conservatives have been on the republican policy matters, and it is in so facto a retention of obama's public policy agenda. .. but beyond that we've got to fix it. you know i'm against the individual mandate. i'm against the $2500 fines on small businesses.

they were very critical of the program. so we will see what happens. i would say stand the one area where think there will be openness, whether or not do the bipartisan progress, it's hard to say because i can't really speak to how the white house will approach this. but i think there is a strong desire, i'm not sure want to throw the red meat in the shark tank of comprehensive immigration reform. because that gets very complicated. it includes sony things. i think there could be progress on immigration. i think if you look at what ruby of has proposed with his own version of the dream act, you can have some hybrid of what's ruby does does and what obama's does. with regard your specific questions, which is increase funding for research into some of these dreaded diseases, sure i think you could have bipartisan consensus on that. i think if you go back to the stem cell debate in the previous

decade, you know there was a disagreement on embryonic versus adult stem cell research. we had deep and grave moral concerns about the harvesting of embryos in order to get those cells. i think, you know, we may have lost a political battle on that, but scientifically speaking the greatest advances on stem cell research have actually taken place with adult stem cells. so if we can find this kind of areas of agreement i think you'll be a great amount of interest in finding some cures and some scientific breakthroughs, like jim was talking about, that would move us beyond just saying we're going to have to cut medicare by $10 trillion over the next 50 years. >> i'm going to let jonathan respond and then i will let each panelist say when prediction on what they see ahead. jonathan. >> the question becomes do people want to work together. and politically if we think we can do better by opposing

everything, you oppose everything. and politically think you can do better by working out deals the way gingrich and republican-led congress worked out deals with bill clinton. they will work that. as a matter of both sides willing to come to the table and give-and-take. >> so that was a very fast. like a journalist. version of what's going on. stand, predictions? >> i think the surprise -- surprise. maybe what happens with health care. health care reform and implantation of health care reform. because we talked about this as if there isn't other people. there are so many people who are in either in the process of or have to make decisions about going forward on how the implement health care reform law, including insurance companies, and governors, that i think that the interests who want to proceed, whether not a report or not, are going to be

tremendous pressure to put your head down, implement change, but make it a one progress. it may be very hard to ever come back to obamacare. as i came out of is much more piker, evenly divided in our polling on obamnicare. in the electorate that voted. and i think you'll be an issue of the past. >> we have a fiscal cliff has to be addressed or else all of a sudden there's $1.5 trillion cuts in spending and defense spending, and tax cuts get repealed because the bill was written it that way. so the question becomes what to do about it. they are -- they have to do something about otherwise to be another recession or taxes and everybody. nobody on either party wants to see everybody pay more taxes. >> let me tell the audience

watching on c-span that if you want to send me your prediction, just go to the website, laszlo strategies.com and see me in the middle because i'm interested not just in what the pundits are saying in washington but what people back home are thinking about the future and what this election means. so jim, you're going to get the last word. >> thank you. in terms of consensus, i do agree with, i guess stan also the immigration is something there will be some forward progress on. i also agree with stan on the health insurance issue is probably some of plato. i was struck when the shootings happened in aurora, colorado, over the summer, that is exactly the demographic of people who don't have health insurance, young working-class kind of people. and the hospitals all said of course we will pay for all their bills and stuff. we will find the money from somewhere through some mechanism, come may. we always have.

entrance a prediction, again i'm a little bit and -- i met with the doctor this money at an age. there's a congressman named rob andrews is a democrat of new jersey, 11 terms, a fairly secret guy, democratic conference, who had an article in "the wall street journal" inception in what she calls for an effort on medicine. he said specifically we should be focusing as a lead issue on wounded warriors and not just bang for their wheelchairs and therapy kind of thing. maintenance for the next six years of the life but also really looking at put them back together and help them walk, getting their brains back fully functional and so on. that's to meet an unbelievably poignant, powerful, political argument, and i think the moral conscious of the country would be awakened on that score.

so he is talking but he genuinely quantum leap higher effort perhaps through some innovative financing mechanisms, that will be unveiled probably by the end of this year. and just we have to deal with the fiscal cliff and so on and so on, and yes, there will be enormous circumstances. but the reality that we spend $2.6 trillion health care in this country every year, only about 100 billion of that, 4% on medical are indeed, the results in terms of the falloff in treatment centers and i think the chance to unite the country around some way to actually make health care cheaper just as we made electronics cheaper using technology as opposed to just, you know, cutting here and trimming there and so when. and economist has a new book about health care. is labor-intensive it's

expensive, three. if you want to make a cheap as well as good and comprehensive then you have to think about automation and technology and i.t. i think rob's bill will encompass a lot of as well. i think will be quite exciting, 2013. >> so thank you for much. i want to thank all the candidates who ran for office, whether they were democrats, republicans are some other political party for being their willingness to serve this country. i want to thank those who engage in voting, which is our highest civic duty for doing the. i want to recognize them. we are at a juncture that is a difficult in this country where 49%, roughly, voted for each candidate. and so we're going to have to come together to heal. so it's great to start on the process by having democrats and republicans together on a panel to a journalist who are thinking thoughtfully about these crises. someone to thank the first panel he was with us today, but also want to thank ralph reed who

left earlier, but jim pinkerton and jonathan salant and stan greenberg, thank you for what you did not only on the panel but for your series thinking that you on these topics day in and day out. so on behalf of laszlo strategies, thanks for coming. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> as we leave this discussion, "the associated press" is reporting montana senator jon tester has won reelection beating his republican challenger. also, the ap says wisconsin congressman paul ryan is returning to congress. he said he is looking for to spending some time with his family and then will return to his responsibilities as house and budget committee chair. we will have more postcampaign coverage coming up for you today on c-span networks. in just a moment on c-span,

harry reid will hold a news conference discussing election results. democrats maintain control of us in holding onto seats in virginia and missouri, and picking up seats in indiana and massachusetts. senator reid's remarks will be on our companion network c-span in just a couple of moment. house speaker john boehner will address reporters at the capital. he will talk about the so-called fiscal cliff that lawmakers will be addressing when they return from the break. live coverage starts at 3:30 p.m. eastern, also on c-span. >> on this network, grover norquist and several notable conservatives will talk about the presidential and congressional election results at an event hosted by the group conservative hq. they will ask him what the results reveal about the republican party and its future strategy. panelists will include brent roselle. that will be live here on c-span2 starting at 1:30 p.m. eastern.

>> america ranks 29th thousands speed of the an attack such leading industrial likes of the world as moby and ukraine. moldavia and ukraine. we pay the highest price and were by far. by one match with a 38 times what the japanese paper bit of information. if you buy one of these triple play packages and i have one in my home, you pay on average with taxes and use $160. in france you pay $38 u.s., and you get worldwide calling to 70 countries are not just u.s. and canada. you get worldwide television, not just domestic, and your internet is 20 times faster uploading and 10 times faster downloading, and your bank is than 25 cents on the dollar. all these other countries understand the fundamental principle, in the 19th century, canals and railroads were the key to economic growth as industrial nation came along and you had to move heavy things like steel.

the 20 century came along, it was highways, interstate highway program and airports that were crucial to economic growth. now it's the information superhighway. what does industry say? don't call it that anymore. >> david cay johnson on many with corporations try to rob you blind saturday night at 10 eastern in sunday night at nine on afterwards this weekend on c-span2's booktv. >> more booktv programming next your c-span2 from the annual national book festival, susan hertog presents her book, "dangerous ambition: rebecca west and dorothy thompson - new women in search of love and power." this is about 35 minutes. [applause]

>> i am certainly honored to be here at the library of congressh at festival, but perhaps i'm even more honored to having bee introduced by the extraordinary man, dr. james billington. a great man and a great librarian of congress. [applause] thank you. i will start at the beginning. as a child i loved to read. in the mid '50s, live in the outer boroughs of new york city, in my case the bronx, was comfortable but provincial. and my curiosity extended far beyond the bounds of my home and school. i wanted to know more about

people in other places. what was happening in the world now, what had happened in the past, and quite simply how i came to be. books were my passports, and i consumed them voraciously. but i came to writing later than most. in my late '30s after having raised my three children. my generation, those of us born during and after world war ii, numbered in the millions. and we were asking questions that demanded to be answered. we had come of age in the heat of the escalating war in

vietnam. and we didn't know why our brothers were fighting so far away for a cause that was so difficult to understand. and the role of women in society was changing rapidly. my friends, educator with traditional values but a deep sense of personal ambition, wanted to know how to be true to ourselves, yet remain committed to our husbands and our children. as a young mother i had stumbled into a bookstore and told gift from the sea off of the bargain shelf. it's author was struggling with the very same questions that we were asking ourselves. her answers were deceptively

simple, and yet they ring true. and i wanted to know how this woman got so smart. and so, rising before dawn, i climbed the stairs to my third floor room. yes, dear virginia, a room of my own, to read lindbergh's work, to study its historical framework, and to jot down my thoughts before sending my children off to school. my biography of and lindbergh would take more than 10 years to complete. during which i had the rare privilege of meeting her. 10 times. but the book was more than a

biography. it was a journey towards self-knowledge, during which i developed a consuming interest in understanding the lives of women. not only women thinkers, but doers. women who were willing to enter the public fray and change the discourse. what were the qualities of person and mind, the value and loyalties of those women who succeeded, and what did they have to sacrifice to bring their goals to fruition? while researching the lindbergh book, two names kept cropping up. dorothy thompson, an american journalist, and her friend of 40

years, rebecca west, journalist, novelist, literary critic and historian. they eat atomized the kind of woman i was searching for. they play for high-stakes, whisking personal pain for public voice and influence. think of it. two generations before the baby boomers were born, these women had the courage to throw off convention, defy social expectation and catapult themselves into the public arena at a time of roiling political and social upheaval. and against the headwind of

their contemporaries, i mean, they were ridiculed. and with none of the safety nets we take for granted today. and to compound their struggle, they had no family connection, no money, and had fractured childhoods. let me begin with dorothy thompson. born in 1893, the english irish parents in a small town in northern new york state, she was the eldest of three children whose preacher father taught them first to love jesus. second, do all day the christian epic. and third, to embrace the

written and spoken word, in that order. but after the death of her mother when she was only eight years old, everything changed. for two years she helped take care of her younger brother and sister, and to cater to the needs of her brokenhearted father. but when her father remarried, his rebellious and precocious teenager was cast out on her own. after graduating from college, she cut her teeth as a spokesperson for the women's suffrage movement. and then doing a short stint as a kennedy organizer, -- community organizer, she realized that she was slated for

a life beyond the bounds of cleveland, and even new york. so in 1921, with $150 in her pockets, determined to become a foreign correspondent, she went to england with the desire to make her way through the wilds of fleet street. but what's remarkable is that within five years she became the first woman to head a news bureau in europe. station in berlin, she saw a world in chaos, and she hunkered to understand that madness that seemed to be sweeping europe.

the public and local upheaval after the great war, and the political landscape that was giving rise to ruthless dictators. she wanted to be a player, and she knew that as a woman she would have to fight harder, faster, and longer than her male colleagues. she would have government officials, prime ministers, presidents, and earned a reputation as a reporter willing to do anything, and go anywhere, for the sake of a story. thompson had the guts to ask the american public the questions they did not want to think about. mired in the delusion that they

were protected from asian and european to mold by tuitions, americans preferred the roar and affluence of the 1920s, dancing and drinking themselves into oblivion. in 1933, after knocking at his door for seven years, thompson would become the first foreign correspondent, male or female, to interview hitler as he was gaining dominance in the reichstag, and ruthlessly cutting his way to public, to government control. her book, "i saw hitler,"

catapult her on the national stage and earned her the distinction of being thrown out of a nazi right. along with national celebrity and the total generation of her peers. but as thompson's influence grew, her voice echoed across america and europe. just listen to this. in 1936, she was writing a thrice weekly column in "the new york herald tribune" that reached eight to 10 million readers a day. and by 1937, she had received six honorary degrees from major colleges and universities. and a public radio broadcast on

nbc that reached 5 million readers, listeners, and she was rumored to be running for the u.s. senate. that was true, but she was also thinking of running for president. in 1942, through shortwave radio broadcast, she would reach millions of ordinary citizens in germany, hoping to bring hitler down by convincing them that he would enslave them and free, free people around the world. within a span of 20 years, she had gone from being a nobody, a

community organizer in cleveland, to a powerful international figure. but her personal life was in shambles. while she had been working in berlin in the early and mid 1920s, she had been swept off her feet by harry sinclair lewis, whom you know as perhaps one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, and was soon to become the first american to be awarded the nobel prize for literature. he had already written mainstream, babbitt, and aerosmith. and was about to publish elma gantry. she was drawn to him, not only

because of his litter or brilliance, but because he was the saddest man she had ever met. and dorothy thompson, the preacher's daughter, like nothing better than to save someone's soul. he in turn was drawn to her strength, her morals, her driving energy and her unwavering ambition, and her indomitable drive. but within a short time she realized he was and in court jubal drunk. -- in court jubal drunk. and despite his own international celebrity, he could not spare her rising

thing. rebecca west who have met thompson in london in 1921, whom jim spoke about in his introduction, and later when dorothy was a chief of the bureau in berlin, was as courageous and as an domino ball as american friend, possibly more so. kindred spirits intent on breaking through that concrete ceiling of male-dominated literature and journalism. they both were intent on confronting the pivotal issues of their times head-on. and they would remain friends all of their lives.

rebecca west had as humble a beginning as dorothy thompson eric she was born so silly isabel fairfield on the outskirts of london in 1892 to a scotch highland mother with musical aspirations, and a truly gifted journalist father. when he left them, abandoned them to poverty, when she, too, was only eight, she was both devastated and liberated. as angry as she was, she, like thompson, was able to invent herself.

noddy and rebellious, ms. fairfield first tried to be an actress, which was a terrible thing for a respectable woman to do. but early on she realized that her true passion and her true ability was the spoken word. and she became a feminist journalist as a tool for initiating social change. by the age of 20 she had earned a reputation as a serious polemicist, and by the age of 30, she was not only a journalist, she was a literary biographer, a novelist, and a literary critic with a scathing

reputation. for 40 years, rebecca west took britain by storm. are writing cut across every genre, from fiction to nonfiction, and the range of her knowledge was wide and deep. she can truly be called a public intellectual, in the sense that lionel trilling defined it. one whose writing land at the crossroads of literature, the bloody crossroads of literature and politics. and west, like thompson, was among the very first to perceive the oncoming danger of nazi devastation. although by nature she was more of a moral philosopher and

intellectual than a journalist, like thompson. she nonetheless traveled alongside her banker husband as he was an emissary with schroeder's bank, a german bank. and was commissioned by the british government to investigate and understand countries across eastern europe. on one of these assignments she went to yugoslavia, and the trip changed her life. from a distance she could see the disintegration of british culture. and its political -- at a time

when great steaks were on the table, with more clarity than ever before. the result was her magnum opus, black lamb and grey falcon, a political military and cultural history of yugoslavia that in her hands became a microcosm of tribal contention and foreign conquest that altered the face of europe under nazi siege. it was a 1200 page clarity and call to arms. meant to awaken her compatriots

from the deep white sleep of appeasement. to the ruthlessness of hitler and mussolini. and the devastation of the democratic ideals, their ascendancy implied. but black lamb was just one of her more than 30 books. along with hundreds of essays and articles she wrote during her lifetime, in american and british periodicals. "the new republic," "the new yorker," u.s. news and world report, the "evening standard," "the daily telegraph, the spectator, just to name a few. in which she grappled with a dazzling array of issues that

actually defined the essence of life in the 20th century. democracy versus totalitariani totalitarianism, nationalism versus the new internationalism, the legal and moral intricacies of punishing war criminals, the meaning of treason, the validity of christianity, and the silence of god. but what was astonishing about rebecca west was that she never went to university. early on she understood that she was smarter and more capable than her classmates, or even her children -- her -- sorry,

probably, probably her son. but also her teachers. she was an autodidact, great philosophy, theology and philosophy. managing to out perform and outclass those of high birth and formal education. throughout her career she was honored with the middle, from america and france. but her coup de grace came in 1959 when queen elizabeth awarded her game commander of the british empire for her contribution to 20th century

literature. now, how do we account for the success of these two women? pure raw intelligence and drive, certainly, but there were other smart and ambitious women. what distinguished thompson and west was their courage to jettison the constraints of the past, break the rules and forge a path for women in journalism and literature at a time of great political upheaval. their influence was of perception, character, drive,

and the guts to speak truth to power, at a time that was cataclysmic in world history. in short, they felt an overriding sense of historical mission, and were willing to do everything to make their voices heard. but there was a danger in their ambition, a dark side, which is exactly why i named my book "dangerous ambition." it was certainly heroic, but risky to throw away the rules and make new ones up on the fly.

at the cutting edge of such change, they had no understanding of who and what they were sacrificing. so intent on achieving their goals, even when they had the slightest glimmer that they were hurting those whom they loved, they chose to turn away, caring more about humanity then those people in their personal lives. their relationships with men ended either in divorce or in deep antipathy, and their sons feeling abandoned and alone, spend much of their lives trying

to bring them down. dorothy thompson son, michael lewis, the issue of her contemptuous and ultimately failed marriage to sinclair lewis was a lost and lonely young man who became like his father, an alcoholic. he could never measure up to his parents expect nation. and although he had a gift for acting, he ultimately succumbed to invalids and philandering. destroying the lives of his wife and his children. rebecca west's son, anthony west, was a product, and some of you may know this, of our decade long relationship with h.g.

wells, whom, as you know, was one of the most celebrated authors in the english language at the time. whose legendary books are still read today. he was 46, married with two sons, and when they met. and west was a mere girl of 19. who was easily, and i might add, willingly, seduced by his intellectual brilliance and rapacious sexuality. he had indeed -- wells had indeed met his match in rebecca, but each was as ambitious and self absorbed as the other.

and their union quickly unraveled, but it was their son, anthony, who would pay the price. caught in the middle he hunkered for love that neither one of his parents could give him. and though anthony himself was a gifted writer, he chose to siphon his creative energy by punishing his mother for his illegitimate birth. she became through his eyes force of deception, corruption, and mendacity. but it may be said that neither west now are wells, nor thompson nor lewis, had the slightest notion of how to love one

another, or their sons. although thompson and west were flawed and imperfect heroines, we are the beneficiaries of their legacy, undaunted courage, in domino ball energy, -- indomitable energy, "speaking truth to power" regardless of its costs. they grappled with the great political and moral issues of their times so that we might harness and clarify their vision to meet the imposing exigencies of our print. thank you so much for coming and for listening. [applause]

>> and. >> if you have questions, we have two microphones on either side of the center section. please let us know if you have questions. susan hertog is going to answer them for just a few minutes. thank you. >> you mentioned that thompson left for england with $150. really without any track record of any career in journalism. how did she actually break in in london? i know she became the first foreign correspondent within five years but how did she actually breaking did in? >> well, she went to the international news service, and volunteered her services. she said, don't pay anything. just give me assignments. and i'll do whatever you want me

to do, and i promise to bring back the story. and that's how she made her way into journalism, into foreign correspondents. she was picked up later by the "new york post," and as you heard me say, she was indicated in 180 newspapers around the country. and reached eight to 10 million readers a day. but the answer to your question is, by pure, raw guts. she knew she could do it. she didn't care if she got paid for it. she knew she could bring that story home, and do a good job.

>> i'm curious about your primary sources. the story, i was reading the book, and there's a story of dorothy's mother's passing, how did you research that and how did you bring that to sort of an amazing narrative? i'm just curious, what your primary sources were? >> i think you're speaking about the fact that her mother had a botched abortion at the hands of dorothy thompson's grandmother, who decided that she had enough children, thank you, and she was poor as a church mouse because she was married to this preacher who was a good man, but he wasn't bringing home the bacon. and there were all kinds of herbal and concoctions, one of which she formulated and used

on, for poor margaret grisham, and, unfortunately, her mother died within hours. the source material was, as i said in my introduction, came from great researchers who, on whose shoulders i stand, particularly teater kirk -- peter kirk who understood the story, who had gone through all the papers, and the people in the congregation had heard these rumors and soon they came back to dorothy thompson. and she was mortified. i think that's partially why she

became interested in the women's suffrage movement. she wanted to help give women a voice, the voice that her own mother never had. thank you. >> well, if that's it, thank you so much. have a beautiful and thank you for listening. [applause] >> coming up on the c-span networks will have more postcampaign coverage. house speaker john boehner will address the reporters today in the capital. you will talk about the so-called fiscal cliff that lawmakers are addressing. that will be at 3:30 p.m. eastern. also coming up on c-span2, grover norquist and several notable conservatives will talk about the presidential and congressional election results at an event hosted by the group conservative hq. he will also talk about what the

results reveal about the republican party and its future strategy. that would be live here on c-span2 starting at 130 eastern. >> right now, actor and author tony danza recounts the year he spent teaching 10th grade english in philadelphia in philadelphia's largest high school. 's recent book is called "i'd like to apologize to every teacher i ever had" and he wrote about wanted to become a teacher before his acting career started at initial trouble he had engaging in student. held at the free library in philadelphia, this is about 45 minutes. >> hello, everyone. hiya, nick. what am i going to do?

i can't believe when i'm standing backstage listening to ms. carroll say those things about me, i want you to know that i, you know, by the way, ms. carol, the cameras quite engendered by the way. you know why. i thought, i thought i figured out a way to make teaching day. [laughter] make it a tv job, right? might be a teacher and a tv job. this is unbelievably are then they left in january and then i was a real teacher. now, but when listening to ms. carol say those nice things to me, the greatest compliment at the end of the year, i've gone through this journey with her, and she, she -- i'm reading yours. she said, she asked me, you know, what i consider coming back and i thought that was the

greatest compliment, you know? but i said to her, ms. carol, at my age, at this age i'm not sure i want to care this much about anything. [laughter] well, i just want to thank you all first of all for being here. i appreciate you coming. and another thing, ms. carol. you know, this is weird, you know, writing this book and being out on this tour and a lot of teachers coming up to me. i'm seeing a lot of teachers. by the, most of them say, i accept your apology. [laughter] the strangest communism everywhere i go people say i accept. but i realized, and they give you a year. i did do a year. i stayed the year. it's no small feat for those of you, i know there's a lot of teachers are, but it's 181 days. not that i was counting, but -- [laughter] the funniest thing about being a teacher, snow days are bad.

remember when snow days were good? for a teacher, snow days are bad because you lose your momentum. they come back like they haven't been there. it's the weirdest thing. anyway, i digress. what i was going to say was i did do the year, and sometimes people go wow, a whole year. but when you see the need and the commitment of other people, the commitment of some of the teachers that have been there, and one of the things i think that is really, you know, sad but has to happen, it's just life, is many of the baby boomer teachers are now retiring. a lot of times, so are the backbone of the school in a lot of cases. i think that, you know, lynn dixon and some of the teachers that were there when i was there, would have been a very different experience. there's a guy in the school, chuck carr, head of domestic partner, beginning of the are very skeptical, very skeptical about me. i'm sitting in my room, this guy

walks am a big guy, white hair, a big guy, a bunch of books. he says hello. i said hello. he said are you here to act a teacher, mr. danza, or be the teacher, mr. danza? i just got here, you know. [laughter] but at the end of the were walking down the hall, and he was coming back. he decided not come yet put in newspapers to retire and then decided not to retire. and i asked him why, why you're coming back. and he said, well maybe this year i will get it right. 37 years, holy mackerel. so i do understand. so sometimes i do feel a little pretentious that i should be the one talking about this because i was only there for when you. but the one year i was there was quite a journey. it really was technically, it's great to be back in philly. can't wait to get my cheesesteak. oh, my god. [applause] by the way, this carol is a good

principle. and for those of us, those of you who are teacher, not important is to have a good principle. i just want to say, ms. carol. [applause] >> so i guess what i should do is just try to tell you how this all start, so you get an idea what i was thinking. see, i was, i was closing in on 60, okay? it's over the speed limit. that's like, you know, i was closing in on 60 and i've just gotten fired. i had a show in new york, a talk show, it was on in philly here -- thank you. thanks, mom. [laughter] and i was heartbroken. i really was. i was heartbroken and i really was thinking maybe, you know, navy i should think about something else. i started thinking about, i'm 60, what should i do with the rest of my life? i've always had kind of thing, i went to school to be teacher and didn't do. my life went on. i remember when i had my first

pro fight and my mother spent all the money send me to college to be a teacher and i was fighting. she was like are you out of your mind? the total is going to be a cab driver. and she said, are you crazy? and i got "taxi." she changed her mind. [laughter] but he would come so i was feeling down and i was feeling a little sorry for myself to tell you the truth. i love the job in new york, and, but had this thing about teaching. it's been a mine for a long time. if anybody who's watched "who's the boss?" knows that tony -- [applause] >> thank you. thank you very much. it's so cool to have that, you know? [laughter] but anybody was watching as tony became a teacher. my character actually become a teacher. that was no accident. you know, so it's been something that was on my mind. and like most americans, i was worried about the education, education in america.

i mean, every president since, as long as i can member has been the education president. every time, he's going to be the guy, you know? you know, someone to fulfill that thing. i had another thing. arthur miller said that the best thing you can hope for is that you wind up with the right regrets. and so i have this regret, one of, what are my great regrets, and i was not the best students. in, i didn't really understand that the teacher was, you know, trying real hard and that was his life or her life's work, and i was, you know, i was one of those guys, i tried to charm my way through, trying to charm the teacher and didn't do as little as possible, you know, and get my. if i would've spent this much time studying as i did and i think i would've been all right. so i had that regret, too, and i think it's one of the things that we have to deal with now if we are going to ever fix

education. it's that the kids have to understand that this is a very important moment in their lives. and it's not like it was, it's not like it was when i was a kid that you could fool around. i got lucky, but even if you didn't come in those days you could go get an assembly line job or a construction job, and have a middle-class life. because the country would give you that. but that's not the way it is anymore. in the book, this is really, this is really, i mean, let me cut to the chase. forget about how i got here, but this is what i think is important. i don't think until we can convince the kids that we can't want more for them than they want for themselves. you know? and it's almost like, it's almost like you need a national campaign of some kind, akin to the way we change the attitude of the country about smoking or about drunk driving.

much in it would be quick to convince the kids. you know, i had, here's my psa, okay. so i had, i gave one detention in one detention at its and above. i gave one detention and the kids wanted me to give the detention. the good kids want to see the bad kids get punished because otherwise they can't figure it out, you know? i had a couple of girls -- i had a couple of girls of satan, mr. danza, you've got to grow some balls off mike but, you know, as a teacher and i'm sure you're aware of this committee don't want to come down on them because if you come down on them you might lose been even worse. you've got to walk back, try to find that sweet spot. but anyway, the day came finally, second semester. you know, charmaine, her name charming and she was a great kid. a great kid and she was a great student at times but other times she was just a maniac. so she comes in late, told her don't be late. she comes in, disrupts the

class. that was a. i pulled the trigger but i said all right, that's a pink slip. and she gave me some growth back and i give it to her back and that was it. i feel that the pink slip and i send it down. i said that the detention. i didn't know when i give her detention i had to be there. [laughter] don't, don't they just go to some detention place? anyway, so she meets me at 7:15 a.m. she needs me, and we talk. in a, and i was constantly trying to beat this thing. i wanted them tonight, you know, to learn from my mistakes. you don't have to do this. you can be a good student and have fun. it's not mutually exclusive. you don't have to be one or the other. so i was just trying to always

provide a big sign. i made the kids put this big sign up, take part in your own education. just trying to drill this and because this is what i, this is what i was missing. so i said to charmaine, i said, charming, how long do you think you'll be in school? she goes, forever. [laughter] i said, no your not. i said here's your life. this much is school. you don't want to be over you're looking back. ..

i don't know why she picked on me. italian? i don't know. any way she said i hate the people on that show. i have no love for people on that show, don't get me wrong but if i were 20 and you told me i would be afraid of the footage. so i told her i have no love for those kids but how do you feel about the suits that you were with last night, the dinner you had last night making billions of of this? one of my friends and from with viacom made $40 million last year. they cut 2.5 million out of her school and he made 40 million.

something wrong with this. he made 84 million off the backs of mob wives. eh. [applause] so, and believe me, i know there's bad teachers. there's bad actors. [laughter] but i saw more discouraged teachers. [applause] i really did. i did. i saw -- and the statistics come it's crazy, 30 percent after three years, 50 percent after almost five years, quit. just as they get good, i've got to get out of here, are you kidding me. so, all of that -- that's my solution. i don't know how you implement it. here's another thing, how that the message you are sending kids. i brockington ortiz hi, good kid, don't get me wrong. but schools, you know how they look. and they are told this is really

important, this is important and then they go to the mall and they see what that looks like. no, no, this is important. and that's -- that's the thing. these messages are constantly going to the kids pity we have to send this other message and that's what teachers try to do every day. that's what i try to do. like i said though, you know, considering the empire and that we live and i'm not sure how you go about doing that. for me this was a journey once the cameras left it's funny i thought i was going to lose my authority. i was afraid that i would lose my authority once i didn't have the cameras but once they were gonna was liberating. it was the greatest and the second semester by the way is better than the first semester. everybody is much more comfortable. and that's when i learned in my first semester i said i was

writing some teachers jokes like for instance you use those graphic organizers, collaborative teaching, modeling, and then somebody told it to me i needed a diagram. i heard that and i made a doctor's appointment. [laughter] i'm sorry. the second part of the journey though was right in the book. it's almost as hard as teaching. i mean it. it really is. i wrote a cookbook with my son, this is the closest i came. i like to call it a memoir cookbook because my son was born when i was 19 so he got to grow up with my uncles and aunts and grandparents and he and i wrote this book about the uncles and

aunts and that's it right there. yes, that's very nice. it's called "don't fill up on the antipasta." but this, this was like writing a book and not only that, but it's sort of the same kind of responsibility for the teacher. here's another thing that we don't talk about about teachers is that you have a job to do, but it also has this tremendous -- the weight of the future of the children. you mess up they don't get that day back. it's the only tend agreed we are ever going to get. that's why i was so nuts. for people that saw the show, i did a lot of crying. at first i was crying because i was scared. i thought god i bit off more than i could chew and i can't do this but i started crying because the either broke my heart or the made my heart soar. it was one or the other. they do that to you.

but okay. so, i wanted to write the book to tell the story of the rest of it and also to talk about what i see and some issues. it's not a book that preaches, but it listens to people in the book. i kept a very good records. i kept a journal. i have some video, i had my lesson plans, so i'm pretty close to what happened, and we discuss a lot of the issues in the book. a lot has changed since i was here in two years. they told you my kids graduated. i was the commencement speaker. it was so cool. but she is dealing like all of the philadelphia schools with such budget cuts. i know we mentioned a fund-raiser we did the teachers verses student talent show. but the reason that worked, the audience came is because they

have laid off one of the school nurses because of budget cuts. don't get me wrong. it's bad enough laying off the gym teachers and the art teacher and the shop teacher, but the school nurse? so we went on -- i don't mean to make less of the other but we went on television and did a little promotion and was very different from when i was here. we did promotion last time went out on tv and did this and we had a good crowd but this time i mentioned the school nurse and over to thousand people came out. it was crazy. was unbelievable. so you are dealing with this kind of change here. i -- it was hard enough then. i can't imagine taking more out of the budget. i am a union guy. [applause]

my father was a garbage man for the city and i've been in the screen actors guild for 35 years myself. i just don't think -- i don't count on the benevolence of companies. i think we have to be together. [applause] and i'm also a big supporter of public education in that it is a leavening -- it is a leavening. it levels the field for all of us. we did it together. instead of us being more and more chopped up into little groups, they move to close 40 schools up to 64 and privatize. don't get me wrong. i want every kid to have a good teacher, be in a great school and i want him to learn, but the way that this looks to me, and i am just calling it as i see it, it's like the forerunner of a two-tiered system where you are going to have one group, the

haves and the kids with the motivated parents and students in one school and you'll have the poorest and least motivated kids with the most -- by the way some other thing, i'm sorry, this is one of my problems. i talk too much and i have adhd. but one of the things you have to tell the kids is in spite of what are formidable and legitimate obstacles, i mean, no matter what they are whether it is poverty, violence, no home, no parents, that teachers, better schools, i don't care. you still have to make this piece of your life work because otherwise in 20 years they are not going to say you know what, he had a bad teacher. it doesn't work that way. that's what we have to try to make them understand and that is what is in the book a little

bit. [applause] i will wrap this up. [laughter] all right. well, anyway, melissa and i just want to thank you so much. i wrote 90,000 words just so you get an idea what this was like. i decided i want to write this book and was painful. it really was. i found a book about writing. it's called first you fix the refrigerator. you will do anything. let's see. i will fix the refrigerator. anyway i wrote 90,000 words and some of my friends are saying you wrote a book? give me a break. i want to be honest i wrote 90,000 words and i handed in my manuscript. it was amazing to push the send

button. you know how i started doing it? because i was getting so distracted i would go to sleep at 7:00 and we get that 2:00 in the morning and write until six, go to jim and come back and my god, what is that? but i wrote 90,000 words and handed in my manuscript and the publisher of random house said you have to get an editor. [laughter] so how she found 75,000 pretty good words in there. it's unbelievable and that's how i got the book. i want to thank you you for coming. i hope you enjoyed it. and listen, i really mean it. i do apologize to every teacher i've ever had. [applause]

so, the way that we had originally set this up is we passed out note cards but she wanted to do this more impromptu so it will keep it alive but you have to stay at the microphone otherwise they are not going to hear you. sort of impromptu. if you raise your hand we will try to get a mic. we will do as many as we can. we only have 20 minutes. >> that guy over there who? >> because he is in the book. >> how are you? is, sir. >> [inaudible] i asked the kids about you and the reaction was really favorable. the other thing is when i was in your show i made a fool of myself. you had the decency to send me a card and i still have that at home and i really prior to that.

i said it was a big mistake. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. you said that you cried a lot for some things that moved you. what was the most moving experience for you? >> there were so many. there were kids when they just put a stake in your heart and immediately after the turn it around. you just did this to me. i had a poetry contest. i said i have a couple of the teachers in the school who

memorized the poem and they brought them up and showed the kids look it's about memorizing the poem. it has to be ten lines long as the pre-requisite it is we had to be able to google it so we could make a poster board with some historical context biography, figurative language, whatever, to give some debt to it, but they had to memorize the poem and performed in front of the class and they got a bunch of teachers and you get numbers and i made it like a big thing and then here is a bigger advantage of being a rich teacher is like to go by prizes, so the first was a flip kim cam and $10.2 prize was $8. so it was a big drop-off. [laughter] so, i give them time to write a

poem and i said i can learn in one night and they picked the poem and i learned you have 32 lines and one might and blaming it on you. so, anyway the first was a commencement speaker i did the whole poem and i can tell you the kids were like this guy is crazy. but anyway, so there was one particular girl in the class who was another, she was a challenge, a real challenge, beautiful, but a challenge and an enigma and this is the thing about it you've got this class and they all have lives and all this stuff is going on. i've got this other thing, too. what is the greatest thing about being a teacher? start with 150 teenagers. 150 students it sounds okay. teen-agers, okay, i get to that. anyway, it was a challenge and i

had to stay out of the way because she would fight the guy is. so she sat in the back next to this guy that she drove crazy but it was like the end of the class and i would give them 20 minutes to memorize their home and i was walking around looking at what poem and i looked over her shoulder and her poem was about a deadbeat father, an absent father. and it just got me. it crystallized who knows what she's going through. and i have daughters, so i go upfield and from behind i hear are you crying? [laughter]

i said no, i'm not crying. and then the other kids, this great kid says you are a crybaby, mr. danza so then i turn on him and i said i'm not crying. this is why we read poetry. [laughter] to get in touch with the way we feel. i want to be touched. that's why we've read poetry. [laughter] so now the contest comes and she gets up and she's really into it. she gets him to hold the poster board for her and she starts and i can't remember the words, but she gets out i don't know, two or three lines in and she stops and you know, it's like they forgot and all of a sudden she just dissolves into tears and

start solving and she runs out into the hallway. this girl beat up everybody in the classroom. she's out in the hallway. okay i will be right back. by the way a teacher can never have too many tissues. i go out in the hallway and she's like this. i said don't you see, this is what we read poetry for to get in touch with our feelings and isn't it wonderful that you found a poem that touches you eda want to go back inside? yes, yes. i've got to get gangster. [laughter] i said o.k. i don't care how you do it, just let's go do. so we go inside and she starts again. here we go. and i do the whole thing. ladies and gentlemen, i do that whole thing and she starts again and she starts to cry again and she did this thing that was so

heartbreaking. she opened her heart and she looked up at the sky and she said why can't i say this freaking poem and she runs out into the hole we again. this went on to retreat times but we finally got her through the palm. every once in awhile i get an e-mail from her and that poem. it's amazing. [applause] >> i will try not to cry. i am a new teacher and i've talked for about two and a half years. i am a product of the philadelphia school system. i've never been so stressed out and unhappy in my own private time. i love the classroom but i cry every weekend and i don't have a

life. >> and imagine if you get married. >> i don't think that's going to happen. >> so, i think that i might be one of those people that has to walk away just to be happy. that's really upsetting. but i recognize a lot of that. >> i don't mean to cut you off. here is the only thing you can say i got a letter from a dive once after the show was on a couple weeks, a letter from a teacher who said that he used to think he was the only one that cried coming and he told me that every day after school i close the door in my classroom and i sit at my desk and by sob. i don't know. you've got to read the book. i think the only thing i can tell you is that you are not alone. [applause] it is a battle.

the hope is that it gets better. i don't know how it is going to get better, and then the other hope and here is the one thing that i can give you that is also in the book and i'm going to read you whole book. but there was a teacher there who taught at martin luther king and then she was at northeast for over 40 years and she was just incredible anything you need for a classroom from magic pencils to be biking helmet off, she's got it. but on the way out, at the end people were so nice to me at northeast. it got to the point where i had to get away. i just felt like i didn't do that much. as i was walking out we said goodbye to each other and i had to make a train and she handed me a box.

another one of those things, you know. so i got on the train and then i to get out and there was a little plaque with a scroll and it tells the story of a big storm that roils the ocean and washes of thousand starfish along to the beach, a thousand starfish on to the beach. the clouds break, the sun comes out and starts to break the starfish. i try comes walking along and he doesn't know what to do. he starts picking them up one by one. another guy comes along. there's so many of them and you are not making that much of a difference. he picked up another one and he said the difference to that one. so, i mean that is really the only thing that you are looking for is to try to make that. [applause] and i want you to know i'm not

sure i got any of them in the water but maybe a little closer. >> i wish i could tell you more. i want to give you a raise right now. [applause] there's a fellow with his hand against the wall on that site and we will start with this gentleman on the right. yes, right to that gentleman >> why philadelphia and why northeast high school? >> well, philadelphia because they let me. and northeast high school because they let me. [laughter] actually i did have a little choice. philadelphia he was the champion in the project and that's how i got here. what he actually offer the three schools. i can't remember the third one. that's the one.

and then northeast read and northeast jimmy was the most comprehensive. it was a big school that had special-education. it's just an incredible -- i mean it, it is an organism, it's amazing. so i felt that was a more representative snapshot of what i was thinking about. i hope that answers your question. >> very much like you i got in the teaching business 15 years ago after giving a lot of other things in the world, and the reason was because i was tired of blaming teachers so we see the job they have to do and it's not easy and i agree with you and i like your show and i'm hoping i like your book just as well and i'm sure i will. >> i hope so, too. >> my question is since i've experienced this to you think that a lot of people have to

make these decisions about the educational system and politicians and the like if they were required to go out and actually do something similar. [applause] i'm always going okay. >> i will tell you something it's so bad. here's how bad it is. one of those shows, the view or something. thank you. i love them too by the way. but he says to me my wife is a teacher, teaches for 15 years. a great. i hope she likes the book. i hope she likes it. you know it is a tough job.

that's the husband of the teacher. the husband of the teacher. if you don't know her, you know what i mean. so look, you're right. it is as simple as that. by the way, how i got talked into the reality show, once you know something i had no use for reality, i had no time for that bologna and my argument was the reason that it wouldn't work is because it is across the purposes. the tv show purpose is ratings. the teachers purpose is the kids. they can't get together. that was the problem. but they convinced me that we could do it and to some degree, we did. but the fault was that maybe if we had a tv show inside the teachers shoes that maybe it would give that kind of experience to people and would have a wide impact. of course it only lasted for six

weeks, so that makes it tough. >> we have time for one more. >> we get you. you're coming next. >> what is your next project, tony? >> my next project -- this is crazy, and in the early stages but i'm working on a new sitcom for abc. [applause] i want to do some of a certain age now want to do a show sort of like the golden girls but with a guy is. [applause] i want to discuss that kind of stuff. one more little crazy thing. a dear friend of mine passed away. she ran this restaurant in new york and it's gone now to read and the refugees were all over

the place. but anyway, opening the west side of the lane so it will be like the west side, one word so. but then they would sue me and i will get publicity and be on the post and then i will rename it and have a hit. [applause] >> yes, sir. >> it's of the shirt. [laughter] >> have you discovered the secret of motivating the unmotivated or the defiant student? >> the only tool that you have is persistence. the only tool that you have and maybe there is one other and it's your enthusiasm and excitement for the stuff that you are teaching. if i am excited about it, they

are excited about it. the other thing i try to do because of how i felt about my own experience was i tried to connect everything to their lives. so if i'm teaching julius caesar telling them they should understand this little bit of your life is so important when the good fight anthony and they say there was a top aide taken on the fortune omitted, the rest of his life is mired. i said do you understand that? so, that is the kind of thing. but i think it is just persistent. i had a particularly challenging kid. in the book i changed his name, his name is algae. but i mean that there is even a scene where i visit him in jail.

again, it goes back to the young lady's question. it's so tough. it's a calling. and then here is the duty. i've got to tell you this story and then i will finish. i got the chance -- it's in the book by the way. so i got the chance to take the kids to new york city and we were having this trip so all of a sudden it wasn't only new york city we were going to see west side story and go to my friends restaurant on 56th and eighth, it's where frank sinatra used to hang out. so take the kids to this fancy and italian restaurant in the west side story. so, people started -- you know, like teachers wanted to be chaperones.

so then okay but by the time i think it was three students for one teacher but anyway -- anyway, i got a message that she wanted to come on the trip, the principal wanted to come on the trip. sallai going to the class and they were all i'm going to new york. who's going with us? there were a couple others. i said i want you to know ms. carroll wants to go on the trip. no! not the principal! we will never have any fun! i said okay, you know what, this is the perfect chance, a perfect opportunity to teach you a life lesson that will serve you well if you learn it. it's called making the best of a

bad situation. not that she was a bad situation, but i used her. [applause] is a chance it with me. and we started chanting. it sounded like sheep "baaad." i said what me explain something to do. she is going. we can handle it one of two ways. we can tell her we don't want her to go, hurt her feelings -- i heard she has a hell of a memory -- or we could write a note and say we are going to new york and we wouldn't go without you and then we will have a friend in the principal's office. what do you think? it took a while the the sort of got that. well, welcome to answer your -- this goes back to your question -- so, months later and by the way i have to say it did come up in mockingbird, months later i'm sitting in the class grading papers and all of a sudden a kid

walks in pay, mr. danza, i quoted you today. i said you quoted me? he said i told my friend make the best of a bad situation. thank you. thank you very much. tony danza to this and we are live this afternoon at the national press club in washington. grover norquist in several notable conservatives this afternoon will discuss the presidential and congressional election results and this event hosted by the group conservative hq. they will examine what the results reveal about the republican party and its future strategy. we also expect to hear from brent bozell of the media research center and jeneane martin of the tea party patriots.

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon. thank you for coming. my name is richard viguerie, the chairman of conservativehq.com. i'm going to speak for a few minutes and then i'm going to introduce five nationally known recognized conservative leaders, and we will reach talk for a little bit and then we will open up for q&a. the battle to take over the republican party begins today and of the failed republican leadership should resign. out of last night's disaster comes some good news, however. conservatives are saying never again are we going to nominate a big government establishment

republican for president. what's more, we won't have to. conservatives now have a deep bench of national leaders and potential presidential candidates. last night's election of small government constitutional conservatives such as ted cruce, jeff flake, debbie fisher to the senate and the election of conservative mike pence as governor of indiana, the election of other boat rockers to the house portend that yesterday's defeat will spell the end of big government republicanism. these people will join such a small government constitutional conservatives as wisconsin governor scott walker, louisiana governor bobby jindal, senators jim demint, brandt paul, mike lee comer marco rubio and pat to me virginias attorney-general and the 50 odd members of the house such as justin who stood for conservative principles and voted against the debt ceiling deal.

republicans never, ever win the presidency unless they nationalize the election around conservative principles and a conservative agenda. we don't always win the nationalized elections but we never win unless the candidate presents the two world views and romney failed to do that. in choosing to ignore the conservative agenda, rahm me chose not to follow the path that led to the republicans winning the white house session out of the last 11 elections. republican national chairman, the senatorial john cornyn, senate republican leader mitch mcconnell and speaker john boehner and other republican leaders behind the epic election failure of 2012 should be replaced with leaders or in tune with the conservative base of the republican party. likewise the establishment of the republican candidates come excuse me, consultants, such as karl rove, ed gillespie, the

romney campaign senior adviser stuart stevens and poster neil newhouse never be hired to run or consult on a national campaign again, and no one would give a dime to the effect of cyberattack such as american crossroads. mitt romney's loss was a death rattle of the gist publishment republican party. far from signaling the rejection of the tea party grassroots conservatives, the disaster of 2012 signals the beginning of the battle to take over the republican party and the opportunity to establish the gop as the party of small government constitutional conservatism. now we will hear from brent bozell, chairman of for america. >> thank you comer richard. good afternoon. i'm also the founder and president of the media research center. today i am not going to comment on the press other than to say

that nothing personal, but your profession was atrocious this year, and the question really is to what degree did you have an impact in the atrocious mess, and we don't know. it's also going to tell us what happened as a result of that. so we will have more to say later. i am coming as the founder and chairman of for america. how is it that so many republican and conservative pundits had it wrong last night? well, virtually every poll showed obama winning in a distance and virtually every battleground state. why were bozell and so many others so wrong? perhaps it is because so many of us simply couldn't fathom that the united states was so willingly choosing the path to destruction? one could argue that in 08 america didn't know what she was buying. not so this year. obama's record and agenda were

there for all of america to see. surely this time america wouldn't buy yet. somehow enough of us did and we have to ask ourselves how did this happen? some of us are due from the start that this would rather be obama by a hair or romney in a landslide, and for good reason. in politics there are too irritable truths. fine be defined. he who succeeds the projection in his opponent in the presumption and to insult the positive one wins. given his atrocious record in the first term, arguably the worst performance in modern history, and given that he had nothing to offer the first four years except for more of the same it should have been a cakewalk to define him but he didn't pence obama's victory. second, when republicans distinguish themselves from democrats as mr. viguerie just pointed out, they win. there is a simple reason for

this. the democrats always run to the left end of the political spectrum. republic support hovers around 20%. republicans have always enjoyed the support of conservatives, and that number is at least double the number of liberals, hence use of the conservative agenda and you win. obama did not support the conservative agenda and neither did mitt romney at the end of the day conservatives were left out in the cold. it should have been a landslide for romney had he embraced a true the conservative agenda. but romney is a moderate in the campaign embarked on a bizarre defense from the outset. republicans in congress performed even more dismal we if that is possible. for the past four years, and emphatically for the past two years, we conservatives have been telling the republicans in congress what they have been telling us. that they would choose to fight, quote, when we take the senate in 2012. time and again, we conservatives born the senate leadership when

it is safe and if would never materialize unless republicans took the fight to democrats and gave conservatives a reason to galvanized behind them. we were ignored. time and again we expressed to the house leadership that symbolic votes are useless only if forceful agenda to address the looming entitlement crisis that threatens to bankrupt us while living on necessary like pbr de morrill and the inefficient like most everything else would suffice and they should honor their commitments. we suggested for good measure that the demand and increased to the return of the constitutional governments. we were told in response that, quote, when we take the senate all things would be done within the fumigated the room and we left. the end result was predictable. but when the debris did months ago when it became clear the senate gop was going to do nothing.

the projected six, seven, eight pickups, that disappeared. the accomplished instead the impossible. they lost two seats. not one democratic incumbent was defeated. it's time for conservatives to say enough of this and to withhold any further support financial or otherwise from the republican party unless and until the gop reruns' it. to do so, the following commitment must be made by them. one a refusal to participate in any lame-duck session that further advances the left of the democratic agenda. second, at its earliest opportunity a vote to the friend obamacare as well as every other government boondoggle is as committed to determining from planned parenthood to pbs. third a pledge not to raise any taxes on the rich or the middle class or anyone else. fourth, aggressively support a cut cabin balance agenda to terminate wasteful spending, cap

spending at 2008 levels and put the country on the fast track back to a balanced budget. fifth, aggressively support an agenda to undo the regulatory madness in washington. six, permanently banned earmarks' to be a seventh, reform the tax code. return the country to the constitutional governments. number nine, commit itself to a strong military rejecting any cuts from sequestration and number ten, embrace a strong socially and culturally conservative agenda and all of its forms. the gop has an excellent party platform. if you want our support, support your own platform first. thank you. >> thank you. policy director representing america's principles and project >> thank you, richard. to follow up on one of the first points, i think it's important

for the conservatives to start by confronting the fact that the 2012 election was a historic victory for the american left. i think probably the greatest since 1936. unlike 92, 96 or arguably in 2008, the democratic national ticket did little if anything to obscure the content of its agenda. it would be surprising if the obama administration did not interpret its victory as a mandate to complete the european model of american government, nor would it be surprising if in doing so be administration pays little if any attention to the republican house using the judges and regulators to impose its will on subjects ranging from same-sex marriage and all 50 states to the green curbing of the upsurge in the u.s. resumption of fossil fuels through such methods as hydraulic fracturing particularly for the conservatives is that the feet of every republican challenger for the u.s. senate coupled with

the apparent democratic victories in 25 out of a possible 33. hanging on to the house by a slightly reduced model will be small consolation to those of us that hope to repeal obamacare and a broad based tax and entitlement reform. republicans have now lost four out of the last six presidential elections and five of the past six in terms of the popular votes. this followed three landslide victories in the year of ronald reagan that dominated the politics of the nation and the world from 1980 to 1988. this is not the time to recreate in integrated across-the-board conservative politics to counter the relentless and successful assault by the reinvigorated american left it's hard to imagine when such a time would come. >> marjorie dannenfelser the president of the susan b.

anthony list. stat thank you comer richard. while susan b. anthony list in our pro-life mission certainly have been bright spots with the election of the second pro-life women in the senate and the retaining of michele bachman who was heavily targeted by the left and the return of steve king, those were the broad spots over all not a great night for the pro-life movement without question. despite the growing power in the country among women and almost every demographic. the public opinion wasn't closed and certainly along the lines of what jeff just said, yesterday's election during the invitation to the republican party to return to fundamentals. what are the fundamentals of the winning republican strategy? they are what ronald reagan called the three legs of the policy store. social policy, economic policy and foreign policy. fully embracing each one of

those. what we had instead was one wally leggitt with about a billion dollars behind it on the republican side. from the top of the ticket and then affecting every other senate race in the country because of that influence. each of those areas a real mandate is created and then there is a resonance on the ground on the grassroots level that brings public policy leaders to those areas so they can be implemented without fully in beijing on each of those areas, and of course on social policy we leave votes on the table every single time. what we have unfortunately was a defective truth on social issues. a defacto truth on social issues on one side, but a full embrace of the war on social issues on the other side. republicans have the truth,

obama launched a war over abortion and on the life issue. therefore he got to completely define what that issue was and what is at? rate. event rate in the might of many voters because the debate wasn't fully engaged. his weakness, the president's weakness, his extreme positions on the late term abortions on the selection abortion, not saving children born after, even after a feel abortion, none of these witnesses were explored in any debate even during the lies he put forth that went unaddressed. the lie that planned parenthood doesn't perform abortions or that planned parenthood as mammograms, the lie that hospitals that have religious tenants won't be forced to fund abortion drugs and sterilization. voters overwhelmingly disagreed

with those extreme positions by the president and the democratic party to get moving forward, the republican party and its candidates must expos and exploit those vulnerabilities or risk alienating the tremendous and growing pro-life state but year after year in election after election has delivered a winning increment. the war on women was that deemed defective? did it actually move the women voters? when you look at the data over time, you have to say no. the gender gap actually that benefited obama last election actually decreased this election. after that launch of the bad war on women deemed at the top of my every single debate in fact clearly didn't stick to rid of the women's vote was a very fluid and they were completely underestimated, and in fact completely underestimated and

the women actually cared about what our positions are. has the pro-life issue in any way been repudiated? well, absolutely not. i've been asked that question three times this morning. you cannot win a war was is not engaged. you cannot be repudiated. your issue cannot be repudiated if no one has ever heard it and that is exactly what happened on the national level and that is exactly why so many votes were left on the table that should not have been that cannot happen again. susan b. anthony is we are going to look at how we endorse and train candidates. from now on they will not be sent in the field without support without knowing how to actually discuss the issue of compassion and love and exploit the other candidates extremes. we are going back to the drawing board on that and next time out of the box we will see a new set of candidates especially to follow the advice of the rest of the folks here and i want to make another point and that is on social issues, the big burden

on the republican max. well, if you look at every state that had a statewide race, which is across the country that had a valid initiatives come every single state but one of about initiative ran better than the losing republican candidate. thank you very much. i look forward to your questions. thank you. next is to jenny beth martin, coordinator of tea pary patriots. >> for those of us that believe that america is founded is the greatest country in the history of the world we wanted someone would fight for us. we wanted a fighter like ronald reagan that boldly championed america's founding principles who inspired millions of

independence and ronald reagan democrats to join us and the idea that america was founded was the shining city upon a hill. will we got was a week moderate candidate hand-picked by the beltway elites in the country, the establishment of the republican party. the presidential loss is unequivocally on them. with a catastrophic loss of the republican elite handpicked candidates, the tea party is the last best hope america has to restore her founding principles. while that may take longer to restore these principles with president obama back in office, we are not going away. it took nearly 100 years to take america to the place where we are today. it will take more than three and

a half years to restore our constitution. we are going to keep fighting. we respect the constitution, and we know that for america to succeed we need to continue educating americans on our core principles, on the importance of the constitution and why our solutions are essentials for america's continued greatness. when we fight for the principles, we win. our work begins today. county by county, state by state, district by district, we will fight for freedom the way others in america fought for freedom in the past. we turn our attention back to local and state governments and to congress to fight the battles that lie ahead including balancing the budget, repealing obamacare, cutting the debt, holding the line on the debt

ceiling. some things are worth fighting for. our constitution is worth fighting for. america is worth fighting for, and we will continue to fight. >> thank you, jenny beth martin. unfortunately, grover norquist have a conflict at the last minute and won't be able to join us. next we will hear from al regnery, president of the paul revere project. >> thank you, richard. the paul revere project is a media product that works with about 100 conservative organizations across the country in order to help us get a consistent message and so on. but i want to tell the conservative movement is that like we have done before over the past 50 years from his stick to principles. the conservative principles of

our those that have been mentioned several times. so far this afternoon freedom of course, the free economy, strong national security, traditional values, the rule of law and adherence to the constitution, those are the things the conservative movement was built on a starting in the early 50's it's the things that keep coming back. and i should tell the conservative movement that elections come and go. they are won and lost for all sorts of reasons and this election certainly will be analyzed. it's being analyzed already. constantly why people voted the way they did and there's all sorts of reasons for that but at the end of the day it's the principles that conservatives believe and as i say which are the things that keep it going on the straight and narrow and which will keep it going over the next however long we are here. the conservative movement is not going away. a couple of things that i think need to be done first of all is the conservative needs to and will in fact adopt a rather

unified plan of projects that need to be stuck to by all and will be called no excuses. it is now being developed by a group in both the house and the senate and the conservative movement over 100 organizations working on that it will be released within the next week and that will be things some of which brent mentioned with no tax increases, no earmarks, defunding obamacare, keeping the defense strong and a number of other things i would guess there will be ten to 12 items on that list and what the purpose will be used to hold the leadership feet to the fire. brent mentioned that there is little satisfaction with the republican leadership in the house and with no excuses will be designed to do is to give conservatives in the house particularly a list of things which they can go to the leadership and say no more excuses. we will not hear anything that you have to say as they have

done so many times over the last couple of years but get these things done. the other thing that the conservative movement needs to do is look ahead. certainly we will look at this election, analyze it and figure out why things happened the way they did. but then it is time to put mitt romney in the rearview mirror and proceed. as richard regnery menchov there are governors, senators, congressmen, many others who in the next go round will be certainly there to be the candidate. i think we need to start looking at those people early on and organizing behind them so that we have a clear view of where we are going with those candidates. and of course the other thing is in 2014 there is a bright view of senate takeover by republicans as any time in the last 30 or 40 years the number of republicans the will be up for reelection as opposed to the

democrats after two more years of obama and harry reid my guess is the american people will be ready for a significant change in the senate and republicans take back the senate in 2014 they will make the last two years of the obama administration a very miserable time for the president. those are a few of the things we all look forward to taking your questions and thank you all for coming today. >> thank you, al. open for questions. yes, right back here. >> can you give more specific examples of how he could have campaigned and also do you regret -- [inaudible] more vocal about this [inaudible] >> i will take the first one first and then anybody can jump in when they want but i don't think there's any question that he took all the right stance.

that's really not the argument that i would make. he took all the right positions and wrote them in his own hands and we were all happy to spread those commitments around. the problem was not communicating on a national stage with obama what his actual positions were coming and when he was attacked he led the attack stick. and attacked six unless you repudiate it in some way. so i would say that not nationalizing the issue was the problem and we were happy to endorse him when the time came because we assume that given when he was he would make it more of a national issue. ..

>> when governor romney was going down a list of flaws in obamacare, he did not mention the hhs mandate which, if it had been better known, in my opinion, among catholic and other conservative christian voters in places like the midwest which was the pivotal part of the electorate, it would have hurt obama. but it's one thing for voters to know that they don't like the hhs mandate, it's something else if they're not sure if , if it's a major part of the presidential debate or of the program of the conservative candidate should he be elected. so i agree with marjorie, it wasn't a matter of the positions he took, it was just his failure to elevate them when it seemed

appropriate in terms, in the natural flow of debates and campaigning. >> yes. >> i wanted to ask -- >> jeff? >> [inaudible] very healthy share of the hispanic vote in america. a lot of hispanic families share your values, and yet you got killed in the last two elections. do you think that republicans on the hill should push a immigration bill with some kind of amnesty provision as a sign that -- [inaudible] >> yes, i absolutely believe that republicans in congress should get involved in comprehensive immigration reform. not an amnesty in the sense that all is forgiven and they go directly to citizenship or a path to citizenship, but doing something for the 11 million

people who are here illegally, it's kind of a threshold issue. it isn't the only thing that hispanic voters care about, but if they think the republican party's not welcoming toward them, then it's very hard to get their attention on anything else. i would also argue that, in echoing brent bozell, that social issues, they are among the most proo-family -- pro-family, pro-work voting streams in the population, and the failure to use those issues and try to win over hispanic voters was a major lack in the republican effort in 2012. >> [inaudible] >> yeah. >> yeah, um, i think you answered your own question when you said hispanic family values, or hispanic families. the answer, i think, is hispanic family values. i was -- we were all struck in, after the 2008 election when the republican leadership told us that there were two things that had to happen.

number one, there needed to be outreach to hispanics and blacks. and number two, republicans had to get away from the social issues. in fact, if you looked at the only thing that won in 2008, it was the marriage amendment in california. and if you look at why it won, because it was a crossover of hispanics and most especially black pastors that joined the republicans. is so rather than look at hispanics and blacks from the standpoint of what we white people want to look at, why not ask them what they're interested in? why not look at their values and their cultural agenda and their priorities and address that? and that's where there's great common ground, and i simply don't understand why republicans seemingly are afraid of their own shadow when it comes to that. >> [inaudible] briefly touched on. in the first national election,

race and gay marriage, there were a couple ballot initiatives that were successful in that regard. is gay marriage accepted in mainstream america, and -- [inaudible] toward the conservative movement? >> this is an issue that is very much under debate. you're right, there were four blue states yesterday that approved gay marriage, most of them by very, very narrow margins that were far less than the margins in the state legislatures of some of those states. what is, what would be disastrous is if the obama administration used the judiciary to impose a solution on all 50 states that involved making doma, ruling doma unconstitutional and then cutting off the debate at a time when, yes, the other side has made gains, but the pro-marriage side has also won a lot of victories. and to say that something that

is basically, so far, unique to the northeast and the pacific coast as a popular base movement should then be imposed on the midwest, the south and every other part of the country, 32 states of which have explicitly voted to prohibit it. >> [inaudible] look, i, i take my hat off to the democrats for roundly and soundly embracing the principles. they came ready for a fight. they didn't back down one bit when it came to their perspective on social issues whether it was gay rights or abortion. the question is, where were the republicans? if you look at the surveys and you see that a majority of americans are pro-life, you scratch your head and ask why didn't republicans get into the battle with them on abortion? same thing with gay rights. why didn't republicans show up to the battle? had republicans showed up, had karl rove spent, you know, 38 cents of his 700 million, maybe there would have been a difference. >> can i add one thing?

i want to say -- [inaudible] far more extensively, and that is this loss is very similar to why the republicans' fight against the health care bill failed. and that was a failure to put resources, focus and energy into working on each constituency that could have voted down the bill. the pro-life democrats being a great example. about a million dollars out of the 80 million that was spent had been focused on that, maybe those guys would have voted differently, and we wouldn't even be talking about obamacare today. >> yes, ma'am. >> i have two questions, actually. the first is, is there an acknowledgment that the demographics in this country, that it's changing, that there's a changing face of america, and what do you do about that? and the second question is, what happens now that you have the fiscal cliff, you've got this deadline, how does that change?

does your approach change postelection now? >> well, there's certainly very definitely a demographic change. we all recognize that. um, there's a school of people that work in demographics who said that if romney had won this election, it would probably be the last national election that a republican would win under the same rules and principles. if you look at the numbers, and there was a poll that came out this afternoon, that shows where, how those numbers have changed over the last two or four years, and they are significant. there's no question about it. i think that republicans certainly have to address that one way or another. i had dinner with arthur davis not long ago who outlined what he thought, and, um, his points were very significant, things that republicans need to listen to in terms of what blacks and hispanics believe, what they want in candidates and so on. and i think if republicans don't start listening to that, it's going to be a long time before they win. >> regarding the fiscal cliff

and the economic issues, i think what we saw last night is the voters in this country voted for the status quo that we've had for the last two years, which is gridlock. they didn't see a clear distinction between either of the parties, so they went with what they know. and what they know is what we've seen in the last two years is a standstill in this country as they continue to evaluate which direction they want to go. and i think that's what we're going to see in the next few weeks and in the next two years. i think we're going to see more of what we've seen in the last two years. >> yes. >> i'm curious whether you share richard mourdock's view that compromise is when democrats come around to the republican point of view? on big issues. >> that's something i feel very strongly about because i debate this it seems like every day. if i have a home i want to sell

for $200,000 and you want to buy it for $170,000, there's probably a compromise there somewhere. but if i want to buy your home for $70,000 and you -- $170,000 and you don't want to sell it, i don't understand where the compromise is here. and conservatives and tea partiers are just sick and tired of republican leaders at the national and state level, of compromising with democrats which lead to the continual growth of government. why can't we compromise on how much we're going to reduce the size of government? and that's a measure that we're going to hold the republican leaders' feet to the fire on. we want compromise in reducing the size of government. we're sick and tired for the last 50-plus years of seeing republican leaders compromise with democrats and grow the size of government. >> a simple, it's a simple formula. when you compromise in their direction, you lose.

when you compromise in our direction, you win. >> [inaudible] >> there's no such thing. >> well, i mean, identify got a good -- i've got a good example. the president began his first term talking about common ground on abortion because he was sick and tired of what we're sick and tired of, which is arguing about it all the time. well, there's no place in the gestation of a baby that's protected. there's no point in time. that's the president's position. there are many points along that continuum. we went from common ground, trying to find some compromise, to where he made very clear, there was perfect clarity now what his position is, and that is there is no point in that continuum that he would protect an unborn child, not even after the baby's born. there's no compromise there. it became very clear that compromise was talk for i'm trying to bring you around to my point of view. >> anybody else? in the back. yes, in the back. >> for jenny beth. the tea party is having some --

[inaudible] again today just generally. what is the state of the tea party now? is the tea party, so-called, dead? or where is it going and where is it at? >> four years ago we didn't even exist. three-and-a-half years ago there were 22 of us on a conference call. and two weeks ago there was a poll, i bereave in the ap but -- i believe in the ap but i'm not possible the location -- where it said 40 million people would be voting based on the tea party principles and identify with us. so from nothing four years ago to three or four months later to 22 people to 40 million people. it's not the death of the tea party. we're, we're promoting our values of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally-limited government and free markets against two campaigns that have been campaigning for at least the past six years. we're new, we're not going away, and we'll continue to grow and get better.

>> to put a finer point on that, i couldn't agree more with jenny beth, i feel that because of the tea partiers and the conservative movement working at the grassroots level all the way up to the republican presidential nominee in four years, within that period of time the conservative movement, tea partiers will take over the republican party within four years. is there one last question? if not, thank you very much for coming. [inaudible conversations]

>> we'll have more on the republican agenda coming up in about an hour, 15 minutes. house speaker john boehner will hold a news conference at the capitol. he's expected to address the so-called fiscal cliff lawmakers will be addressing when they return from the election break. that'll be live again at 3:30 eastern on our companion network, c-span. >> america ranks 29th now in the speed of its internet behind such leading industrial parts of the world as moldova and ukraine. we pay the highest prices in the world. by one measure, we pay 38 times what the japanese pay per bit of information. if you buy one of these triple play packages, you pay on average in the u.s. $160. in france you pay $38 u.s., and you get worldwide calling to 70 countries, not just the u.s. and canada. you get worldwide television, not just domestic, and your

internet is 20 times faster uploading and ten time faster downloading. and you're paying less than 25 cents on the dollar. all these other countries understand a fundamental principle. in the 19th century, canals and railroads were the key to economic growth as industrialization came along, and you had to move heavy things like steel. as the 20th century came along, it was highways, interstate highway program, for example, and airports that were crucial to economic growth. now it's the information superhighway, and what does the industry say? oh, don't call it that anymore. >> best-selling author david cay johnston on the many ways corporations try to rob you blind, saturday night at 10 eastern and sunday night at 9 on "after words," this weekend on c-span2's booktv. >> c-span programming is good because they try to cover both sides of the issues, and your moderators especially on the "washington journal" do a good

job of staying detached and not getting into offering their own opinions, but just kind of saying, hey, what's your opinion? very comprehensive about covering a lot of the different, both the house and senate and different other woodrow wilson center and different other public affairs centers here in d.c. that i wouldn't normally be exposed to. >> jeff wright watches c-span on comcast. c-span, created by america's cable companies in 1979, brought to you as a public service by your television provider. >> coming up this afternoon here on c-span2, we are more booktv programming starting with an interview with hannah rosen. she is the founder of xx, the women's section of online slate magazine, and she talks with the daily caller's tucker carlson to discuss her book, "the end of men and the rise of women: exploring the ways men are no longer the dominant sex in american society."

and how that trend is becoming more international as well. this is about an hour. >> host: so you make a number of cases in this book, but one is that men are, basically, falling off a cliff. >> guest: sorry. [laughter] >> host: i read the book, and i've got to say it's hard to argue with the case you muster, at least on that question, men are in trouble. give us the parameters of the disaster. >> guest: so it starts as an economic argument. men are just having a harder time adapting to the economy, and women are adapting more easily. i can't tell you why. there have been different periods in history where men have adapted more easily. then it's education and credentials. the economy is fast changing, women seem to be getting those skills and credentials at a much faster rate than men are, and they seem to be more nimble, and then that kind of filters down into our society. so in the book i talk about how that changes marriage and our notions of fatherhood and what men can and can't do in families and, you know, how young people have sex and make decisions. and so you really start to see

it having an influence in our culture. basically. >> host: give me some of the numbers. i think many people -- we've heard for so many years that there's a crisis with girls, that they learn differently, they're not as strong in math and science, and there's been a lot of emphasis on trying to improve that. i think it will come as a shock, as it did to me, to learn that women far outstrip men, girls outstrip boys in academic performance. >> guest: yeah. i have a daughter and two sons, but education is the clearest argument. basically, girls do better than boys. now they have equal s.a.t. scores in math, and they do better in verbal scores. so it starts out kind of early in life, and i think that's largely a developmental question, like we demand a lot more of younger and younger children, and girls develop faster than boys. that's where it starts. and what people say is boys start to get a sense of themselves as maybe a little bit of failures in school. not because they're less smart. it has to do with those extra issues like discipline and can

you sit still and what our schools are demanding of kids seems to come more naturally to girls than to boys. and i have an addendum to that, which i'll get to in a minute. and then you move on to college, community college and other college, and so for every two degrees that men get, women get three degrees. that's a huge disparity. they reached parity about the '80s, and then since then women have been outstripping men. and like you and i may think that you shouldn't need a college degree for all these jobs that you currently need a college degree for, but the fact is you do need a college degree. it's the prerequisite for success these days. michael greenstone, who is a white house economist, said to me, listen, it's simple. the economy has been standing at the top of the mountaintop, you know, screaming in a loudspeaker, just get a college degree and you will make more money. it's very simple. and as he puts it, women hear the call, and women don't hear the call. and there's probably lots of reasons for that. um, if you go back to after world war ii and the g.i. bill, you know, there you had a period

of extreme flexibility in men because i talk about men being a little more rigid and maybe women being more responsive and flexible. >> host: right. >> guest: and men did go to college, and they did become farmers and can take on all these jobs -- >> host: after fighting a war. >> guest: after fighting a war. so, you know, i'm thinking a lot about why this is true. like, is it because women have been the underdogs, or they feel like -- a lot of the women i talked to the to in the book, that immigrant drive that they have to get ahead is part of this formula that seems to be moving women. maybe that worked for men after world war ii. they were coming back from war, and they were like, i want my job back. you know, so that in periods of history, different people are charging forward for different reasons. >> host: so what's the effect in the employment market? >> guest: in 2009 women became the majority of the american work force which is pretty remarkable. like, you know, a working woman was unusual enough in the '80s and '90s that there were

sitcoms. we had murphy brown because look how cool it is that women are wearing pantsuits. now women are the majority of the work force. they became the majority, and now it's kind of even, right? but still that's pretty remarkable. you have over the course of, what, 40 years, you know, men's wages kind of steadily stagnating and then declining whereas women's wages are steadily increasing. now, men on average still make more, but you know, if you look at the charts, the trends are very much like this. and then couple that with the types of jobs that are opening up. so, basically, the way it works is women with college degrees enter the work force at greater numbers, and then they open up the kinds of jobs that women used to do for free. >> host: right. >> guest: so that's like childcare and food preparation, you know, service economy, elder care. and you have this booming health care industry, so you see it's like this cascading effect where there opens up more jobs for

women, and, you know, and also the end of the manufacturing era. that's the most literal interpretation. >> host: right. >> guest: in the book i visit towns that were largely dependent on manufacturing and in which you could have a good life. this is not a new story to people. like, you could be a very prosperous, middle class breadwinner, head of your household by working as a manager in a factory making, like, 70, 80,000, $100,000 a year. you had a very good life, and that option is really not available in the u.s. anymore. and i think that's really messed up a lot of men. i mean, that's really something that men have had a hard time recovering from. >> host: right. >> guest: in this generation. >> host: why do you think that is? >> guest: you know, somebody, somebody said to me something so obvious that i haven't thought of in this town in alabama that i write about, you have these women who do not call themselves feminists and really haven't been -- they're christians, so they don't like this situation where they're suddenly, they don't believe that they should be the head of their household, but they find themselves in this

position. they basically started at the bottom and kind of worked their way up. but if you ask of someone who had a life handed to him, basically, where he was doing pretty well to start again at the bottom, like that's harder, you know? it's harder than for the women for whom even if they don't call themselves feminists, it's kind of exciting. you're suddenly making a paycheck, you're learning new skills, you learn new things about yourself. that's easier than to ask of the guys to start from the bottom again or to sort of hustle or be a way that they weren't. >> host: yes. >> guest: so i got a sense over time that they had been protected in some funny way. i know with don't think of men in this way, of men as needing help, and men don't like to think of themselves as needing help, but they were protected in a sense, so they didn't really have to work that hard for it. so women have this funny combination of opening job opportunities, plus sense that they're behind, a sense that they really need to hustle, and that seems to create some drive where men feel like they were suddenly whacked in the head, you know, the life that was handed to them is now gone.

they don't want to start at the bottom, so you have growing numbers of men on disability rolls which happens in european countries where people give up after a certain amount of time. they just give can up, and they see that their wives are earning money, and, you know, the hard part of this before because the bike is not that triumphalist. there's possible good things for men at the end of it, but some of it is heartbreaking to watch unfold -- >> host: it sounds like kind of a disaster. >> guest: yeah. i mean, it is a disaster in some places, although, you know, you could imagine a world in which, like, when i think of my own sons for whom some of this is true, they come from, you know, well-educated families, they're likely to go to college, but some of what's happening in school is true. it doesn't come as naturally to them as it does to my daughter to do the things that school is asking. but, you know, would it be so bad if when they grew up it was possible for them to be dating or marry a woman who was making more money man they were, and that won't be such a big deal?

that seems to me a good thing. there are places in history where men complain about the pressures of being the breadwinner. i feel like it wouldn't be such a disaster if we loosened that up. >> host: so we have the current system which i think is kind of disintegrating, and i think most observers would agree. you have the data on your side, for sure. >> guest: uh-huh. >> host: but i wonder if that system evolved out of the basic nature of men and then the basic nature of women which are not the same? >> guest: well, this has been the, this has been the hardest question for me as this book rolls out, which is trying to think really hard about where does this end? i mean, you talk to, you know, in alabama when i talk to christian families, it's easy for them. the man is the head of the household, they've had to rethink a little bit, but he remains the head of the household even if he's just the spiritual head of the household. or there's some different way of interpreting that. and then there's the women and

childcare question which we haven't gotten to yet. at what point do we reach the natural limits? i don't think we're there yet. i think there's greater room for men to be domestic without being utterly feminized and domesticated. >> host: right. >> guest: there's more space for that. you don't pass a guy who's taking care of his kids at the park, you shouldn't be thinking, what's wrong with that guy, right? i don't think there's anything -- >> host: if he's doing it on the weekends or after work? >> guest: no, i'm talking about tuesday afternoon at 3:00. >> host: so a man who is a stay-at-home father. >> guest: i don't know. you think it will never get to that point. >> host: i'm not even attaching a value judgment to this, i'm merely noting as a resident of washington, d.c. who lives in a very liberal world, i don't know a single happy marriage in which the man is a stay-at-home dad and the wife, his wife is the breadwinner. >> guest: because by choice. like, those men have not chosen

to be stay-at-home dads, right? >> host: because men's understanding of themselves is bound up in what they do for a living, and i think that grows out of their essential nature. i'm just noting the reality of it. >> guest: uh-huh. >> host: and i'm just not aware -- and i know a number of people who have been in that position -- of a single happy, stable marriage where the man stays at home and the woman -- but maybe there are a lot. i've just never heard of -- >> guest: okay. that's interesting. let's just explore that for a minute, because it's an important question. increasingly, women's identities are tied up with their work in a way we may not like, in which we find disturbing and unnatural. when i look at someone like marisa mayor who was recently chosen to be the ceo of yahoo! when she was visibly pregnant and was asked how much maternity leave do you want to take, and she said basically none. the fact that such women exist, it's not the way i would -- i mean, i took plenty of maternity

leaf. but i -- leave. but i feel like that is a growing number, you know, that is a kind of woman that there can be space for. and the fact that there are some stay-at-home dads who do not all entirely live in portland, oregon, that is okay too. >> host: whose wives respect them and are sexually attracted to them? you've met that couple? because i don't think that couple exists. >> guest: no, they do. i did a survey. 8,000 people answered this survey. it was explicitly of breadwinner wives, women who make more money than their husbands. these were slate readers, which is the magazine that i'm an editor at. they're more educated than the general population, and they probably live in more literate, urban areas. so we're talking about a skewed sample a little bit, but the vast majority describe themselves as happy. >> host: that's great. i mean, i'm not against it, i'm just saying it's not something i have seen a lot of, but there are many things i haven't seen. i'm willing to believe that exists, but you will concede

that it's two things. one, that it is difficult for men -- >> guest: uh-huh. >> host: right? this change of roles is very difficult for men. and for another, that there is the thing where a woman would like a man who has classic, feminine qualities, and when he achieves those qualities, she realizes it's kind of repulsive actually. >> guest: it's so funny, because caitlin flanagan made the point about how sexy it is to watch a man make lunchboxes. >> host: yeah, for a day or two. [laughter] >> guest: on the other hand, there was a funny washington post story which, you know, talked about all women wanted for the man to sort of reorganize things in the refrigerator and do the laundry in the right way. i don't know where women fall down on this question. somebody asked me this question, so what are you exactly saying? let's say your husband who is right now the editor-in-chief of slate and has worked hard his entire life becomes a stay-at-home dad? and she said, like, how do you

feel about that? are you attracted to him? i'm not asking if you think politically -- >> host: no, no, no. we're talking -- >> guest: on a visceral level, what is your response to that? and i really, really have thought hard about that, you know? i think, like, if he was happy and fulfilled and wasn't miserable, i'd feel the same way i feel about stay-at-home moms. there are some who are like always, you know, having to defend their situation and are really unhappy and feel self-conscious and that doesn't seem so natural to me whereas there are some who are just utterly fulfilled and probably moreover them than there would -- more of them than there were stay-after-home dads. one of the moves i had to make in this book was around this particular stay-at-home dad who was making hand print, the shirts, and i was startled by that. like you said, there's a visceral reaction we have to that. but i think it would be better if i beat that reaction out of me. he plays music --

>> host: no. i'm not judging at all. if someone's happy, i just wonder how true it is. i've always noticed that no matter how e involved, progressive a woman says she is, if she asks you where would you like to go to dinner tonight and you give an indecisive, mamby-pamby answer, she resents it. [laughter] every woman i've ever met -- >> guest: those are the women in your circles. >> host: is that true? are there women who like indecisive men? >> guest: i don't like indecisive people. it irritates me if there are indecisive people, but i think there can be a little more of a cultural space if a man doesn't want -- ..

why is.and maybe because there outgrows the things that we can't change. gaska i read all of those books in the female mind in the male mind, it seems like a lot of invention to me. i don't see why we no -- >> host: do we have to keep inventing it in every culture? gaska yeah because physical strength is a fact and it has been for a long time so anything that grows out of physical strength i do find women like to protect roe. the men are not providers and just another mouth to feed. i know this is insulting to men but i've heard that line over

and over again. >> host: i believe it. there are a lot of men out there -- >> guest: protectors like they draw the line there. so when i say what is the man good for, he will protect me. if there is an emergency he will come and protect me so when it comes down not to the stay-at-home dad but the physical protection, which is different than economic provider. it is physical protection like i want a man to kind of be there in the case of an emergency but that is not the same as like if he works and is identified with his job. >> host: but i wonder if it's purely physical? i mean, i wonder, you open the book with really an interesting revealing exchange with a woman you met down on the shore in washington. she was there shopping with her daughter and you asked simply where's the man in your life and she in fact said he is a loser and i don't want them around. he just takes up resources.

i understand the guy sounded like a total loser, but she seemed like she was in a tough spot. it's something pretty depressing. >> guest: zero exactly. i don't think that's progress. you want to end up in a situation or men and women need each other and i'm not sure if it needs to be evolutionarily adapted 40-year-old way but it needs to be in some way. you don't want to end up in a situation where in more classes of society people are not getting married. i personally don't care if people get married but it has to be in the european way where they like live together and support each other or in the same household but not necessarily married. not in the american way because americans are very into marriage and when we don't get married, it looks dysfunctional. it means that you are not really supporting the family and not helping out. >> host: why do you think that? gas go i think it's because economically the men are not working and i think the women,

it's like okay -- >> host: do you think there is a preference? >> guest: zero i'm sorry i misunderstood the question. why do americans have a preference for marriage? we are conservative and more religious. >> host: you don't think the reason his children? >> guest: oh no because i think europeans to raise children together without getting married. you are asking me specifically why do we like marriage? we have a higher marriage rate and a higher divorce rate. we work out a lot of obstructions around marriage where own you live in progressive washington and anything goes it's not really in america. we like marriage and impact the college educated classes are in an extremely conservative traditional moment. >> host: rich people to get married and poor people do not. >> guest: of that is relatively recent. it used to do the opposite. >> host: there is overwhelming

evidence that traditional american-style marriage no matter who is the breadwinner is the optimum way, the optimum environment on average in which to raise children? against cohen america. like other countries have come up with perfectly viable models like the swedish couples in the european progressive couples don't really get married but they stay together. >> host: unmarried couples stay together on average for less long period of time been america. >> guest: great like marriage but we have what is called a marriage go-round and it's not as simple as you are saying. most books on marriage say -- we have a very turnaround culture around marriage if you are not rich, whereas stability of union in america is related to marriage but in other countries, it's not really. >> host: where does all of this leave children? >> guest: zero you know, the children of the elite now which

is sociologically defined as college-educated are i think in a pretty good period. we are in it period in which children pay an excessive amount of attention and attention and we are in this hyperparenting moment where even though women are working these days, they are spending more time with their children than they did 30 years ago and fathers are more involved in that class of society. i'm sure you're not a father in the same way your father was. my husband is certainly more involved with the children then my father was. i think this is a good moment and your parents are much less likely to get divorced and to stay married and more likely to say their marriage is happy. if you are among the college-educated you are in a good spot as a child i would say. but if you are not, then you're in a much worse spot then you than you were 20 years ago particularly if you're a boy because your father is less likely to be in vault in your life and impact your parents,

one thing i describe as your parents are investing in a child is like a real economic decision so parents, or mothers rather make the decision that daughters are more successful in school and therefore are more likely to invest in daughters and send them to college. what used to be true, this is how you get entrenched matriarch and people decide their daughters are going to be more successful so they put their money into their daughters and the mothers tend to be role models for the daughters and the fathers are less around. >> host: the redefinition has weakened the traditional family. >> guest: and certain segments of society. in college educated it has strengthened marriage and made it possible for people to not to be stuck in certain roles like at least people get to reason that marriages are happier now because what i called seesaw marriages that at least theoretically no one is stuck in a certain role. the woman feels like you know she can be making more money and

the obamas have a seesaw marriage. michelle obama is working and barack was in law school and now she's the first lady. theoretically people can flip-flop and to some extent it's not uncommon these days to have a marriage where couples kind of take turns and i think that takes the pressure off of marriage, say like the marriage is one read about in 1952 where the woman felt unfulfilled and the man felt like there was a news around his neck. that model of marriage has loosened up a bit and created happy stable marriages. >> host: but i wonder that kids. there are clearly more kids in daycare, small children than there were 40 years ago. >> guest: lots of countries have -- scandinavian countries, children go to daycare when they are one and mother's day home. i don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

mothers do -- politically neutral and they only measure like you and measure americans homage time do do you spend in leisure activities and how much time you spend with your kids? parents spend more time with their kids now than they did in the 60's and 70's. don't ask me how. >> host: but if, and i'm pretty sure the data support this point, moore 1-year-old kids in daycare today than there were say 50 years ago. and i'm wondering how one could argue that is -- >> guest: i don't know what the data shows about what is wrong with children and i don't necessarily think there's anything wrong with children being in daycare having babysitters. it's not necessarily a good thing or a bad thing to me. if you have involved parents and your child stays in daycare from nine at up to 5:00, it seems like a neutral thing to me. i mean it depends on the daycare. if you have you know, my children go to preschool let's lets say and it's like a lovely

preschool with a lot of teachers and they are there until nevin or 2:00 and it's like these things are not necessarily bad or necessarily good. >> host: having watched for children it's hard to imagine that a 1-year-old child, and 9-month-old infant is going to be cared for as well by stere is by his mom. >> guest: i mean i don't think really the problem is for child educated parents these days is that we neglect our children. we in fact have the kind of intense parenting culture right now. we can debate whether we make our children do too many activities are, but i think largely what we see is parents investing a huge amount in their children these days. like you know you see the magnet era where women spend a lot of time with their children and they neglect their children -- [inaudible] the fact is studies, parents

spend a huge amount, what do i know about what parents did then? we measure our children and make sure they are k. and worry about their happiness and make sure they are in a lot of activities. that comes from i don't know, i think it comes maybe from a sense of kind of like guilt and changing roles and the fact that we worry a lot and so the more women work, the more people worry a lot. just like the kind you are expressing. it is not like people accepted and they come home and worry about their children but the fact is we invest a lot and spend a lot and life is complicated and busy and children are overscheduled and all that but if anything i would say the children -- this is the character building argument. we could use more time for children and take care of themselves rather than their

parents managing but that is like, i mean you know what i do talk in the book is what happens a lot with working women and the breadwinner women is women don't give up ground when they take on the ground so a lot of couples in my book women are doing a lot of work but they are also really managing the domestic space pretty closely. even these women whose husbands are home during the day take over when they get home and it's just something that women tend to do. >> host: creating a man without his own sphere. >> guest: putting a lot of pressure on the woman and a lot of confusion, like one of the men called his wife and overinvolved absentee mom or something. he never feels like he can completely own that realm whereas the women are sort of tinkering. >> host: back to my point about emasculation i think. i mean every person, especially men, need to do something they

feel the master of. we are very good at this and no one is good as i am. >> guest: i would say that about most women. >> host: i would say that's right. >> guest: i can name a handful of stay-at-home mom that i know that don't have some kind of anxiety about that and and in society today, there are some who do. there is some some who are utterly fulfilled and again we live in wishing 10 and there are some who set out for a certain number of years and they're fantastic and totally fulfilled but also a large majority think, they feel just like me because i work or what do i know? if we go by the sample that we know, you at least have to shave that a little bit by saying it's not an entirely settled state for women any more. >> host: i completely agree. i think men are more fragile than women in this regard. >> guest: in regard of needing their self-identity. >> host: but what they do for

a living. >> guest: when i interviewed younger couples what i found as they operate on a much cleaner slate than than you or i do so they actually generally have removed this sense of gender from a lot of things. which is not the way in college, maybe i was an equality feminists but i mentioned in college in the '90s, we generally have the idea that we were both going to work and help bring up the children and it was going to be equal, 50/50 so i find people in their 20s and 30s, the people who are rising in some profession that i write about in the book, they will say whoever is going to be the breadwinner -- when i asked them about their future plans they will save the i whoever's the breadwinner at that time. they talk about it like a theater role. one person can dress up and it is much cleaner than when i was in college. >> host: that is not my experience at all. i grew up in a very liberal

place and i didn't have these assumptions of gender roles at all and i didn't think my wife would stay home with the kids. i was totally open-minded about it and in fact i have come to my views pretty honestly actually which is to say not through reading about them or some theoretical process of reaching a collusion -- conclusion about what makes people happy. >> host: . >> guest:if i take my own life which i write a little belt in the book i -- there was one time and my husband was taking the kids on vacation because i had to finish a chapter of the book frankly. i watched them get them together and going off with his brother and sister-in-law. in my head was running through all the things he was doing wrong. he wasn't packing this and he wasn't packing that any didn't do it the way i get it. i don't know if that is a natural instinct. maybe that is nagging. i kept my mouth shut and didn't say anything because i am writing the book and i

understand frankly that is what i did and it's fine. didn't matter that the children didn't have this or that? no it didn't matter it also may be what people do is invent new ways of doing things. >> host: i doubt there is a mother in the world that wouldn't do that so maybe it's growing out of something that hasn't changed. >> guest: why can it be changed? there are so many things we thought of this the seam in a chair. we think it's human nature that women should not work. we have described human nature is so many things that women have trampled on over the course of the century not so much with men i would say which is one of the fun oman i describe that we thought women working at all with young children was unnatural and leased to think working while married was utterly natural so we have laws laws -- and women making more money than a man was unnatural because of horse demand had to be the breadwinner. we have thought many things were unnatural and i hear you there may be a point where something

is unnatural but i don't think we know that. i don't think we have reached that point and i think we have lie to ourselves about that a lot. >> host: i think we have lie to ourselves and the other direction. i was pretty open-minded about the nature versus nurture debate and i realized that her parents had much less effect than it was supposed to. kids are born away they are and a lot of that is determined by that. >> guest: i don't know. there is birth order. >> host: that is one among several but here's a factor. what are the the ina differences? >> guest:>> guest: i don't know honestly. i have read the book the part of my feature for the book was to sit down with the male brain in the female brain. the convincing argument seems to be that we have a huge amount more in common than we have then is different and whatever is

different between men and women is not so ingrained as to totally determine complicated decisions like are you going to go to college, who were you going to mary? these are complex decisions and if you look at other countries, the men are systematize her's and women are empathize or is. that is one difference between men and women. i will tell you i have two sons. one of them is exclusively obsessed with trucks and cars and the other one is like abutting computer programmer. my daughter spent a lot of time reading so i have i succeeded in my scrambling gender roles? know i have not succeeded in scrambling the gender roles but does that mean like you know you were talking about a snapshot of childhood. does that mean anything in the future about the decisions they make and who they mary? it probably means something but it doesn't determine vast social changes that we see in our world and it does not mean that my daughter can't stay home and take care of her children. it mean something but it doesn't

mean a huge amount. i think that is where i come down on. >> host: it just seems like history has all sorts of experiments where the designers of experiments proclaimed an end to the old way of doing things and then beginning to the new way of doing things and in the end the french revolution and the pol pot regime and also more benign movements, and indian people sort of referred to the way they grew up. have you noticed this trend? >> guest: know, no. i so disagree. people move a fast way along the continuum and men and women over 100 years have changed, women especially vastly. compared to the way they used to be and you might be right that -- but i don't know where it is. like this idea that women can't do math and science. go to eastern europe or asia where one of my chapters is and women do math and science and engineering. so the idea that like women

emphasizing brains -- we don't knows let's try that experiment, try the experiment to remove any social expectations which are hugely influential in how people see themselves. maybe we'll see. in 100 years we will get to the point where like, do you know what? i cannot be attracted to this kind of manned and i cannot become this kind of woman but we are not close to that. >> host: how about female philosopher's? >> guest: what do you mean? you could get me with silicon valley. there are other professions where it's true that american women at least don't quite flock to. >> host: given that women are doing so well and does he have said and again you prove it is at least to my satisfaction are beating men and every important

category. why do we have a firm and affection for women? >> guest: why do you ask me, where's our female president? my husband is always saying, where's the female president? >> host: but if the trends you describe in your book are real of course that will happen. you know, it's great. why is it that we have this massive apparatus is still in place in the federal and state government level that treats women as underperforming victims of the patriarchy and give them preference in hiring in federal contracting? >> guest: let's go case-by-case. i will take the university first. they are, i think there is quietly affirmative action for men and we just don't talk about it. so like you have to go case-by-case. in the workplace, there are lots

of ways and because i describe the phenomenon and describe that women are writhing in the work towards, there is a parallel thing of sort of how women get paid and how they negotiate and where they start on the latter and how they are treated in the workforce whether or not we determined these. those lessons are totally not settle. women are rising and setting down roots in getting the structure and education they need but the work worst doesn't necessarily clap their hands and welcome them and. there is a lot of you no inequality in their workforce. >> host: let me give you a really simple one. the small business venture gives loans to small businesses and under the obama administration which is three and a half years exactly the period which has become obvious that women are winning. that administration expanded the category of businesses that received referential loans, tax dollars for women.

since women are women, why in the hell are we doing that? >> guest: small businesses are different than what i think of his work basis. places that are financed and law firms. those places i feel like, do not acknowledge the rights of women or take it into account or accepted. why are you giving me that look? small business is a different question and i wish i knew more about small business. >> host: no, but the principle remains men -- women are succeeding in men are failing in the federal government gives preference to women. >> guest: what do you mean? women are starting at the places that i describe, women still get underpaid. they are just creeping their way up. you can be ahead in still be treated unfairly. i don't think necessarily -- how is it that we have a workforce where women are the majority and we don't have any paid --

that doesn't make any sense. you can't solve the issues because merely women on their own one at a time or acting are acting like immigrants and no,. >> host: they are required by law. >> guest: there is no other country where that is true. >> host: there are lots of things about america that are better but you have not answer my question which is, if you establish conclusively the trendline so why would we be giving preference to the group that is succeeding? why are we giving preference to the group that is failing? >> guest: every woman is succeeding on her own despite the fact that the workforce does not give any allowance to like you know, children or the other things we will have to do or the humane life in america. i feel like just because women are succeeding, it's like women are basically like immigrants. each one charging forward and doing their individual thing.

i would say despite the fact that they have -- >> host: you said a minute ago that it was because of that fact. you are comparing their experience as an immigrant with a head when that they face. gaska y. actually think those things are tied together. i don't think it's like we should end all those things. i think it's because in some sense women have to have a lot to prove and more things they have to get over and still look, we are uncomfortable with it. do you think there'll be a phenol president tomorrow? and every psychological study you have women who say i would like to raise because i think i deserve a raise and she gets penalized. we are obviously not working out all of these questions yet, right? >> host: i will get off of this in one second that tommy the point at which we can say women have succeeded and we can take up out some off the scale and create an equal playing field at the federal level?

>> guest: where should our -- >> host: when should affirmative action stop lex. >> guest: when you can as a class measure women so not as an individual person but as a class measure men and see that they work the equivalent numbers of hours and get the roughly equivalent amount for the roughly equivalent job. >> host: what are roughly equivalent hours? you would have to have massive changes. we are not even close. gaska we would take out the hours. the problem with the wage gap measure, when they get 77 cents on the dollar is not actually true because women work fewer hours of that is not a great measure of equality because women work fewer hours. so let's take that off the table and take the hours and say roughly equivalent jobs get paid roughly equivalent amounts. there is a small gap now.

right now there still is a gap even if you take the same number of hours for the same job for men and women, there is some small gap which has to be like a lag in discrimination of the fact that women don't feel comfortable asking for raises. therethere is still some culturl factors. >> host: so women don't feel comfortable asking for wages? because women don't feel comfortable asking for raises, the federal government should penalize male small businesses? >> guest: do you think there is no discrimination? >> host: that is not the argument i'm making. i'm making the argument that the federal government shouldn't be discriminated against men in the delegation of loans or federal e out.y contracts or any otheroh men are in serious trouble. i hate affirmative action in all its forms. gaska look, you are taking a tiny government program. i can say the same thing to you about disability that there are

more massive government programs who tend to favor men. you would have to take it industry by industry. college admissions came up with intelligent affirmative action programs that were generally doing -- you just don't believe in any kind of affirmative action. >> host: here is what i believe in. affirmative action programs are not trained relative to the federal budget like the small business administration but it pervades government. and it feels wrong just going by the conclusions of your book which should be say i buy completely. as a matter of policy discriminated against by the government into which they pay. >> guest: you have a son lets say and you have a daughter and let's say your son -- >> host: i have three daughters. gaska let's say your son received affirmative action in college because men were about

to be classed as unequal and this is a private college and your son was like a leg up. would you be all right with that? >> host: i don't believe in that it all at all and i agree with you. i'm aware of this and i think you're absolutely right there is affirmative action in colleges that helps boys. ..

the business gets preference. why not? men are in trouble. >> guest: because maybe men are not in trouble and individually owned businesses. i don't know. >> host: they are either in trouble or they are not, right? >> guest: this is uneven it's not like all of a sudden all women are doing better than all men so if you look at the leadership of your average law firm like you to find a different picture than the manufacturing sector. you take different sectors have different analyses, so when i look at silicon valley which i do that's a different picture than when i look at the manufacturing town in alabama and interview couples and they are going through different

things so there's a part of me that left the town in alabama that would get the factory backed. i'm not so unsophisticated i know the goebel forces are and where the large analysis is but they are a part of me that wish we hadn't said those factories out. i didn't think that was a good trade-off but we have treated a lot of men since the identity and pride and that seemed like a bad trade to me so that would be held that i would accept a and i would be functional affirmative action for men. >> host: so rather than getting preference to female businesses and businesses owned by men and high school. >> guest: and manufacturing maybe they don't start. >> host: is dominated by women and so is education and a lot of rural communities like you know health care and education,

schools and hospitals are the only stable jobs. >> guest: . the result is female headed households and of the pathologies that flow from that so why wouldn't it make sense to make certain that all of the zero measures of teachers are men? half of all of the nurses are men. >> guest: the would be great it would also change the cultural factors around these jobs. right now the men that i interviewed in my book find those jobs to be on macho even though not all that long ago a secretary was explicitly a job reserved for a man because it meant you trust the firm and the secretary became a female job and as i describe in the book they don't do that. they are fine with going into the male-dominated professions and going into female dominated professions i would be perfectly happy with a man putting in my catheter at the hospital and i would be perfectly happy if men

became nurses and didn't find that unmacho because in these small towns what do they have? the hospitals and schools, so that to me is an easy one. if we gave them free tuition to go to community college to become a nurse and then down at the local hospital but the program i would get behind. i like the government. >> host: i would think would be grotesque and the leveling for the men but i admire your willingness to follow these ideas for the watch will conclusion we are probably not going to do that. they probably wouldn't accept it. >> guest: i disagree with that. >> host: there is no debate about that because that is the way men's minds work. why is it that the grandson's of rich people are not always but generally unimpressive? this isn't a phenomenon that you have noticed?

>> guest: we have to expect from that from all of those handsome sons that he has produced? >> host: they might, but the trend line on this is as you know -- >> guest: it's the sense of entitlement how we started the conversation. people ask me our men inherently a flexible? no. ulin know lots of men that are flexible. they have been flexible work why are all of the men in your book such couch potatoes? you looked at this moment in history and there is a little bit of wretchedness and they would need things that would be fine that would be better to admit the need things and in terms of the third generation spawn of the rich people because when much is handed to you it is difficult to be flexible. >> host: that is exactly it. so what do you do about men? because by the way when men collapse it hurts women and children for sure services and a

small thing and i know you are not gloating over the end of men so what do you do? >> guest: you hope that men at that some flexibility and do certain kinds of jobs that they had formerly not found to be macho enough. >> host: just suck it up and become nurses? >> guest: some of them in fact that is what happens to a man in my book and people read that story and think we all have to become nurses. if a percentage of men became teachers and nurses and especially teachers because i think that would do a whole lot to solve the bigger problem, that i would find absolutely. >> host: and what do the bozell team -- i am kidding. i'm only kidding. >> guest: it would be fabulous if more men were teachers would be great for your son and my son. but that aside, people are starting to come up with creative solutions that meet the

problem halfway. what am i talking about? dignified exit for the men that don't require them to become women but some of the men in my book for example high-tech manufacturing is something that requires you to get an amount of education and a degree but not spend your life in school because even factories now are much more complicated than they used to be so you can still consider yourself macho but meet this economy have we committed the credentials you need for a new kind of manufacturing existence that isn't the old kind so that is one hopeful pat than something people call orders and manufacturing where another guy in my book that was in his fifties when he left his textile job she makes specialized structures for the people in the area. this is something people do in brooklyn and alabama. in fact it's so funny you should say that because i got the most kind of tender moving e-mail from our diet that is aimed glassblowing and he said to me i can't find a good men to work

for me i feel like i would pay them to get this education. this is a good paying job. i've got this factory i could hire 30 people and i cannot find any men who have the work ethic to do this job. >> host: because you don't want to inhale. it's part of the problem. it's a totally honorable thing. the craftsmanship. this has to play a role in the phenomena that you described. that despite the traditionally masculine traits being macho is mocked. it's a kind of castrating attitude. >> guest: i think i've contributed to that by the title of my book alone, and i really have. it's funny when you put together a bookend to go chapter by chapter you don't realize it is the accurate portrait of that i have sort of repeated in certain stereotypes chapter after chapter and by the end, you think am i -- what's wrong with being a man do we have to become women at the end? of course we don't all have to become women in the end. we are at a moment and i find

this more with progressives because i think that guys in manufacturing towns don't actually have this problem. maybe they sense it or listen to rush limbaugh or sense that it isn't summer but deep in their heart they don't feel that. but for the progressives i feel they are actually stuck in a funny moment where all of the television they have watched taught them that it's ironic. it's not like you are actually allowed to be the boss on for 30 rock or in the office, that guy is the joke but you don't want to be the -- i have agassi in my book that i would like this that is a progressive guy that works in the creative economy and he's like i don't know which way to go because that isn't socially acceptable but i see the stay at home dad in the park and i shudder and i can't be him even though i believe in him and he's like yeah i believe in that guy i want him to exist, but i don't want to be that guy.

>> host: your wife will have contempt for you if you are that guy. she will. that doesn't mean you have to chew tobacco and recourse is or something but it does mean if you are indecisive and weak the woman you live with will have -- >> guest: wait a minute, i can't believe you equate being a stay at home data -- [inaudible] >> host: i'm not saying being a father is indecisive and weak at all one saying overly feminized men -- >> guest: why is taking care of your children -- >> host: i'm not saying it is tall and i wasn't even talking about child raising i was saying in general the text of the progress of guy, this sort of sensitive guy with a general neutral pronoun and all that sort of stuff in the end -- >> guest: i think you can take on roles -- maybe that's part of the point. >> host: america is getting so progressive and men are about the classic generals and all

that. 50 shades of gray which is a feminist dystopia. really in the and she just wants to be spanked and told what to do. >> guest: i feel the same way about contraception debate. >> host: it's the best seller among the women on college campuses. why? >> guest: because there's a lot of nostalgia. i'm serious. >> host: a stelle tougher things they've never experienced? >> guest: best goucher for a world that is leaving us. like i find this among men and women. there is a way in which we are giving up a world and entering another world and we are just grabbling. >> host: you don't think that it's something deep within -- clearly is resonating on a deeper level than simply must of job. >> guest: we have that and then we have movies where women are killers. like we have the most popular here when of the day from the hundred games where she is the protector, she's the provider, she's the killer. and the guy is the feminized one who is leaving him understand how to win over the crowd.

like we are working out like a pretty extremis stereotypes'. the book is like as extreme as having a woman killer, like we are working out -- post with the male audience for 50 shades of gray. i read it as -- i found it not erotic because it wasn't aimed at men at all. i read it because i love women and i want to understand them better. i mean it. but the other novel of course is aimed at both sexes and i think most man like it. i think it is worth thinking through why progressive enlightened women with very few preconceptions about gender roles love a book about an overbearing dude who likes to

spank girls. >> guest: but that dude was ridiculous. that guy doesn't exist. if one preserves that guy in once fantasy that's fine but why in the world would it be like that? >> host: how could that even appeal to the women in the progress of sensibility? there's a lot going on beneath the surface. >> guest: this is what i appreciate about 50 shades of gray, that fantasy has persisted through the domination. that is like a steady fantasy. i mean, because i have a chapter about the hook up culture and sex and spend a lot of time talking to sex researcher and one thing that comes upon is a persistent fantasy that has not waned all through the areas of feminism. i don't know what it tells me. >> host: it tells you that it's not as simple as we pretend it is.

they're our desires. if sex is a window into how we really feel -- >> guest: i don't know if that's true. sex is a window into sex. we can feel that way forever about sex and the world can change over our heads drastically and we could continue to feel that way about sex. that seems a possibility to me that it's a window to something, that's true. >> host: i think it goes a little deeper than that, but i see what you're saying. we are a war on many minds. >> guest: how did we get to this place in the conversation? [laughter] >> host: i found the book interesting. i disagreed with some of the conclusions, but i really enjoyed it. >> guest: good. >> host: and i think that you are right about a lot of it. thank you very much. >> guest: sure. my pleasure. america ranks 29 to on the internet behind such leading industrial in the world like

ukraine will data and ukraine. we pay the highest price is by far. by one measure we pay 38 times as the japanese for information. if we buy one of these triple play packages and i have one in my home, you pay on average with taxes in the u.s. almost $160. in france you pay $38 u.s. and you get worldwide calling for 70 countries, not just the u.s. and canada. you get worldwide television, not just domestic and your internet is 20 times faster uploading and downloading and you are paying less than 25 cents on the dollar. all these other countries understand a fundamental principal in the 19th century until now the key to economic growth as the industrialization came down and you had to move heavy things like steel and the 20th century came along. it was highways committee of the

interstate highway program for example and airports that were crucial to economic growth. now it's the information superhighway. washington correspondent for salon recounts the first race riot in washington, d.c. in august 1835. the riots were followed by two criminal trials tried by the city's district attorney francis scott key who wrote the star spangled banner. he descended slavery in the prosecution and sought capital punishment only to be thwarted by the alleged victim whose late husband denied the right to decide the capitol. he speaks at magers and quinn

booksellers. [applause] >> thank you magers and quinn for hosting this event. i suggest this and the whenever anything less than enthusiastic. a minneapolis bookstore and i'm very glad that i landed here. i want to tell you a little bit about the look and read a little the book. many old familiar faces. whenever i come back to minneapolis i have a feeling of what a special place and there's probably a few people here who will at least remember the place if not agree with me, and so old friends.

i will relieve myself here. i attended an advanced placement class at the old west high school which was right down here and you have to be really old to remember -- [laughter] spec why did you write this book i think it is a great story. it's a story of what happened, the events themselves are so amazing and as a writer. it was really terrific and was such a great story but as i got into the book i realized it was actually more to it than that and had a more profound message and that was that it takes place

between the revolutionary war had period, the founding of the country in the late 18th century and the civil war which are the two great periods in american history that get written a lot by the american revolution and the civil war to read the kind of ignored, and what i realized as i was writing this book is pretty much everything that you know about that period and everything you have been taught about that period is flat wrong. it's completely wrong. and so i realize that part of this book is to tell people that, that everything you thought you understood about this is completely wrong. succumb if you think washington in 1935, 25 years before the civil war, you know, what would you think? slavery was well entrenched, the black people were miserable, the whites were kind of cruel and

indifferent, and that is actually not true at all. in washington he wrote about 30,000 people in the city, 12,000 of them were black. the majority of the people the free. out of the 12,000 there were slightly more than half that for free. some more prosperous and others were getting there fast. there was a man who owned a stable about two blocks from the white house and he served to the taxi trade. he was a black man from madagascar. there were two brothers, thomas and isaac. the owned a couple of barbershops on pennsylvania avenue. they came from a family in virginia that had been free for generations to begin fact one of those black families owned slaves themselves to the brothers actually while they were cutting here the but also

sell antislavery publications and of a hero of the book i think of him as a barack obama and a man who comes out of nowhere to conquer and charm washington for what they want to chase a backlash and if you read the book you'll see some parallels. the point is far from slavery being dominant in washington, d.c. and the all oppressive say it is receding in the forces of liberty are growing and that is a part of what this book is about. you probably think the civil war began in april, 1861 that's when

the shooting of the civil war began the civil war actually began 30 years before that. it is in this program in the early 1800's that the antislavery movement first comes to washington and the direct ideological conflict that leads to the civil war, the conflict between the people that are forced and the people that are against, it actually starts in this time in washington. that isn't something that you get taught in the history books but you will see from the story that that is actually the case and that is what happened to it so it is this the end of people, lynn schwartzman, beverly's know who actually are the ones who really start the fight against slavery that leads to the civil war and the great expansion of american freedom.

they had a little group of black entrepreneurs have a white friend who was an itinerant editor, traveled around the country like a familiar face for me, and he had an antislavery movement called the emancipation and he would travel around and mostly newspapers of the day they really avoided the slavery issue and they would report on the politics of it but they didn't really want to get into it. then he reported that there was a killing this man was beaten and here's how they escaped, shares of the churches have caved. he really did real the investigative reporting at the time, and as the antislavery sentiment that the movement starts to grow in washington, he has enough money to hire a new assistant and he hires a

promising young man from boston and he teaches them how to be a journalist and report about slavery and the great irony they would want to die in obscurity and he would go on to become the most famous abolitionist editor and one of the most influential american journalists of the 19th book, too. you probably think the only important thing that he did in his life is write the lyrics to the star spangled banner. he went into an interesting career in politics which is completely unknown to most people she was the modern washington character after he became famous in 1814 for writing the star spangled banner he did what people in washington usually do and he parlayed his fame into a lucrative practice

and the political connection into jobs in the of the culmination of francis scott key's in 1833 when he was appointed to be the district attorney for the city of washington. what he did in that time i wouldn't say that was as significant as right in the star spangled banner which was obviously an enduring bet but it was really important. an unknown for iraq to delete affected francis scott key's is his brother-in-law was roger and he was very politically ambitious and with his help he ascended the jobs in the yet penetration of andrew jackson. first he helped him become the u.s. attorney general, then the secretary of the treasury and then in 1836 the chief justice

of the supreme court. he went on to write the dred scott decision in 1857 which effectively legalized slavery and he's in the coming of the civil war so they were inseparable political figures in this period and influential and important in a way that is totally forgotten. in washington there is a bridge that crosses the potomac river in the park where he used to live and in the park there's lots of exhibits that are devoted to him and there is one that says he was active in antislavery causes and this is wrong, completely wrong. it would be more active to say that he was active in suppressing the antislavery causes. part of the point of the book is to remind people of things we really don't want to remember about our own history so this is also a book about the real francis scott key but i don't want to give the wrong

impression. this book is not a polemical book or out to score points. it's to tell this amazing story about washington and 1835 and 1846 which began on the night of august 4th, 183-5177 years ago. a 19-year-old african-american man stumbles into the bedroom of his mistress of the woman that owns him in the middle of the night carrying an axson ax and she's sleeping in the room of her servant who is the mother of aa that just stumbled into the room so they wake up and scream, his mother shoes him out the door, slams the door, arthur is outside yelling and shouting that he wants to be free, the

neighbor who gathers and of the word begins to spread mrs. thornton has been attacked in her bedroom by a slave with a ax. this comes at a very tense time in washington, this antislavery movement is disturbing the publications to everybody in town for the first time the antislavery movement is really in pressing upon people the reality of slavery with these reports, very detailed about what is involved in the brutality of slavery so among the blacks and abolitionist whites this is overdue but they feel this is the first shot and that arthur was part of a slave rebellion in attacking mrs. thornton so when he turns himself in a few days later and says i have no memory of what happened she is raced off to

jail and the mall the convergence on the jail in the judiciary school and tries to seek him demanding that he be turned over and he can be hung on the spot. he comes to the defense of the jail and is trying to hold back the jail when the secretary of the navy called in the federal troops and the marines from the navy yard the troops marched on pennsylvania avenue and surrounded the jail and push the crowd back and protect the jail so arthur will not be lynched so the order is only temporarily restored the because at the mall, frustrated by the fact that they cannot get their hands on arthur they did believe to the does it turn their fury on every other black person in town, so the mob is split up and attack any black people out of poverty, the churches, the schools, the black courthouses,

anyplace is what people gather the mobs were to destroy it including first and foremost beverley osnos's restaurant which is a symbol, the symbol in washington of black success. the restaurants right in the home of the 60 pennsylvania frequented by politicians, senators, congressmen, the finest of the high society beverley snow is a well-known and respected character, and the maldon and its fear of this antislavery movement and the insurrection attack snow. they knew there was trouble coming and he manages to escape and get away but the mall the trashes his restaurant and then goes on a rampage and destroys the city. it's quite a shocking even. it's totally forgotten in the history of washington when i asked people about this. one reason i heard of the ever

heard of their not yet in 1835 and i never met anybody who had. it's completely forgotten that when you read the newspapers you realize what a shocking even if it was since it had been invaded 20 years before in 1814 and they came in and destroyed the white house and the library of congress and all that but this was comparable damage it had been inflicted by americans themselves and there was a lot of shame and remorse about how could this happen and a lot of recrimination, and so francis scott key is determined to pursue the agenda of the jackson administration which is to make sure that this leyva order is safe in washington and they are they are not going to run away. so he has the district attorney has the job of a stylish in law and order so he does this in a

couple of ways. the first thing that he does is put arthur on trial for the attempted murder of mrs. thornton and also put on trial a white abolitionists antislavery man from new york a doctor who have been bringing a truckload of antislavery to washington. so, that the book tells the story of how the riot comes to pass and then the story of the criminal follow and in 1835 he is very eager to win a conviction. by this time mrs. thornton has come to the defense of her alleged assailant and she says in the trial arthur never lifted

a the ax and she never believed he intended to hurt her and she felt safe in his presence, he was just beyond and she wanted the whole thing to go away. well she was in pluggable and he didn't listen to this. he managed to get other people to override her testimony so he's convicted and there is only one punishment to that which is the death penalty, capital punishment so arthur goes on to death row in january of 1836. with the clock ticking mrs. thornton does something even more remarkable and on our thursday have in the criminal trial now she goes out and starts recruiting her friends in high society of washington and

she was a very prominent woman with many prominent friends, easy access to the leadership of the country she went to vice president van buer in and said use your good offices with president jackson, tell him that he should pardon arthur. the execution should be worse than the crime and she couldn't contemplate that he would be e ticking down and i'm going to read you a little part of the book about what happens in tiberi in 1836. arthur searched for a way. he hoped for a pardon from the president but he had to be ready if it didn't happen. he had to admit the truth of what john cook said all along.

he had the right to be free and would destroy the freedom. arthur said he never intended to harm mrs. thornton or to convince even himself of course he had no intention. they gave him that in tension and unleashed the center within by drinking, she was a schoolteacher who advise arthur about ways to get his freedom but he was also a temperance man and told them if you want to be free you have to do two things, learn to read and write and stop drinking. he condemned himself and had to take responsibility and decided to write a poem about the feeling of repentance. with pen and paper he sat in the dim light thinking about his friends from the racetrack on the square like william thornton he had a talent for writing. farewell my friends each flying

moment to bring this mean year on to my awful fate. he made a reference to his family whose commands i wouldn't obey but plunged ahead into temptations dreadful way. he admitted his folly. nothing did i ever drink i never used to think that i was doing wrong. to me was read the awful sentence in my years of writing and gave me time for my repentance then i must be hanged. goodbye, goodbye may god almighty please you all do as you please shed but a tear at the unhappy fall. copies of the poem circulated and the intelligence which was the newspaper in washington published a copy. the editor which was the newspaper in georgetown pronounced very credible. everyone in washington seemed to know the personal petition had

been presented by president jackson and asked him to exercise that which is in his power alone. the people avoided the response was the deepest anxieties. i'm going to leave it there. [laughter] i want to close with a note to bring the story back to the present. when the book was reviewed in "the washington post", the reviewer took issue with an argument that i made in the book which is as i spend more and more time writing the book i realized that there was more and more similarity between the politics of the 1830's and politics today, and i think that the red and blue politics that we see today, the red states car

if you look it originates in this period and i disagree quite strongly with the reviewer's contingent. he said they might find an element of the book jarring beginning with antislavery forces in the 1830's resemble today's political trend a conservative and blue liberals. this anachronism is on helpful at best, misleading at worst. i totally disagree. i think that the similarities are quite clear and they really revolve around this time of politics, so it is no surprise that they are the same. then as now americans argue about what kind of property rights as any individual have? in the 1830's, the argument revolves around slavery. did people have the right to own property and people come and the

the force in favor of more property rights, maximum property rights, were in favor of the maximum property rights invited in slavery. and the liberal traces which are traditionally they have a more restricted view of property likewise, in the debates about citizenship part of the debate but slavery was citizenship. did they have the right to be citizens? it's very similar to today's debate about illegal immigration. do these people have the right to be the citizens come to the have the right to be citizens? then as now the conservatives took the restrictive position of no american citizenship is reserved for a smaller group, for native-born americans. then as now the liberals become citizenship open to a greater number of people. also, with free speech when francis scott key's is prosecuting the antislavery

movement is a classic free-speech argument of the type we still have today. he said no we have to restrict free speech rights to protect our safety. if we allow the antislavery forces to say this, then we will have slave rebellion soon we will all be in secure so we need to restrict the free speech rights and that is the same argument that they meet today and the liberals to take the same position them as they do now which is no, free-speech rights should be maximal and we should worry less about safety and more about preserving his free-speech rights. so that is a very strong theme that runs throughout the book. some people disagree with that. for yourself. with that, i think i am going to questions people have about the book or would i have said so far. >> yes? >> where did you first come across this piece of history,

and how long before you decided to write a book? >> i first heard about this in about 1998 and "the washington post" i was working on a story about a neighborhood historic preservation dispute which got me to read some history for the city of washington. and that is when i found -- there was a race riot in 1935 and i heard francis scott key had in the district attorney and i thought was interesting and i went around the post newsroom and i asked people did you know about this race to buy it? nobody had written about it and nobody knew about it. so i knew it was a story then. so i wrote a piece for the sunday magazine for the "washington post" in 2005. it was such a great story i had the chance to write a whole book about it and so i kind of had it in the back of my mind and then in 2009i got fired from the job and i said go write that book

and have a good time to read so i've been nurturing it all wrong. even after 2005i thought i will write a book about this some day. and i continued to read in the per going to do more research, so i nurtured it for a long time and then when i got the contract, that was three years ago, so it took about two years to research and finished a book in that whole time. islamic you mentioned william garrison. he was alive the this particular incident. >> what garrison did is what nobody else had done in american journalism. they would go out and write about specific slave traders and name names.ñw/ñ they taught garrison how to do it and originally they were published in baltimore which wa

a bigger slave trading town, so they both read articles about different slave traders. one saying he was a beast because he had sold off children and had broken up families. actually both. that's what they wrote about, and in those cases they were after the articles appeared and beat the hell out of them and then when he filed charges in his case the judge said well you deserved it and dismissed the charges and dismissed the case. in garrison's case, after beating him up, they also charged him with libel suit he was about to go on trial in baltimore and he knew he wasn't going to get a fair trial so he left in 1833 and he went back to boston and that's when he founded the liberator which became the great antislavery publication in the united states. and he had to leave town as

well. he charged him in 1833 with an article the was well known in washington at the time walking across the bridge in the potomac and the constable started chasing and people knew what that meant but they supplemented by kidnapping and selling them into slavery so the woman ran away because she knew he was trying to kidnap her and she fell in the potomac and drown. that was that. here's what happened. the district attorney then congress should do something about it, and so, he was furious so he charged with libel.

he was trying to drive them out. he wanted to get rid of the antislavery forces in washington, and so lundy did the same thing as garrison he was facing a thousand dollar fine which would be $20,000 or $100,000 so he collected a lastz meal from his friends and he took off and went to philadelphia so the movement was very embattled throughout this time and that was his mission to kind of drive these people out and suppress. >> was there at this time mainstream press the was covering this including the abolitionist?

>> nope. there were a lot of papers of the time. reflecting three different political tendencies and the was a weekly newspaper and then a paper in georgetown. georgetown is now part of washington, d.c. but it was a separate municipality. so there were a lot ofñm newspapers that these were aligned with political factions/ in the government, said they would talk about -- they wouldv> write about slavery as the politics were playing out inw8w8 congress somebody presented a petition for the abolition ofw88 slavery in the district ofw8w8w8 w8lumbia.w8w8w8 they would write a story aboutw8 w8at, but about the experiencew8 w8 slavery or the abuse theyw8u8 would never write about.u8 >> the race riot was very wellw8 covered pity it was veryv:wz shocking.u8u8 nobody expected that to happen7x and there was a lot of

recrimination and debate and wh: was responsible and in the whit8 working men.u8u8u8u8u8 th7:e mechanic was any kind of7x working man. it wasn't like our conception of an auto mechanic.v8u8v8w8v9 it's anyw8 manual worker.w8w878: the mechanics got together at least some of them said how dar8 you say58 that we did this.6]7:8 we didn't do7x that.u8u8u8ux nobody ever wrote about that.ñ> it took advertisements all the time. that was the chief with a figure

they didn't want to touch the issue. it was a little explosive for them. the campaign -- welcome about was the thing. they couldn't ignore mrs. thornton. she was very prominent. her husband had designed the u.s. capitol and was a very close friend of george washington and a very close friend of thomas jefferson, so she was a leading lady in society, and so they wouldn't rave about what she was doing directly, in that part, you know, you could tell the word had gotten around that she was trying to help arthur and so that was kind of -- you could kind of see that.

nobody ever wrote an article about that but you heard information on that throughout the press. so, yeah. >> a couple questions. you talked a lot about the different parallels between then and now and i guess i would be more interested on race and what parallels you might see. also you are talking a lot of then and now like they were condemned to repeat history. is this your conclusion or something they can learn? >> i think -- yes, the politics of race or central and when i talk about those principles, you know, that we debate in the kind of red, blue, conservative division, race runs through them

and that is a big part of it. one thing that is remarkable about the story coming and remember, and inauguration day pennsylvania avenue and gets up and starts running down the street and i'm watching on tv and my god, that was really beverley snow, and nobody knows it cannot even barack obama himself who is the quintessential obama story and nobody knows it, and i think to me i don't know if this goes directly to your question that the idea of just the success is written out of history. it's just sort of religiously for rodham and that is my only explanation for why the story isn't known and when nobody knows the story of beverley snow or the rye yet f-18 35. are we condemned to repeat it? i think the obama experience

tells you that the continuity is run very deep and the backlash against obama i think is very akin to the backlash against beverly's no. obama is the president running a restaurant, so yeah, the country is in better shape, but the there. they haven't changed that much. organized or vocalized response from the black community itself in washington at the time? was anybody running and hiding? >> no, they weren't. in fact the barbour, probably beverly's no's best friend had a barbershop right next to the restaurant and filed a lawsuit because there was a crackdown on

the black businesses after all this happened. perversely the response was to crack down and denied the right to own licenses in his case he was selling perfume and he wanted to keep the license to sell perfume and he won that case. but the rye it was very discouraging for washington, and a lot of that come a lot of the most able and successful went to toronto and beverley snow and william who was his business partner wound up in toronto and they wound up in toronto said it was kind of an exodus because they have really reached the limits of what was possible in washington, and they have seen further. so they moved on. yes? >> say something about the research, the frustrations and

triumphs to be a >> well, i always knew like your question i was going to do this book and one reason i knew is because the sources were so interesting and there were so many good sources. probably the first, first and foremost was anna for ten by the time the story takes place in 65-years-old and she's been keeping a diary of her life for close to 40 years. and pretty much rolled down every day, five days a week, six days a week what happened in her life. she wasn't -- this wasn't an emotional diary. she wasn't an emotional or expressive type of person mr. adams came, john quincy adams come he came over to play chess. i read that she read frankenstein and she thought there was very morbid. she went to the market and she

paid 12 cents for a dozen eggs and she wrote down everything that -- all of her purchases. so for recreating daily life this was extraordinary and it made me realize that i was going to be able to recreate daily life in every internet and realistic way. i didn't want to write a book about congress and politicians i wanted to write a book about the way that people lived in washington. and this became a kind of mission of mine as i got into the research is to write a book that was about living in washington and not about washington politics. the daily newspapers were in abundant source of information because you had so many of them and you had these different tendencies so you would look at things slightly differently. and you could get a lot of information that point then i spent a lot of time in the national archives and i found the docket book of the court for the circuit court at that time so you could find out who was

breaking the law, how they were breaking the law, having the business deals go bad. you could get a sense of the texture of daily life, and then finally the last thing was the property tax records which were also bound and there i could see beverly's no getting rich by the year when it comes to town after the first year he's got $100, the second year he's got to wonder, third year he's got 300 so if you're making $300 a year you were starting to move into the middle class. so, you could attract that way. about was another way that they had learned a lot about the characters that were in this book. then there was francis scott key's himself who everybody knows is and there hasn't been a biography written since 1939 so there was a lot about him flying

around and then when i was doing this research i found in the court records many indictments coming you know, hand sign. in my book i have a hundred autographs of francis scott key's come so that was -- the thing i think i'm the most proud of this figuring out who beverley snow was through his advertisement because he left no records come he left no diary or records. wherever he went he seemed to attract attention because people always had anecdotes about him. they really didn't know that much about him until -- i had seen some of the ads and i thought they were interesting and then i realize we need to go back and read every single newspaper and get every single ad because that is going to be where he expect some salt and in fact they are very funny and you get a sense of the man. one of his favorite abs was

called need to keep coming and he was selling the idea of health food in the 1830's. this food is not only good, it is good for me. a very modern idea. in the true washington tradition he is a master of self-promotion. he was great at this and a self invented american, and i think that is really the thing that i liked the most about this book. this person that nobody knew existed actually comes to life and realize what a great and unusual person he was. and there he is on the pages of the book. >> did you compile the book all that once in the information nor did you start to compile the book as you went and then realized? you were overwhelmed at times with all of this reading in the information or did you pace yourself? >> i did it i had written the articles in the magazine articles so i had expressed at but i decided i wouldn't start writing right away and i spent

about nine months just doing research. then the idea was to just get everything in place and don't try to start to really. then once i had that in place it took awhile. there were three draft in this book, different versions of it so it took awhile to get it under control and figure out what was most important and what could be cut out to read one version was like 700 pages long and that was later by the end it was probably 300 manuscript pages long. so a lot got left out which you are very lucky. [laughter] so, yes it took awhile to get sure. >> did you use a filing system or the jeal logical certification system? [laughter] >> what i did is made a final and had a separate file folder

for the key period of the book which was 1835 and 1836 where i have a folder for every day of the year and for every day i would put it into that so when the time came i would pull out a a row ready to tell the story like that. i got a hold of a blank page. look at a blank page. you don't know what to do. so what you always want to do is have good notes in front of you and so really what you are doing is just kind of editing the notes and turning the notes into pros so you are never looking at a blank page and so that is what i could get going on that.

in letters that i would make copies of but could never turn the computer. i have in the digital world and >> i am interested in the change of the city of washington in 1835.

thirty thousand people, twelve thousand are african-american. of the 12,000 who are free, how many are free? >> 6,000. a majority by 50. >> there was an exodus after this event. what changes in washington? >> the trend continues. the free black population of washington continues to grow and by the beginning of the civil war free black people on a hot number slaves in washington 4:1. in the last 20 years -- you have to understand if you were a black person in virginia and got the state within a year by law or you could be sold back into slavery. those people once they got -- they were not going to go to there was no slavery in those places. philadelphia was a five day ride at the best. once they got their freedom they went to the district and there

were jobs and opportunities and in washington, this was a big surprise to me. mrs. thornton had a guy who she unknown named george plant who was her driver and was a jack of all trades to fix the wagons and did all of that. george had a wife who was free and lived in georgetown and had four kids and they were free and he would go home at night and he was a slave who commuted. that was one of the variations of slavery at that time. a lot of slaves made money, their owners would hire them out. your own would say you would be hired out to the hotel, you would be a waiter in the hotel. the owner of the hotel would pay

your own your wages. but you. there, you were a waiter and could make tips and control your own time so it was a more fluid thing. that is one reason why the anti slavery movement could get going because there was more room to operate and this is one of the things that key was upset about. these killers and freedom the blacks were fighting, everybody understood that was going to be the foot in the door to greater freedom and that is what they were trying. this is when the real ideological struggle begins, the slave power determined to stamp out the anti slavery forces and the anti slavery forces are beginning to organize, appeal to public opinion, and gain strength, and that is the fight their rides on and culminates in the civil war 25 years later.

>> your commuter for lack of a better term, would that be more like someone coming -- able to owner. but snow had a term written into his terms of slavery that he when he was 30 bought his freedom for $5 but that was recognized that was legally his do. there were white indentured servants but that was dying out by the 1830s. how black people got their freedom? happened all different ways. sometimes it was given to you. sometimes when people died be

free their slaves, sometimes they said slaves would have to pay the going rate for a healthy young person, that could be $800, thousand dollars which was a lot of money. you could live for couple years on a thousand dollars. there were lots of permutations of slavery. lots of race too. amazing to think about but no doubt about it, washington was a more racially integrated city in 1835 that it is in 2012. there were no black neighborhoods in washington in 1835. blacks and whites were intermingled. there were black blocks and things like that but know that is a black neighborhood. that did not exist at that time.

>> do you know the degree of black literacy? >> very hard to tell. john cook was a free black man and he was the smartest black guy in town, he was the teacher at the school and organized a little group for young black men which arthur bowen was part of you want to get out of slavery here is how you do it and he had a school and the son of the one who a delivery stable had a school. there was education, but what percentage? i don't know. arthur bowlen was obviously literate, he could have written that column. floridian taught him to read and write but how common that was we don't really know. it was not unknown that black

people were literate. anybody else? >> was anna thornton alone? her mother and then maria, up that anna thornton and maria they ran that household together.

m. >> the only one that stood up -- >> will you tell us if anna thornton recorded in her diary accelerates, it all comes down to what president jackson page letter, 18 page handwritten second by second detail, everything that led up to and

everything that followed. you learn firsthand exactly what >> back on that. >> found that ladder in the letter. the original. >> how many fascinating stories are just sitting underneath another piece of paper? >> after writing this book, i am sure they are there and they could be very surprising. i am still looking for it. >> would that be one of the main

lessons from writing this book or was there another one? >> that was really the big one, the way history is taught can be so misleading. and the key is to get to the reality of how people lived, not the politics, the way history is traditionally construed, but what was the day-to-day life of the people? that is what i came away with. thank you. [applause] >> historical novelist ken follett presents the second book in his century trilogy focusing on five families, american, english, german, russian and welsh as they traversed the social and political landscape of the second world war. ken follett speaks with charles osgood, anchor cbs news sunday

morning at it historical society in new york city. >> good evening to all of you. we were told ten and to go -- i have to say i know you from so many years of reading your terrific books. most of the people here tonight, tremendous pleasure. one critic -- being able to get lost in a wonderful story and come out days or weeks later feeling something you didn't before. i appreciate what you do so much. in day today journalism we are in awe of something historical,

a trilogy, this is a tiny little piece, i learned on the cbs morning news that you too are in day-to-day journalism until your car broke down. >> close to the truth. my first job as a newspaper reporter, i worked for the south wales -- my home town newspaper. i work for a london paper, the evening news and it is true that my car broke down and i couldn't afford to get it fixed and i went to the bank and asked them, i needed 200 pounds. quite a lot of money in those days and asked the bank for a loan and they said no. a colleague on the newspaper had written a thriller and of course we were very interested. how did you find the time to write it and how much money did you get? and he got 200 pounds.

[laughter] >> and i went home that day and was mannered british married to my first wife mary, i know how we will get the car back. i will write a thriller. and she said oh yes. but i did. i wrote it very quickly. it wasn't very good but was good enough to get published. i got 200 pounds. >> the car got fixed. >> the car got fixed. if i try a little harder and spend a little more time on the next one maybe it will be better. in fact i wrote ten books before i had a success. >> that would be very encouraging. to know that if you're first ten books don't sell, that is okay. but it says something about your

determination. >> of stenson. but it is a factor because a lot of people start writing a novel particularly journalists, so many journalists have 100 pages of a novel and the thing is when you start writing your first novel, it is a new experience and it is exciting to make up these characters and give them names and say he had brown eyes and she had a voluptuous figure and you get to page 15 or page 100 and start thinking probably nobody is ever going to read this. i would rather go to the pub. when i got to that stage, i thought heck with it. i am going to finish the thing out i have started it and i think probably everybody who eventually becomes an author has that streak of a abstinence that makes you say i started the

thing and i am going to finish it. >> in the news business we are discouraged from making stuff up but you have to make everything up. >> almost everything. ever since i of the needle, the first book that i research. the second book, i was born in 1949 so i had no memories. ahead to find out what everyday life was like during the war for people in the u.k. so i researched it but ever since then, i realize that works for me, to write a novel with factual background that is very much a part of the story. it helps me to give the book a kind of texture. it is not everybody's way but weaving the fictional story with a lot of facts has been the way this worked for me.

>> if you are going to use research for a book is one thing if it takes place in one place. i seem to remember i of the needle did. but a book such as this one which takes place in so many different places can you possibly go to those places or do you go to those places? >> i prefer to visit any place that i write about. winter of the world, a lot of the action takes place in cities that are familiar to me in a way, washington, berlin, i have been to st. petersburg and moscow. i did visit a few places i haven't visited before. i have a chapter about the development of the atom bomb and a lot of that took place in new mexico but in particular there was an exciting true story of

espionage. santa fe in those days was crawling with fbi agents. everybody knew because they were wearing tweed jackets. a terrible thing to wear in santa fe. some real serious espionage went on. that is great drama. i went to santa fe to walk around the streets that characters walk around. i find that very hopeful. >> i wondered when i came to buffalo with a you had gone to buffalo. >> oh yes. a couple times i have been to buffalo. the other thing is buffalo features heavily in the first book, and 1 hundred years ago was a very different place from what it is like today. nevertheless i went and looked

around but i got ahold of old maps, the buffalo blue book which was the list of high society people in town, got newspapers that were published in newspapers published at the time and walking around is never enough, but it is a good basis. >> gives you a feel for the place. in doing research, it is one thing if you do your research but are you able to do your own research in a book like this that covers so much? >> i have to do it. other people wouldn't know what i was looking for. i do have helped in finding stuff. i use a researcher in new york city who finds old books and

maps and films and photographs and sometimes people for me to interview. i interview them myself. i read the books myself. i have never been able to let somebody else do that part of it for me because a novelist is looking for specific things. it is hard to sum up what i am looking for but has to do with dramatic events and telling details and so on. so i'd do it all myself and i normally spend six months to a year doing the research and the planning before i actually write a chapter. >> that is a lot of rearing back as we say. really have to do a lot of preparation. once you start writing, do you do it in sequence? do you do scenes? >> i do it in sequence.

i couldn't -- it is difficult enough to keep a whole novel in my head. if i started writing it out of sequence i would get so confused it would be hopeless. >> actors who shared out of sequence -- talk to somebody who is already dead or something. >> that is right. i don't know how they manage it. >> you have the advantage, the stories are being told against the backdrop of history that actually happened. you do want to make sure history is for you. >> yes i do. that is part of the reason for the research. also as a kind of backup, when i have written the first draft, i hire historians, the best i can find and i have read the first draft and look for the states and i pay them and pay them quite well because i want them

to take it seriously. academic historians don't have that much money so it is not that expensive. i want them to take a week to read my book carefully and make a careful report and check facts because they don't have all the information in their head. what that means is when i am writing the first draft i can be a little bit free if there is some information i can't find that is relevant. i can make a guess at it and feel confident that if i have guessed wrong in at least one of my historians will find out. >> do you sometimes lose track of your own characters? if you have this many characters and the book is extending over three volumes maybe there's something you would forget about.

make some say something he wouldn't say. >> i forget more fundamental things. i forget the color of their eyes and how tall and are and how old they are but i make a spread sheet. that is how i deal with this. every time i introduce a new named character i put it in a spreadsheet with the character's age, the spreadsheet will calculate the age in subsequent chapters saving me some arithmetic. i also pace in any descriptions. i say she had red hair and green eyes and paste that into the spreadsheet so next time i need to describe her, i can remind myself what she looks like and make sure i use exactly the same phrase to describe her again. >> and remember it might have been 20 or 30 or 40 years between now and then. she has to get older. >> i have to calculate the age

and the about what differences the years might have made. >> when you were talking about a certain person and dialogue takes place and the scene is evolving, do you keep the reader in mind all the time? >> all the time. i think about the reader all the time. will they believe this could happen? will they be interested? will take care? will they want to know what happens? i think about that all the time. i once had a conversation with a friend of mine who is a very different kind of writer. of much more literary writer. we were talking and i was saying this, talking about what readers like and what they expect and he said i never think about the readers. i said to him that is why you are a great writer and i am a

rich writer. [applause] >> that makes good sense. i feel the same way in music when someone listens to something and it is so hard to listen to it. they will say i did not write this music for the people. i write it for myself. >> there are a lot of writers who think that way and a lot of writers will say i write what i think is good and if anybody else thinks it is good and wants to read it i am very happy about that, but that is not my target and some of them are my friends. i respect that but it definitely is in mind. i always wanted to entertain people. i have learned the way you slowly learn things over the years about yourself, and i learned i am a bit of a song and

dance man. on like to make people laugh and give them a good time. that has always been my approach to writing. >> when you think that way about your readers, the reader will also care about the book more, you write page turners, have to give some -- really turn the page or push the button or whatever you do. you are asking them quite a lot. you are asking their attention over quite a long time. >> yes. and there is something else. i am very conscious of the fabulous range of alternative forms of entertainment that are very easily available to people and i want them to turn off the tv and stopped playing computer games and want them to pick up a slightly old-fashioned thing called a book and use their

literacy skills and their imagination because there are no pictures in my books. they have to make the pictures. so i am very conscious that i have to give people something that they can't get on television. i think what that is, what that can be for me is a depth particularly in a historical novel, the depth of understanding you would never get. i know you are a television and saw hope you won't be offended by this, but on television words come relatively slowly. we read very quickly so we get from a book more information, more insight than we can get from a tv show. so i think that is what we have to offer people, to get them to read our books. we have to offer something a bit richer and they can get these wonderful alternative forms of

entertainment. >> in radio we like to say i say at the end of my broadcast i will see you on the radio because in some ways radio is more colorful and picturesque and television because of the mind. you engage a person's mind and they make their own pictures which are closer to them and in many ways more memorable. but a book is yet another step in that direction. >> you are right. it is a similar kind of thing. you use your imagination, do a little of the work yourself. >> some of the characters in your books are one you didn't make up. by the way, it is very thoughtful of you at the beginning of the book to list all the characters because occasionally you want to go to the front of the book and say who is this?

and i think there is a thing about recognition that keeps you going this is the same person i met before in germany or england. you have five families in five countries but they seem to move back and forth, their children do, brothers and sisters. >> i thought that was important. i didn't want to write five parallel stories with the character's going through the wall on the revolution, experiencing things -- i felt that wouldn't have been a novel. that would be a dramatized history book. i wanted them to meet and interact. i had to select people who would move around. for example there are two brothers who are factory workers in st. petersburg at the beginning of the story but they

split up and one goes to the united states and eventually become the gangster and the other stays in st. petersburg and fights in the first world war and becomes a revolutionary and general of the red army. at look for ways which although they start in their country and ways they can move country to country and meet and interact and intermarry because that would make a better story. >> you like some of your characters and dislike others? they are all your fault. >> serious. it is true. i generally quite like all of them, even the ones who are unkind or foolish. i generally like the mall flow there's the occasional exception. when you create bad character you are supposed to make him shades of gray rather than black-and-white. i am not sure whether that is

right. i quite like bad characters who are real ogres. the character, the villain people talk to me about more than any other is william hanley in the pillars of the earth. there's nothing good about him at all. he is rotten -- isn't a bad enough word for this character. people talk to me about him and they say why didn't you kill him earlier? i wasn't going to kill a character that good early in the book. would have been a waste of real resources. i have mixed feelings about this. occasionally it is great to do a character who is 100% evil. >> the one that you did not invent, the prime minister's,

chancellors, those people. since you are not responsible for them they actually lived, you like or dislike them? without feeling guilty? >> that is right and there are tremendous villains particularly -- like stalin, we have no sympathy for but most -- when i have real life characters from the story, obviously you can't treat the real-life character as you would a fictional character. i can't have them do or say anything i like because he is a real person and what i write about him or her must be true to the character. what i try to do is use their actual words. what a real historical character like fdr or president roosevelt for example has a conversation

with one of my fictional characters are try to put in his mouth things that he actually said in some other context, in a speech or a memoir or interview with the newspaper reporter to maintain that authenticity. i have seen in fall of giants where the conservative aristocrat neat's the prime minister and he -- david lloyd george, because this is the 1920s, from moscow, going around great britain and preaching communism and making fiery speeches and even giving money to newspapers and says to the prime minister, you should send these people home. you should expel them from our country. lloyd george says the more the british people know about communism the less they will

like it. and communism is best viewed as a distance through a rosy mist. he wants the russians -- he is quite sure that every day that they speak they are turning more british workers off of the hole idea. all of that, in that scene everything lloyd george says actually comes from a memo he wrote because people worry genuinely saying to him you got to expel these russians. he wrote a memo explaining -- in that conversation i use the words from that memo instead of in written form. that is the way i try to preserve the authenticity of a historical character even in an interaction with a fictional one. >> another scene, london returns

to moscow from exile. people turned out to see lennon and he gets off of the train wearing a business suit were something like that and they are looking for this fiery guy dressed like -- you keep reading going for a while and still waiting for lennon to get off of the train and he says this was lyndon --lenin. you don't always get what you expect. the character everybody is supposed to know. >> lenin had made a long journey to st. petersburg. while he was in sweden for swedish communists brought him some new clothes out of the goodness of their heart because he was so scrub the lead rest.

he arrived at the finland station looking like a bourgeois which was moderately embarrassing. so you knew that. >> something you found out and could use. >> a true story. >> i have to ask you this because it is a practical question. do you ever take any time off? are there days that go by in the place that you would write that you say i am not going to do it today? >> i never do that. i have good days and bad days but on a bad day i write something knowing i can fix it tomorrow. right from the start, i was aware that -- or i feared that if i let myself wait for inspiration it would never come so i would always -- i would always write something just because to do for off seemed

like the road to perdition. this probably comes from my upbringing in and having work ethic drummed into me and all that kind of thing but i don't know many writers who wait for inspiration. even friends of mine who have quite bad boy reputations, staying up all night and all that kind of thing if you say to them what time do you start work in the morning they say 9:00. i don't think you could write a novel with you didn't write routine like that. >> how many hours? >> i am writing these long books now and i don't really want to leave too many years between the books. i don't want people to forget who i am. i am working on those. i like to start early so i generally start at 7:00. i get up and go to my desk and a

bathrobe and i usually write until 5:00 and do that six day is a week and if i get behind schedule -- i never worked in the evening in that way. i am fine in the morning, early in the morning. in evenings i do relax and go to the theater and restaurants. >> you have a very full life, children and grandchildren, you actively participate in their lives. [talking over each other] [laughter] >> you have the other characters to create. [laughter] >> tell me what the place looks

like. i remind myself of the character in amadeus visiting mozart at studio and mozart is not there and he is sitting in the room looking around saying -- looking for some explanation in the surroundings for how he does this thing that he does. please tell me what your surroundings look like. >> i like to be surrounded by books. i also need reference books. not as much as i used to. now is easier to google it and look it up but i still like the feeling of being around books. i have three homes and library in each one and that is where i work. i work at a computer. i use a keyboard because i was on newspapers. in my house i have a little

collection of drawings of authors. my centerpiece is picasso's drawing of balzac which is very big. one of those things picasso did where he got a face in a few lines, lines. obviously very quickly. kind of a miracle. if you have ever seen a picture of balzac -- i have pictures of people who are better writers than i am to encourage me to try harder. >> they are looking over your shoulder. >> looking over my shoulder and saying do that again. >> speaking of doing it again to you do a lot of writing? >> yes i do. i do a first draft and a free right but also when i start in the morning i read what i wrote yesterday. i always change. i always think of ways to

improve it. sometimes i am lucky if it happens, a whole chapter, and realize i have taken the wrong approach and back to square one. hy do a lot of that. basically i think nowadays i think if i feel lazy, then i remember there are five million people waiting for this book. if i do something of little sloppily, they will know. five million people will think that chapter wasn't up to his usual standard. he must have fallen asleep over the keyboard. >> they're looking over your shoulder too. >> they are. it is very important to me that those people enjoy a book of mine. i want them to enjoy another

one. even if i am tempted to skimp in the end always rewrite it. >> do you think of the history, background of what you're doing as just background? do you want your readers to get something out of the events that taking place that had a sense they might not have had before what it would be like to be there? >> i do want to that although it serves me as well. i get a lot of inspiration from history typically in the planning stage. i spend a day working on a lot plot and realize there is a hole in my knowledge and reading the book about some aspect of what i am writing about and that will fill the gaps in my knowledge but also give me ideas for more dramatic scenes. i am always looking for something dramatic. i've read something in the newspaper or see something on tv and think i can still a story

about that. we all do that. >> when you're writing turns into movies or television series, when you see those things do you feel they got it right or is it up to the producer or director to -- as he or she sees it? >> they tell a story and pictures. a screen writer or director tell the story in pictures and by, story in words. it is the difference skill. they have to change. they don't change it just because they think they are smarter than i am or the hell of that. they have to because there are scenes in a book that won't make much sense when it is told in a movie. they have to change it. they either do it well or they do it badly. if they do it well it is a big thrill to see.

good actors on the screen doing the things i wrote and saying the things that i wrote. that is a big thrill. it is badly done you bury your head in your hands and say oh my god, how awful. that sometimes happens. it depends on their skill. >> chris wood you play a bigger role in -- >> they never even thought me for the oscar. it was very interesting for me. very good for my education. i was on screen for 15 seconds. it took half a day of filming. that is not including the time spent in costume and makeup. the effort that goes in to making movies and television drama is just terrific. i was walking around the set for

the pillars of the earth and ice are the loom for weaving as a prop, didn't appear in the story. but it was a twelfth century loom. blooms change century by century. it was a technology that developed and i happened to know that this was not an eleventh century blue or a 13 century loom. there might be six other people in the world to happen to know that but someone working on that film knew it and got it exactly right. that is very impressive. >> are you tempted to be in any more of these things? >> i like the glamour. >> it was a privilege to work with eddie redbane who was one of the stars, i felt honored and

i learned a lot, i learned for examples that you can't act if you're trying to remember your lines because the new save the lines with that look on your face of what comes next? if you're going to act even in a 15 second role you have to know your lines automatically. i learned a lot. i am not tempted to do any more of it. i will stick to what i am good at. >> how was the third book in the trilogy coming? >> i finished "winter of the world" at christmas so i have been working on edge of the eternity since then and completed the outline. it is about the cold war. it opens in 1961. there were two great events in 1961. one is the building of the berlin wall. i have a german family -- they

live in the central district of berlin and when the wall goes up there on the wrong side of it. they are in east berlin. and they are stuck. that was the point of the wall. you couldn't get out although people tried. people died trying to get out and some people skate. that is part of the drama. the other thing that happened in 1961 was here in the united states. the freedom rides. the beginning of the civil-rights movement. people got on buses in washington d.c. and rode into the south, refuse to obey the rules in accordance with the ruling from the supreme court. they were very brave. have a young man who is on that bus and his mother said those people are going to kill you. he discovers that she is right.

they did want to kill him. i am sure many people in the audience will remember and younger people will have heard of it, the tremendously dramatic and i found reading about this stuff so moving. the courage of people who had studied to the notion that if you are unjustly attacked the best thing to do is do nothing. some of these people just stood there for lay there and took the punches and kicks and worse than that some times. i had found this terrifically moving to read about this. i am hoping i am going to be able to bring that home to millions of readers. >> in some ways it is like boy george saying show me what the enemy really is. >> that is exactly right. that was the theory and it is a

good theory but would i have had the guts to do that? i don't think so. >> you mentioned feeling strongly about something that happens in history. does it help the writing? when there's something about it you want to convey? >> absolutely. because the main thing we enjoyed about literature is our emotions follow the emotions of the characters. that is a really important thing. our heart beat faster and the pulse raises. we seem angry about what is happening in the story or scared about what is happening. i was on the edge of my seat. i don't know how often people read a book sitting on the edge of the sea but it is an expression we use and those emotional reactions to the story are absolutely the most important thing.

if you don't have an emotional reaction to a book, is easy to put it down. even if it is well written, might even be funny but if you are not emotionally involved is easy to put down. but if you are, if your emotions are with these characters, then you want to keep on reading and that is what we all law, what i love as a reader and many people love is that feeling of getting lost so that the world of the story is actually more important for a moment than the real world that you live in. >> you write in solitude. it is a solitary enterprise. is it better if the reader is in solitude too and people not interrupting? >> i suppose so, although i started on newspapers. if you work in the newsroom you

can't say would everybody please be quiet speak as i am trying to write. it never bothered me if my kids walk in and ask me something. i don't like to take business phone calls during the day because then instead of worrying about the imaginary problems of my characters are start worrying about real problems. i ask people, my publishers and so on to call me after 4:00. but if it is something like something to do with my family or something i don't mind the interruption. i just deal with -- i have grandchildren living with me, my grandson coming to show me a model of a dinosaur. as boys often do. this is a break diaz flores. how do you know? and he gets bored and go back to

the book. >> james fetterman wrote when he is taking a shower or goes to a party is thinking about characters in the book. occasionally his wife would come up and say stop riding. >> that is pretty good. that is very good. it does kind of -- i enjoy parties too much to think about my book. back at an odd moment in time attacks the, nothing -- in a taxi, and nothing -- >> one of the things we do now is take questions from the audience. i am sure you have your questions. this is being recorded and so something i was told when i first got into broadcasting, i have to tell you now, talking

into the microphone. there are microphones on either side and if you have questions that is the place to ask them. that is where the audio will show up on the tape. we can do that. we can start any time. see if the mikes are open and people are ready. okay. >> my name is jim. i became a fan when jenne landed on the british coast. my question to you is can you differentiate the style of writing you apply to writing for newspapers opposed to the style you apply to writing a novel? >> that was a problem for me when i started writing novels because i had been riding newspapers for some years, writing for afternoon newspapers which have even shorter articles than morning newspapers and

newspaper readers want facts. 1234. there is a particular style, brisk as possible. one of the reasons my early books were not best sellers was they were written in that style and it took me a long time to unlearn the newspaper style and developed a style that was more appropriate. it is a more relaxed style but more detail and more flowing, not so staccato. i of the needle was the first book in which i managed that. pretty brisk book. it will along pretty fast. that was the point where i made the change that you are quite right. i did find it difficult. >> my recollection goes back

many years, one of my books took place in iran and another in afghanistan. i wonder whether anything is taking place today that is in any way a surprise to you. >> many things surprised me. you are right, why down with lyons was a thriller in afghanistan in the early 80s and i do remember writing a scene in that book in which the hero of the story has an argument with the cia agent about whether or not they should support the mujahedin. jane has the right in this argument as women often do in my stories, jane, her boyfriend wants to help take over and she

says you wait and see what they take over and there won't be any freedom or be interested in democracy. that did come true. i wasn't surprised when things went so bad in afghanistan. i actually met some of those people in the militia had been. someone who knew i was interested in that and that did not include my opinion on them. the other book you are referring to a sect in iran which is the true story. miley nonfiction book which was about the employee, ross perot put in jail during the iranian revolution, an adventure story across the country and also

those revolutionaries at first appear to be on the side of freedom, but got into power like so many throughout history there were more impressive than the people who preceded them. no surprise, i wish there had been. >> i was curious as to whether in your research you come across any changes because there has been so much news over the past few years and electronic surveillance within the spy business and by government which had changed the political reality dramatically whether this had come in your research and various objects and. >> i have not done much about that kind of thing and the reason is during years of recent, incredibly quick,

talking about middle ages and the first world war. i am sure you are right, the kind of intelligence that comes from technology is now very important and i don't know if it is superior to human intelligence, superior to what you get from spies but you get so much more for electronic surveillance. it is taking prominence. a contemporary spy story, getting to that. >> what book has influenced you the most and when you come to manhattan where do you do here?

>> the most important book in the english-language is the king james bible. i grew up in a very religious family. i am not a believer as an adult, i have never been a believer but my parents were born again christians and they read the bible every day. as a young teenager i read the entire bible. the language, leaving aside all talk of religion and focusing on the words that are used in the king james translation, first of all, it is fabulously well written and secondly, so many of those phrasess and rhythms have entered into all of our minds, all of us whether we have read the bible or not. we know those frayss and use them. probably i and every other writer in the english language has been influenced by the king james translation more than by

any other book. what i'd like to do when it comes to manhattan, the same as what i like to do with london. i go to restaurants with my friends. >> my name is bob. i read the eye of the needle and wings of eagles and thought they were both superb, especially the one about iran. your comment about boy george and communism, to put something in my mind, have you come across any similar conversations between franco and hitler as to why franco did not declare war on the allies after accepting so much aid from the nazis and if so could you put me in that direction? >> i have never come across such a conversation and i can't remember an account of the two men meeting