can do to compensate. and that is where i started out, and i started looking at it and said, well, look, if, indeed, that is so important in the home, maybe i can give my kids the second-best thing to my dad and their life. and so i made a point to never bad mouth the father. and did not talk of what happened or why. there were four and two. and i just always tried to say good things about him. if there were stirred talk about

him, it got into five, six, seven, i would hear them say something and i would want to, if i could, say something positive. and like he was a marvelous athlete, so i would tell them, you know, your dad was one amazing athlete. i saw him play tennis and i would tell them a quick story. you should have seen these kids. they're eyes would brighten up. it was not two hours later would hit and repeating the story because they wanted to be proud to have their father as their father. they wanted that. and so i did my best and also to let him see him will -- let him see them whenever i could for as long as i could. when he did not come on wednesday as i would not say, that's it. i said, free thursday, come by thursday. do whenever you can to encourage the relationship. i did the best i could. it is up to the debt and some state. [background noises] >> how are you doing?

up to five. >> at think you'll find it. look. i need to stay. [background noises] [background noises]

>> i hope. [background noises] >> zillow that would be : as a question. what do we do, the message for conservatives to talk about single moms. >> you have to, you know, my senses, and i kind of mentioned it. it was so sad when i was sitting there across. i took his book and studied it. parents five to seven times a week with children. your children, seven times less likely to be involved in drugs. i thought, would somebody else spread the word? i mean, i would have to know

within a lot, five to seven, i said, i have to head home. and it's just to let it's just easier, simple. but the kids to bed. he said the car for how things are going every night. they know the rules. they know where they belong. it is just amazing tradition. so much we could say. the went to church is another one coming in the church, with the parents. a huge difference in your child's likely to thrive. >> yes. >> go. >> and we don't know. reasserting year working, trying to up find something to put on the table and getting ready for the next day. just look. that is why. it is the reason. and they have great strengths to

my great resolve, totally focused. but they don't have time to read expensive books. in a, at odds against you. >> is there and nonfiction of the robot you would like to see featured on book tv to access and e-mail at booktv.org word treatise. >> builds a prize-winning author david maraniss traveled the globe to research his new book, barack, the story is in places like kenya and kansas to examine the president's family tree. book tv will give you a preview with exclusive pictures and video, including our trip to kenya with the author in january january 2010. join us today at 6:00 p.m. eastern and later at 730 that same night. your phone calls from e-mails, and tweets, for david maraniss on c-span2 book tv.

>> what are you reading this summer? book tv wants to know. >> i am just finishing hillary man hell. every read the first of the trilogy that she is going to do on thomas cromwell. i know a lot about that tutors, an area i have always been interested in. she does a masterful job of telling the story that is off told and yet telling it in a brand new way. and this summer i am probably going to read a new novel, the age of wonders. it has been getting a lot of attention. and i have not read the most recent lbj put yet, but i certainly have it on my bedside table and will be reading it sometime this summer. >> for more information on this and other summer reading lists is it booktv.org. >> my job in writing this book

was to actually give people a readable story of the constitution. the lead to a clause by clause and broken out so that students of the constitution, whether they are in california or main or hawaii or washington d.c. or across the country, they would know what it meant to read the constitution, what the founding generation said the constitution meant. and i also was motivated to write the book because the charge in the constitution itself. the founding generation that the constitution to their posterity which is often a word we don't use. that is to us. and we have a sacred trust to know what that constitution means, to understand it, to read it, to digest it. and so, again, by doing this, i hope the american people would do that if there were students

of the constitution. oftentimes you hear different ideas about the constitution. some will say, the constitution is an elastic document. you can read into it, it is terrible. it has words, and you can read these words, but we have to go beyond that because that is what this supreme court judge or this constitutional scholar says that it means. and then you have those that say the constitution is a living document. the constitution is what it says. you cannot go beyond that. and so we should interpret the constitution literally. and there is this big debate. and people get confused. which one is it? a loosely interpreted document, and elastic document, or limiting document? and so, i actually thought to cut through all of that. i really did not care what modern scholars have said about the constitution, to be honest. and did not care what the

supreme court said about the constitution. i cared what the founding father said. and so my journey began there. in fact, when i originally conceptualize this book, and those of you who don't know the publishing process, he pitched an idea and then you're told yes or no. if you're told yes you go from there. so when i pitched the idea i was going to focus on primarily on the opponents of the constitution, and i will talk about some of these terms in a minute. i was going to focus on what they thought. the publisher came back and said, no, that would not be good because it might turn out to look like the constitution book. okay. well, how can we work with this? we brainstorm a little bit and decided we would write a constitution, a book on the constitution based on what the founding generation said, both for the constitution and against the constitution. now, i had read a lot of material about this. but as i started digging through the mountains of research out

there on this subject, i realized that only scratched the surface. much of what i knew was going to be changed or at least in some ways, what i thought i knew about it was only going to a the more involved because as i get into the material i said, my gosh, this is deeper than i thought. what i had often thought about the constitution is there, but there is so much more to it. much more complex than even what was said about the constitution in my first book. and, of course, when you're looking at this document, and i say the founding fathers to the constitution, because that is what it is. not just the founding fathers that you are familiar with, and i'll talk about them in a minute, but all the founding generation, a generational book for the american generation, not just one, two, three, four people and what they said. i went and looked up what everyone said that i could put my hands on, public documents because they had to be sold to

people. the founding fathers are important because the road it. i thought, be better than going to the people who wrote the document itself and you actually have to present this thing to 13, sometimes on style but a fine conventions until people, this what it means. they had to go to the press and say, well, this what you might be saying the constitution will do, x, y, and see, but be reassured this is not going to do that. that is what we should be looking at. the founding fathers constitution, constitution as ratified. that process is very important. again, the ratification process, it meant nothing until the states decided to ratify. so that is the overall subject of the book. i'm going to read your "in a few minutes from a founding father of north carolina. i refer back to that quite a bit

but oftentimes you will get this statement, well, the founding fathers were just a combative group of people that did not agree on anything. which are you talking about? we all know some of the big names, or maybe you know some of the big names. you've probably heard of alexander hamilton, james madison, john j. they are the authors of the federalist papers, the 85 essays in defense of the constitution. and so people that read the constitution and think that they understand the constitution will look at the document itself and look at the federalist papers and say, well, that's it. it's deeper than that. in fact commit as much deeper than that. i would argue in the book and say this, the federalist papers are not as important as you think. written in new york, and it did not have much of an impact on new york itself because the state of new york only ratify the constitution by three votes, three votes. so these 85 essays that people

say are the definitive source on the constitution did not have much impact at the time. but there are others, and other members of the founding generation who perhaps are even more important than people like james madison. of course often called the father of the constitution, and i say that is a misnomer. historical scholars have come around to that over time. he did present the virginia plan or at least road and of course it was presented by the virginia delegation at the philadelphia convention, but the constitution that we have is not his. it was born over and over in the philadelphia convention and modified over and over by a number of important people. some of these people you're probably never heard of, like john dickinson of delaware. police say, who the heck is john dickinson? a guy that was called that tent of the revolution, one of the most important man of the founding generation bar none. and when he went to the

philadelphia convention he looked at this constitution that james madison and britain and said, no, we are not having that that is not point to work in these united states. well, you have someone like roger sherman of connecticut, a man that thomas jefferson once said never said -- on paraphrasing, never said a stupid thing in his life. this was also his constitution because, again, a conservative moderating influence. and he gets the philadelphia convention and son james madison work he said, were not having that in these united states. the people of connecticut will never agree. john rutledge of south carolina, another very important founding father. of course would later serve and the supreme court. he basically helped when the american war for independence in south carolina. very important individual he said, this constitution that you have written is not going to work in south carolina.

we need to modify this. so that is what happens in philadelphia. in fact among one historian has called it a miracle in philadelphia because no one was even sure this was going to get out of philadelphia to begin with. so many different ideas and opinions floating around in philadelphia that it appeared the constitution was going to die before the middle of the summer of 1787. and the story that you often hear about that constitution is simple, the large states against the small states. dickenson, sherman, and rutledge all came from small states. madison, of course, from a very large state. but that is not the real issue. the real issue was what type of government we were going to have , a national government or federal governments. and so today we have this term, we have a federal government. in the founding generation did not call it that. it did not call it that coming out of philadelphia. the people like dickenson and

sherman and religious said, we don't want a national government. we want a federal government. there's a difference. if federal government was a general government claiming that it only had general purposes in mind and that basically everything else was left to the states themselves which is what the majority of the founding generation argue for. not a national government which basically put all power in the central authority. there were not going to have that. so when you start talking about general verse federal tax. these were important terms. you hear the term united states, the nation today. that term is still turnaround. but the founding generation would say that general government was for general purposes. will talk about that in the preamble and a few minutes. so the constitution out of philadelphia in september 77, no one was even sure that the thing

would get ratified. they had written it, talked about it, sweated over. they had poured their hearts out in some cases, but no one was sure that this thing would even make it because there were all required to ratify the document. so then it had to be sold, and that sales job is actually what i talk about more in the book than anything else. i bring up the philadelphia convention because sometimes eaten to understand the constitution and the language without understanding what they said in madison. oftentimes you cannot understand the constitution and what they said it meant a better understanding what they said in the state ratifying conventions all throughout the united states . in fact, james madison agreed, this is what he said. he said, the constitution only was brought to life and only found its meeting because of the state conventions which gave it all the validity and authority

it possesses. in other words, what we presented in philadelphia means nothing. with the state ratifying convention said it meant means everything. we don't often hear about these things. in fact, perhaps the most famous supreme court justice ever, john marshall, a member of the founding generation never want time referenced the state ratifying conventions. another reference. but the state ratifying conventions, everything was discussed, hammered out, and the states, many of them bearing a support to muscled the constitution, so the bill of goods in essence on the basis of what the constitution meant at the time. that's what i said that i was going to write the book based on the opponents of the constitution and what they said it meant. again, bin into fabric in both opponents and proponents. let me talk about those two terms. you often hear so that there are two groups, federal said that

the federalists. those terms are wrong. in fact, of massachusetts it was said best. there were not federalist or anti. that's pretty funny. very colorful. so, you have these federalists. in reality what you're talking about it many times are nationalists that believe in a strong central authority, more power should be in the central government or the general government. and in the federalist often called antifederalists who believe in federal government where they're is a general government and the states had much of the authority. this was the debate. how much authority is the central government going to have that is what we get. you hear it over and over again. and, again, that is the main point of the book, to go through these different opinions. what i found shocked me. i expected to write a book and

say, well, yes, a lot of different opinions. and so you kind of have to bring this down yourself as to which one reads right, but what i found was this. over and over again the opponents of the constitution is said the government was going to x, y, and see, were told by the proponents, those who supported it, that, no, they were arguing on the same positions in the same weight. the general consensus was there. there is a founding fathers interpretation. essentially what you have, again, is a general government for general concerns. that's it. i talked about how that worked in a few minutes and why they thought i was important when we get to, for example, the discussion of the bill of rights . but it was not going to be a national governments, and it was not going to abolish the states, which some people feared. so, as i dug through these

declarations of public declarations in speeches and pamphlets and all these things, their is a multitude. again, this general consensus began to appear. i put as much of that as i could in the book because i wanted people to see that. the other thing i have often heard about this book overtime is that i use a lot of quotations which can sometimes make it a little dry, but that did not want to be brian claman's add to the constitution. i wanted to be the founding fathers. i put as much of the minutes as i could. they're better at saying what they meant that i am. and it's not hard to understand. so, the quotes were important to me. what is to put as many as i could in there. in fact, actually to appendices in the back of the book nothing but quotes, stuff that i thought was great that i could not put in the book because i did not have space. i actually think those two sections of the book are in some ways the most fun. >> you can watch this and other

programs online booktv.org. on june 17th, 1970 to 5 men were arrested trying to break into the democratic national committee headquarters at the watergate office complex here in washington d.c. five years later former president richard nixon sat down for a series of interviews with david frost. the 11 sessions aired worldwide and included the former president's thoughts on topics ranging from the watergate scandal to the vietnam war. in a frost nixon, behind the scenes of the nixon interviews sir david frost recounts the preparation and execution required to produce the interviews and includes personal remembrances of his on and off camera conversations with president nixon. in 2007 david frost discussed his book with timothy attali, the director of the richard nixon presidential library and museum on book tv weekly interview program afterwards.