ideology is a useless abstraction. what are the facts. and what is the syllogisms you're using. and if i, for example, am wrong about a particular position i'm taking, i in the appendix require that people say, well, you were wrong because this fact is wrong, or you're making the jump logically from a to b, and that's false. so i actually lay out the exact process by which i would say i, quote, prove certain issues or at least say they are highly probable. but i leave that out of the narrative. in other words, i try to do narrative as best i can that most anybody who has any interest in our political economy could understand. >> we are almost out of time, but before we wrap up, one last question. tell us what's next for alan

greenspan. you've just blown up all of your assumptions from decades past. you're 87 years young, still, obviously, working hard, like you said, thinking about new things every day. go back to commodities trading? something else? [laughter] >> i don't feel a day over 85. [laughter] it's hard to tell. i'm sufficiently astute that sticks to know that i will not live to 175. so somewhere between now and then, it'll come to an end. but i presume at that point i will still be trying to solve equations and let somebody else take over from there. >> well, thank you. thank you so much for being our guest tonight. let's give him a hand. [applause]

[inaudible conversations] >> we'd like to hear from you. tweet us your feedback, twitter.com/booktv. >> host: days of fire is the name of the book, bush and chain think in the white house. the author, peter baker, who was the white house correspondent for "the washington post". mr. baker, how would you describe the relationship between president bush and vice president cheney in the year 2000? >> well, in 2000 it was close. that's when, obviously, bush picked cheney to be on the ticket. he's looking for somebody who's going to help reassure the public and also somebody he can lean on when he takes office. he knows he needs somebody with national security background and more washington seasoning than he has. so in the beginning, it's a very close relationship. >> host: how did it develop? >> guest: it evolved over time. we have the cartoonish understanding of bush and cheney where cheney's the puppetmaster. that was always too simplistic.

no question he was very infliewn encial in the early days, but bush begins to take a different tack on issues of national security, foreign policy. and cheney's, you know, left feeling disappointed by the new approach and resisting some of it where he can, but also losing fights that he once won in the first term. >> host: and so the second term is when the change evolves? >> guest: yeah. the we could term in -- the second term in particular they find themselves on opposite sides of many issues coming before them, domestic policy, foreign policy. cheney's on defense more than he was in the first term trying to protect the policies that he cared about most, that he advocated most. and the president, on the other hand, is trying to make compromises so that he can have a program that will survive after his term, one that his successor, democrat or republican, might keep. and, in fact, president obama does keep a lot of the national security policies that he inherented from president bush. >> host: in reading your book, it seems as if you interviewed

the principals. >> guest: interviewed vice president cheney, coppty rice, colin powell, david petraeus. everybody except for president bush who chose not to be interviewed. the great thing about it is most of them were on the record. the vast majority of them were choosing to be on the record understanding now it's history and it's time to document what happened for the record. >> host: why days of fire as the title? >> guest: well, that comes from the president's second term inaugural address. you can see the title was really eight years of crises that they confronted, war and terrorism, natural disaster and financial collapse, really eight years of days of fire. pretty tumultuous time both for them and the country. so one that we need to look back at and figure out what happened so that we can understand what's happening today because we're still debating many of the same issues under the current administration. >> host: peter baker, "days of fire" is the name of the book. you're watching booktv on

c-span2. >> you're. watching booktv. coming up next, sheryl sandberg, the coo of facebook, discusses why it's still difficult for women to achieve leadership roles in the united states. she also talks about her own career choices and experiences. this is about an hour, 15 minutes. [applause] >> let's begin by thanking the computer history museum for putting on this seminar along with the sponsors, and in the place has been such an interesting place to listen, to learn, to not only understand history, but to understand the future. so thank you, john, and thank you, everybody. >> thank you. [applause] >> i met sheryl in the late '90s when she was running what appeared to be about a third of the treasury department. impossiblily young and po