public schools, october, november of 2005. august of 2015 no schools have been returned to local control. there is an elected school board in charge of 10 schools give or take. ..

>> last weekend booktv was live with author and former second lady lynne cheney. during the interview she discussed her books including her most recent, a biography of james madison. she answered questions. watch it. on booktv. >> now on booktv we are live aur with lynne cheney it should answer your questions via phonen calls ande texts, e-mails, twees and facebook posts from now until 3:00 eastern. she's written several books including her most recent, a books includ biography of jamesin madison. >> host: lynne cheney, with the secret service name when you are secondly? >> guest: they picked the letter of the alphabet and everyone who is on related detail as a code name that starts with the letter they choose that ours was a.

author seem like a natural. my husband was angle or because his fishing habits are well known. >> host: the wrote seven books as second lady. >> guest: a good way to stay out of trouble. >> host: did your writing style changed while you were in office? >> guest: no, but my subject matter ge get-together working a book on education when suddenly dick was chosen to be vice president and it wasn't as though the book that i was working on really contradicted anything that president bush was saying out on the campaign trail and worked on as president.it jo it just was from a different angle. it seemed to me inappropriatea and confusing to put out about. setting forth my views on education since it was such aest hot topic for president bush. so i started writing a children's book, and that was an grat amazingly gratifying thing to do. i love those books still to theh

>> host: you are a history buff, is that fair to say? guest >> guest: indeed. yo >> host: in your book telling the truth which came out in the atte 90s the wrote it iss saidth sometimes said that the negative slant to what we areo teaching now is overreaction to a too positive slant in the past presy in our schools. >> guest: we did there's no question about it but i do think the reaction to that has been extreme. sometimes i think our young people, our children don't learn about the greatness of this country, don't learn about what makes us exceptional. >> host: the beginning of "telling the truth" you are chairman of the national endowment for the humanities. >> guest: yes, so i have gone very great siege of moral relativism. >> host: what was the moral

relativism? >> guest: basically relativism, there's nothing like right, there's nothing wrong, there's nothing true, there's nothing false, there's just a narrative so that was the point of the title of my book that there is truth and we are obliged to get as close to it as we can get. >> host: here is the opening to "telling the truth." as one witness reported and seen recalls the daily george orwell's 1984 when citizens are required to rise and pictures of a man known only as goldstein the great enemy of the state and i was goldstein. one of the enemies whose very name evokes tears from the assembly. what happened and where were you? >> guest: i don't remember that the scene was any -- the scene was anything particular but i did as a conservative chairman of an agency that is closely connected to the academic leader find that my

name is used in that way and every member also that i'm an m did it. actually i felt quite cool. i had children and grandchildren and i had no idea. it was a sort of outrage and it sort of amazing to think an outrage that i believe there was such a thing as truth and whether i believe there was such a thing as right or wrong. i'm not sure how that has all played out over the years. i'm not so closely connected to it now as i was then but i found it outrageous. >> host: what in your view was not being taught in college in classes that were taught when you were in school? >> guest: well the good side of the story. as i'm free to admit and i freely admit i'll make up the good side of the story growing up and it was when i went to college and afterwards and i

began to understand that this country is made many mistakes, that we have not been always perfect but what i think we don't tell her children is that we have come closer to perfection than any other nation on the face of the earth, that we have saved more people's lives than any other nation, that we have been a voice for good and it felt to me as though that was entirely being left out of the narrative. >> host: when did you start reading and when did you start writing? >> guest: well i suppose just before i got into school as a 5-year-old, writing. i do remember learning to love to write while i was still in grade school but he didn't start writing books until i got a job as a ph.d.. i have a ph.d. in english and that was when the glut started. i think it was 1970 that i got my ph.d. and i think there

were 30,000 ph.d.s and maybe five jobs. i'm exaggerating. it was very difficult and those were the days when it was a great disadvantage to be female. i remember interviewing at one english department, actually it was at george mason university and the chairman of english department asked me, he said. cheney are you married or are you really interested in a job? that might have actually been illegal then but there was no observer to take people to account for such amazing statements and questions. >> host: and your husband was a congressman at that point? >> guest: either a congressman or aid. i think he was an aide to donald rumsfeld at that point. >> host: in there one on two chief of staff so you stayed here in washington. >> guest: writing until president ford lost the election in 1976 and then we went back home.

>> host: what was your goal after you got your ph.d. in english? >> guest: to teach, to teach 19th century literature. i love the romantic period. >> host: in blue skies no fences you talk about discovering at your local library in casper ulysses. >> guest: yes indeed. what a shocking thing. i was making my way through the fiction section in the library being very very systematic and starting at the a's and it didn't take me long to get to the j.'s and there was james ulysses. wow i've never heard of a book like that. i don't think my parents would have picked it up and read it from beginning to end. >> host: what was so shocking to you? >> guest: the words. we didn't use those words in polite company. now i think we unfortunately overuse those words but it was the vocabulary.

>> host: in your view is ulysses a masterpiece? >> guest: no, i don't think so. i don't regard it as a great classic rate i have my own favorites. >> host: such as? >> guest: i think jane austen is a classic, great poetry john keeton's poetry is a great classic. 20th century writers are fine but i still think to get yourself declared a classic you have to hang around for a while to see if the work indoors. >> host: from your newest book "james madison" of bestseller you write it's a promising time to clear way misconceptions about madison. brush off cobwebs that have accumulated around his achievements, take a deeper understanding of the man who did more than any other to establish the nation we know.

>> guest: i think it's true. >> host: what are the misconceptions? >> guest: the misconception was that he was shy and sickly. those words appear time and again when people write about madison and it seems to me that you couldn't be fundamental fully shy and accomplish what he did in the public arena nor could you be sickly. sickly implies you are never well and as i began to look at his career there were indeed times when he was sick, times when he was out of action for three or four days but the rest of the time he was taking these amazing trips, thousand mile trips across the country with jefferson and monroe as well. the energy that it took just to travel from his home in montpellier to philadelphia for the congress and then he was the

main impetus behind the constitution. he spoke at that convention almost more than anyone else. i think gouverneur morris spoke more times than he at the constitutional convention and he kept going. the federalist papers -- papers and the bill of rights he wrote 22 federalist papers and 40 days. he would say to college audiences you could do that. i could write 20 essays and 40 days. they wouldn't stand the test of time. they wouldn't be brilliant but he was brilliant and i like to think his energy and his brilliance of, i think he was rest -- reticent but brilliant energy. >> host: where was he born? >> guest: well he was born in virginia. i believe it was in the westmoreland county, not where he grew up which was in orange county. his father, all of his ancestors

came from england and they came to virginia and they were essentially farmers. that's what they call themselves even though we like not to say plantations. they didn't think that grandly. his father was a farmer and his mother was a perfectly nice person but it was his grandmother really who influenced his life i think as much as any. >> host: how so? >> guest: he or dash sheet ordered a spectator for him. i do think he was a book loving boy from the beginning but one of the things she ordered for him was the spec tater and you really can't see the influence and the spectator in his life. there is a lot of wisdom there. i think it also opened his eyes

to urban life and if you are living on a virginia plantation on a farm you have no idea what cities are like create you have no idea what the theater is like or bookstores or coffee shops and i think very young boy and a young man living in virginia that would have been an amazing world that was opening up. >> host: how did he become james madison? >> guest: well through a lot of hard work. his father decided it was just too much scandal going on at william and mary. people were drinking and playing cards and living riotously and he wanted james to go somewhere else. princeton was the choice. it's also true that they felt princeton was a healthier climate, really about whether, not just about the world climate. it was also cheaper. james madison, a client was very

tight with the dollar. he went to princeton and finished and i think it was two and a half years because he was able to skip his freshman year, his latin and greek were so proficient. but then the effort in trying to do the last two years and one year led to a collapse of some kind and it's my belief that it was one of the first manifestations of his epilepsy. >> host: wended that epilepsy show itself? wonder that manifest in his life? >> guest: well there is evidence not absolutely conclusive that he had seizures as a very young child. little kids often had seizures and they are called febrile seizures and they go way off in

but there's also a pattern where a young child might have seizures and then as in madison's case had seizures again as an adult and so there was a for telling of epilepsy in some sense. i am sure doctors right now are very nervous that i'm connecting these two but his grandmother sending off medicine for epilepsy. one of the things i did that was so enjoyable was read 18 century medical books but to figure out what were the things on the list and what was his grandmother frances trying to do? >> host: did it manifested itself at all during his presidency? >> guest: i don't have any evidence of that. there are indications for example. well, wait a minute.

there is an instance when he and dolly are traveling to philadelphia from washington but i can't remember now if it was when he was secretary he was secretary of state or president but it's very clear that something happened. they are going along in a carriage and suddenly this thing happens and later dolly rights i could not -- to him as i used to do. though, help him in some situation that she is accustomed to. he did right in his life he called them a tax that they became less frequent as he grew older. >> host: how did james madison get involved in the american revolution? what was his role? >> guest: well he was caught up as college students have been forever in the politics of the time and people at princeton

were demonstrating against the british. but when he tried to enlist he was practicing to be part of the virginia militia. i think he had one of these seizures. he talks about a thing that happened to him in training that convinced him he could not be a soldier. and that would be unlikely at all. he did not become a soldier. he was really not involved in part of the american story until the revolution began and he got involved with politics. >> host: what was his relationship with george washington fna? >> guest: it was good enough in the beginning that he wrote washington's inaugural address. washington had tried somebody else but it just hadn't worked. this is familiar ground to any

politician. sometimes a speechwriter just doesn't get it right in washington knew that so he called on madison to come and write the address and then when washington was elected he called on madison again and again. he said look, i just imagine this conversation, i need to thank everybody for the nitro so would you write that for me some medicine did and then madison also wrote the response back to washington so i like to think he is talking to himself early. i like to think of it as his voice echoing off all of the walls in the early days. later in washington they certainly were in opposition. >> host: why? >> guest: well is such a long story but it's basically alexander hamilton who came to the government and took washington in a direction that neither medicine nor jefferson

thought was appropriate. hamilton was a big government man and jefferson and madison were concerned at that point about the central government becoming over powerful. >> host: relationship with tom jefferson? as though they were best friends. it's one of the great friendships in american history. jefferson was very exasperating. he was always interfering just getting things lined up and jefferson will be off in paris fooling around with madison's friends and madison was very forbearing. merrill peterson was a wonderful historian once wrote of the two the account talents. jefferson was the streamer and madison was the guy who was attached to the earth and understand the practicalities and the politics of the situation. so it was a very beneficial friendship or both.

>> host: what i learned from our first first lady series that we did hear on c-span last year was that dolley madison had a role in washington and in politics beyond just james madison's lifetime. what did you discover? >> guest: one of the interesting things about many of the virginia founders is they ended up for and jefferson had to have a lottery for monticello at the end of his life. he couldn't pay his debts. the same is true of madison in part because of dolly's son. she brought this onto their marriage and john todd was his name. at one point he was taking stuff out of montpellier and selling it on the street corner. i actually have a friend in maryland on the eastern shore

they said to me when he found out i was working on the book he said i have to madison letters. when people say that to you your little skeptical but he does. they are short but they are very important to winding up stories that we don't know the end of and it occurred to me if somebody tells you they have a madison letter he should pay attention. because of john payne todd all of that stuff was out there and many of it still hasn't been looked at by scholars. in any case there was great financial stress at the end of the marriage and dolly as the weather was poor. there is one manuscript i remember reading the shows are depending on a loan of 75 cents. 75 cents was more than now but not that much more.

she started wearing the same clothing all the time. she wore a black dress and a white turbine a lot. that's what she has on, there is one photo of her and she has that outfit on that people didn't care. they cared and help her but her poverty didn't mean that she wasn't thoroughly entertaining and fun to be around. so she was quite a citizen of washington and i have bred her funeral was the largest up to that time in the city. >> host: lynne cheney this book was published "james madison" a life reconsidered in may of 2014. when did you start your research and when did you start working on this book? >> guest: at least five years before. these big looks take that much time and the luxury to have that much time to work on them. >> host: where did you start? >> guest: i research and write

the same time. so you start and you write a preface and you write a chapter and you keep going and you realize the first was all wrong so you go back and rewrite and then you get yourself to burrowing into the stories orb rolling into these situations like madison's epilepsy so it takes a very long time. >> host: where did you do the research? >> guest: i did most of it at home. i do have to work from real books sometimes. there are many books that are important that haven't been digitized so i usually end up with a big pile of looks on the floor of my study but there is just an amazing amount of information on line. all of madison's papers are on line. the university of virginia has a digital program that is just amazing. jefferson is on line, hamilton is on line, washington, madison,

monroe, not but i just can't begin to tell you how rich this resource is in their many others as well. people upload google a lot. there's something called archives.org that does a lot. you find the most obscure things that happened -- that have been digitized. >> host: good afternoon welcome to booktv's "in depth" program. one author and his/her body of work in this month its author lynne cheney. she is the author of 13 books, beginning in 1979 a novel came out "executive privilege" and another novel "sisters", tyrannical machines report on educational practices gone wrong published in 1990, "telling the truth" wire culture in our country have stopped making sense came out in 1996. into the hill, power and

personality in the house of representatives on nonfiction book written with her husband came out also in 1996 and then as second lady several children's books including "our 50 states," "a is for abigail" in 2006. her memoir i guess you could call it, "blue skies, no fences" a memoir of childhood and family in 2007, we the people the server competition and 2008 and finally "james madison" a life reconsidered in 201430 goodbye to dial in and talk to our guests this month talking about history and education all sorts of issues (202)748-8400.

(202)748-2001 for those in the mountain and pacific timezones. if you can't get there on the phone lines there are several ways to get through including if you want to send a text message you can send a text message only don't call this number to send a text 2024656842. we have also got social media ways of getting a hold, facebook.com/booktv, @booktv is our twitter handle and finally you can send an e-mail to booktv at c-span.org. there are a lot of ways to reach you today mrs. cheney. i want to go back to james madison and this is what you have written. scraping his quill across the page madison recorded what seemed to him the essence quote the strongest and sound mind often possesses the weakest and most sickly bodies. the knife cuts sheath as the french expressive.

>> guest: he found this in john locke when he was reading and i think for him it was a comfort. epilepsy was so -- such a misunderstood ailment and they 1919th century. it was thought to be the result of demonic possession. it was thought to be the result of sin and that made having seizures even more traumatic than the events themselves and i should pause for a minute. i don't think that madison's seizures were always up for kind that made him fall to the ground i think what he describes seems to fit very well with the partial complex epilepsy. as he described it the intellectual, the intellectual senses are suspended, which is

exactly what people say who have had partial complex seizures, the temporal lobe issue so nevertheless i think probably sometimes the seizures that weren't quite as dramatic manifested themselves in a more dramatic way and he had a complete seizure. he recognized -- but he said i had sudden attacks somewhat representing epilepsy so he knew that what happened to him was linked. having that happen to you is all the more dramatic when there is this overlay that means you are sinful. to him it was a great comfort to read this idea that often the very strongest minds have some physical ailments and the metaphor is the mind is so strong that the sheets, is like a really sharp knife that the

sheath can't hold. >> host: looking back it's easy to see that was his path to the presidency after the ball at the time? inevitable at the time? >> guest: he certainly had many advantages. he was from the largest state and as you know for the first five presidencies of virginia to be a virginian was in and of itself a great advantage. being brilliant also helps quite a lot. i think allie you were saying earlier that she had a role. she was not an adviser. she didn't tell him what to do about the louisiana purchase and/or the war of 1812. they not only admired him for his intellect but they had the chance to see his personality

who was a warm fellow who could tell a joke. she gather people together at their house on f street. this is where they lived when he was secretary of state and made them feel warm and happy and she would fix southern comfort food. james would sit and people would come by and talk to him and learn. there was in fact a senator i think it was who wrote home to his wife that mr. madison had a great advantage in the upcoming caucus because of dolley. >> host: was the war of 1812 inevitable and what was that about? >> guest: well i think sometimes the explanation it was the second war for independence. we had managed to gain our independence from great britain of course in the revolution but this kind of as those the british didn't really think that

was as big of a deal as it might be in one of the things they were doing of course is stopping our ships and pulling sailors off. they were fighting a war with france and they need more sailors and they had so stopping american ships, going on board and asking people to say couple of words and declare that oh you must be a british citizen. they would take them off and this was a great insult to america as well. that was one of the kinds of offenses and at the end of the war of 1812 i think the world understood that we were no longer under the thumb of anyone. >> host: was james madison popularity increase by that war or was it hurts? >> guest: well you know i think during the course of the war itself there were problems.

there were many in new england for example for whom the war meant economic suffering. shut down their trade or at least made it very difficult so there was even a movement in new england, there was talk of secession. that madison handled it so well. he didn't try to put anybody in jail for suggesting that new england may secede. he did have some troops strategically located so it turned out they really tried to cut themselves off from the united states. there would have been consequences. he was such a believer in free speech and free expression and freedom of opinion. the way he handled it reflected very well on him and certainly by the time the war was over he was widely admired. >> host: lynne cheney, connect this. ph.d. 19th century

literature, your first books were contemporary novels and now you're writing about james madison in a historical biography. >> guest: well i think the connection is i didn't understand when i got a ph.d. in english that you can get a ph.d. in history. i sort of follow this path. i majored in english and as an undergraduate in next step seemed to be to get a masters degree and i never thought, the fact that i got it in the 19th century tells me even then i really wanted history and that timmy was the most important thing. >> host: what was your specialization in your ph.d.? >> guest: matthew arnold. >> host: who is? >> guest: matthew arnold was a poet, a british, fine poet though i have to say i wrote my dissertation more on his throws. >> host: from your book "james

madison" a life reconsidered over the course of a long public life madison had learned a word. what does that mean? >> guest: i'm not even sure i wrote that exactly because he knew how important learning was from the beginning. but i also think one of his skills as a politician is that he never assumed the side -- the other side was totally wrong. there are people who don't want a bill of rights, people who do want a bill of rights, and right now this was before there was a bill of rights when the constitution was being ratified. how can i manage my way through that so everybody ends up feeling happy? >> host: what was the point in "a time for freedom"?

>> guest: someone goes out on the street insists he recognize insists he recognizes might be ron reagan or abraham lincoln and nobody will or do you know when the civil war was an attendant possible question to answer. the idea was to provide a primer for the important events in american history. something that was easily refer to and possibly even entertaining. >> host: something out to be locked in memory the right, 1492, 1607, 1620, 1776 and 1787. 1492 columbus, 1607 jamestown? 1620, what happened then? >> guest: it's been a long time but pilgrims. >> host: 1776 and in 1787. >> guest: the constitution. >> host: what was james madison's role in what was he doing in 1787? >> guest: well he began the

year by trying to sort of set the context saying if there is a convention general washington needs you. washington has decided by that time that he was through with public life. he was admired throughout the country over the world but he thought he was through and madison new the convention would not be successful without him. so getting washington to say he would come, to be sure they wouldn't do anything that would somehow make the convention more complicated and then of course in may he went to philadelphia. he was there before any other out-of-state delicate putting in their virginia plans and talking to people, getting them to sort of understand what he thought the agenda would be and then he worked harder than any single person until september to get

the constitution in place. >> host: do you see any parallel issues from those days to this day? >> guest: well i think freedom of speech, freedom of expression allies need to be guarded. it's just easy when things make us uncomfortable not to let people say them so i think that's important. >> host: what was your path to becoming chair of the national endowment? >> guest: well i was very brash and they didn't have a chairman. i can't remember exactly who resigned. maybe with bill bennett and i had perfect credentials. i had been a public intellectual and i was writing for the "smithsonian magazine" but i was writing these columns on history once a month i wrote a column. i love them still today. one column i wrote was on collins, the call until you see all over the city and why you

see them so i worked the role as a public intellectual and i had a ph.d. so i called the white house personnel office and said why not me so they took my application. >> host: and? >> guest: the rest is history. >> host: what is the importance, today, do you think it still has an important role? >> guest: that was a question that i worried about the whole time i was there. i'm not sure that the founding fathers quite would have put this in the category of something the federal government should be concerned about that there were so many good bings that we did, preserving documents. newspapers were rotting on the shelves. now they are being digitized. we sort of had an medium path. we were microfilming. there were programs underway to preserve the papers of the founders and this seemed like

exactly what we should be doing. >> host: i want to go to "blue skies, no fences". >> guest: we live in wyoming now. wyoming has grown so much in there so many people. i'll bet nobody else in this room is -- was born in wyoming and i'm usually right that this is an jackson-lee usually get a lot of tours. >> host: how much time to do you spend in wyoming? >> guest: probably eight months a year. >> host: india still come back to washington from time to time? >> guest: yes, we do. some of our grandchildren living wyoming. some of our grandchildren live in -- virginia. it's important to be in virginia so i can see those grandchildren. >> host: there was casper you write and then there wasn't so there's no doubt about where they were from. you could encompass casper in

your mind and begin to see forces at work in it and you yourself might have an impact on them. you would see yourself creating your own future rather than having one-handed to you. >> guest: that's true. it's an amazing thing. i suppose there like this in nebraska but in casper there was the town and then there was the prairie so it was this manageable universe. kind of manageable intellectually and manageable physically. you could ride your bike to school and were used to go out on the prairies. he and his brother would go out on the prairies and catch jackrabbits. i think his mother, and pretty sure it was those rabbits that his mother used to cook up and put in his lunch bag. >> host: marge? what was she like? >> guest: that was march. marge was very energetic.

there was nothing she couldn't do. she could sew and cook and could she pitch a good baseball. she could fish. she was very energetic person. >> host: she played on a softball team did and she? >> guest: sheet taught how to catch and throw but she had done on a team called the bluebirds in nebraska and it's just like what's that movie with tom hanks and rosie o'donnell? the league of their own. it was like that. they traveled around and had uniforms and athleticism wasn't something that was valued in their early century so they were pioneers in the way. >> host: you spend a lot of time talking about your education and "blue skies, no fences" and i want to talk about that in mena but here you are second lady answering a question from a student about the

importance of education. >> when you were a child were you interested in history? >> i was and i'm not sure why. i suppose it was the teachers who were able to tell us the story. sometimes kids think history is boring. i'm sure that's not anybody in here but sometimes kids think history is boring because they think it's just a bunch of names and places and they don't really know people who had hopes and fears and aspirations and they got mad at each other. it's when you tell the story so it's real people that becomes interesting and alive. we have so much to 02 teachers. i suspect i had really good teachers who told me the story in a way that made it come alive. >> guest: i'm just amazed that i said something that intelligent. it is true though. we don't i thank often enough

teach about the people who were involved and that's what kept me going for five years. how did people relate to each other and when were they friends and accomplishing mighty things? what challenges did they face, how did they die and when did they die? did they have lives that were mostly happy? is when you are working on that kind of thing that i think history becomes a dynamic and great story to read. >> host: who was margaret sidler? >> guest: at scheidler. >> host: scheidler, sorry about that. >> guest: when dick and i were growing up there were class a woman who didn't marry and became teachers and of course now they are probably, they would probably be scientists and

ceos and so on but oh my we were so lucky to have their energy invested in us. ms. scheidler who taught latin was one of the teachers that i can hold up in memory and think. >> host: you spend a lot of time with her teachers. what was it about them? where they stared, were they nice? >> guest: nice isn't the first thing that occurs to me. they were pleasant enough but they were there to make us feel how do i say it is that we deserve the crown i matter what we did. they were there to make sure we worked hard and i think the lesson that i took away from these good teachers is that almost any subject, could be physics, could be latin, could be history but if you did dig deeply enough into it if you just stop on the surface and say

a a e=mc2 but if you dig down underneath you understand the people involved then it becomes interesting. >> host: you wrote this in 2007 about your parents. your mother she loved him and your father her father loved her but theirs was a difficult marriage. >> guest: it's true and i think a lot of marriages are difficult. they fought through and it wasn't always happy. but life isn't always happy and i love them. >> host: you go on to write that my father never shouted that my brother or me but he did raise his voice when he and my mother quarreled although never suspect regularly as ralph kramden who is always threatening to send the list to the moon. my father saved his best for people outside the family but his blowups were still memorable and frequent.

>> guest: he did have quite a temper and george washington did too come to think of it. it's not an unusual human trait to explode. i think that it is one we should control of course and i've find myself doing it now and then. >> host: was he a drink or? >> guest: yes. >> host: do you think baby maybe he was an alcoholic? >> guest: could be. >> host: did that affect his behavior sometimes? >> guest: maybe so. >> host: i'm only bringing this up because you have written about it. >> guest: yes, i know but it's hard to judge people particularly when they gave me a childhood and teenage experience and were so supportive of me after that it's hard to be harsh and judgment. >> host: lynne cheney your

mother died in an unusual way. what happened? >> guest: you know we don't know. she went out to a pond. wyoming doesn't have many ponds and she didn't come back. when we found her, but my father found her the door of the car was open. she had a couple of little dog she liked and they were running around and she was dead. >> host: where were you at the time? >> guest: at college, graduate school. >> host: lynne cheney's "blue skies, no fences" came out in 2007 while she was second lady. i don't mean to be all touchy-feely but was there a therapy in writing this book? >> guest: i don't know if was there be but i certainly enjoyed writing that looked maybe more than any other book i've ever written. partly because it gave you a good excuse to go back and talk

to friends and to find out what happened. there is one story in a book about a girl and my high school classic that pregnant and when i think of those days i think there was much good about them but if that happened to you it was like the end of the world and it's so nice to go back and talk to this woman out because her life has been -- she got through that. her husband the father of the baby was killed in the baby was born after a car accident and that's really a dramatic beginning. to see how her life was good and she made it through that awful time and is now a good friend. >> host: when did you start dating dick? >> guest: when i was 16. he had just turned 17. >> host: how did you meet? >> guest: i think we argue about that.

i think his chemistry class and he thinks it's algebra. >> host: what happened, was automatic? >> guest: dick tries to tell the story which is very flattering to me. he said he knew who i was but i didn't know who he was. he was the new boy in town and probably didn't give them the time of day but in my junior year i woke up to the fact that this is a pretty good guide. >> host: you broke up for 11 days. you write about that. >> guest: he broke up with me to tell you the truth but then i dated his best friend who had a golden convertible and i think when joe and i were seen driving to casper in a golden convertible at brought it to his senses. >> host: retired colonel in the u.s. air force, rich larson, how do your writing habits differ from?

guess why much more disciplined. i get up every morning and go right. i went through some times but. >> host: 6:00 a.m., 5:00 a.m., 8:00 a.m.? >> guest: i'm probably at my computer by 9:00 but that's what i do. dick does a lot more traveling. he likes to fish. maybe i have the right approach here. >> host: do you write in the same fashion? >> guest: dick likes to write by hand a lot. he likes yellow tablets and real fountain pens and i'm not particular. i usually write on my computer. i have learned the importance of having knelt looks. is there something you want to remember don't write it down on paper. get yourself a leather-bound notebook and asked all the important incentives to when you say oh my gosh what was james monroe thinking on the morning of august 17, and it was

important for me to go back and find it in the notebook. >> host: did your medicine book coming your medicine experience, as it led you to another point -- another book at this point? >> guest: james monroe is really understudied but i'm also the virginia dynasty that's an interesting story. i've been reading a lot about monroe. >> host: are you working on that now? >> guest: kind of. way write books at hold myself up as an example of discipline and it's not very disciplined. i know it will have to be shredded in the end but i write it anyway and i think it's sort of like the story emerges and any think that's what i was trying to get to and then you go back and start again. >> host: back to "blue skies, no fences," sorry we are skipping around quite a bit. >> guest: you are lucky i remember these.

>> host: baton twirling. >> guest: do you know that ruth bader ginsburg was a baton twirling her too? i love that. >> host: why was it important to you? >> guest: in those days girls didn't do track. i don't even think gymnastics were very much on the scene. physical activity wasn't something that was thought the girls did. this was acceptable. it was like cheerleading and i worked at had a really hard. >> host: and? >> guest: i was a state champion. did you want me to say that? >> host: you want to nationals, your first amount of wyoming? >> guest: that's true. my reference was wyoming and only later did i learn a whole part of the continent was beyond that. >> host: if do you have a

scholarship to barnard. why did you not attend? >> guest: i did. even though it was full tuition somehow i had to get there and get back in plane fares in those days were really prohibitive so i went to colorado college were also had a very nice scholarship and if your parents could drive you there, it wasn't so hard and complicated and expensive. >> host: did it occur to you to go to college in your high school career? >> guest: that is one of the things i credited my parents were. it wasn't an option. didn't think about not going. you only thought about where. >> host: was it rare in your high school class to go into college? >> guest: not rare, but it was also acceptable not to go to college. >> host: lynne cheney is against them will be taking your calls in just a minute. we'll put the phone numbers back

up on the screen and if you can't get through you can text a message or you can make a comment via social media. those addresses will flash up on the screen in the next few minutes and we are going to begin with this call. if i can figure this out we have darren in lutherville maryland, good afternoon you were on with author -- lynne cheney. >> caller: mrs. cheney i admire your scholarship. i recently purchased "james madison". >> guest: thank you, hope you will enjoy it. >> caller: yes, my question for you is not really about history although i'm a great lover of it but contemporary politics and that sort of thing. >> guest: i don't know if thing about that. >> caller: i knew you didn't and i think even a rocket scientist would know your opinion on the iran deal so i'm

not going to ask you specifically on that but i want to put you in the place of the majority leader of the senate. it is the democrats would try to filibuster this so as not to bring a vote to the floor would you invoke or let me put it this way, would you do a 60 vote filibuster requirement just to get a majority vote to bring to the floor? >> guest: that's a really hard question. the nuclear option is what i have heard that call. you probably know more about this than i do eric but didn't the democrats are to do that? i known as congress the republicans have not chosen to do it but please i'm not mitch mcconnell. if you are out there and not trying to give you advice but yes, i would. >> host: do you miss being in

the center of the storm? >> guest: it was not onerous. many sad things happen when dick was vice president. 9/11 of course is top of the list and you do feel a little bit battered at the end of every day but -- you have the feeling of being involved in an important cause and may be in those years more than sometimes that's been true and that's gratifying at the end of the day to think that you have been involved in something important. but it's also very nice to have a lot of our privacy back and just to pick up and go to the grocery store if i want to and not have to get a secret service detail to pick me up. i don't want to mislead you. i'd don't go to the grocery store that often but there are good things about it.

>> host: do you get stopped on the street when you're out of? >> guest: occasionally. take much more often than not. >> host: in "a time for freedom" you did that on 9/11 or in that time period. where were you that day? >> guest: while i was downtown and someone told me a plane had flown into the world trade center and like everybody else i thought to myself what a strange accident and then of course the second plane went in and the secret service took me from where i was. i can remember certainly in the white house. >> host: which is where the vice president was. >> guest: exact but i can remember looking up and there were smoke. you couldn't seaworld's coming from and i wondered if the white house had been hit. smoke was coming from the pentagon so i was taken into the white house as everyone else was running out and spent the day

down in the kiosk is called, the presidential operation center. it was a stunning day. many things happened in real time. it was a day and i'm always proud of deck but gosh that day was a real eye-opener, to see the kind of leadership that he was able to bring to the situation. atthe ofthe da and at the end of the day we were taken to the undisclosed location which everybody knows by now was cam david. >> host: how much time did you spend their? >> guest: weeks. not always at once, but a long, long time. and it wasn't like we were there just end up, but back and forth. and when the situation would warrant, when the alert levels were high they would take us to

camp david. >> host: how much control over your schedule did you have? >> guest: a lot. i didn't have meetings and so on, and the people at the vice president's house are so skilled. if you want to have it dinner party they know how to do it. i maybe had to figure out who to invite. but my life was not at all enclosed. .. hi ball. >> caller: hi peter. hi ms. cheney. >> guest: how are you? >> caller: i'm fine. i'm a recent retiree and then discovering history of my own and i was reading a few books lately on fleming's the great divide and ellis' the quartet and i was wondering if you had read this book and shouldn't ken

burns be entering the scene about this point to give us another civil war history back to the revolutionary period because it's so stunning i can barely contain myself. >> host: paul, what do you think of those books? >> caller: they were utterly each in their own utterly amazing. fleming made it sound like a daily gossip column. they would try to undo each other and jefferson was trying to undo washington's tradition and alice seems to have a different take on it. sort of with the idea that they were all ultimately gentlemen and they all respected each other and our country was the amalgam of especially madison who he portrayed as turning against jefferson at the end because jefferson was flying off

as the napoleonic fan and so it seems like the story is never ending almost but it seems to be something that everybody should be totally aware of like ken burns brought to the civil war. >> guest: zero while ago peter was asking about the national endowment for the humanities initiative mentioned one of the things i am the proudest of that happened when i was there is that we provided major funding for the civil war and this was before ken burns was of world historical importance as he is now great but that was a good thing. i am reading the quartet. you asked what books i'm currently reading and the quartet is on my list. ..

ready to go i'm glad you love history. there's so much of it that is a fascinating read so enjoy yourself. >> lynn cheney, if you were to teach a college class whatever it is, what book would you require and i will let you think about that a little while as we take this next call. >> hello peter, you are a gem.

mrs. cheney i think the world of you. i wanted to ask you about your personal library. do you have any idea of how many books you own and what your favorite types are to read when you are not researching for your own writing? >> your personal library. >> guest: i have spent most of our married life building bookshelves. or getting them built. we have so many books dick doesn't want to let go of a single one. people have given us many books over the course of dick's public career. i would say most of them are history.

if i'm not reading history i do like a good thriller. one of the books i reading is english spy. it's a very good thriller mystery. i also don't spend a lot of time reading books, i confess. i also like to watch thrillers on my ipad. i have become enchanted with a series the swedish mysteries. some are in english but i have started watching them in swedish with subtitles of course. dick came into the room the other night and said what in the world are you doing? but they are really good. >> host: another text for you. dick cheney has said that you played a role in getting him

back on the straight and narrow. what did you say or do? >> guest: i don't think i really said or did anything. i just made it pretty clear i wasn't marrying him unless he shaped up. i don't think i said it that way >> host: was he doing that needed shaping up? guess mac he had been kicked out of yale twice. he had been arrested twice for driving under the influence. >> and he was just without direction. i don't think this is uncommon. i think i just let him see the importance. >> host: do you think you have a western u.s. perspective on the world? >> guest: yes, it is kind of straight talking. not a lot of fancying us being around the subject. not getting dressed up a lot, we

both like to be in wyoming. dick loves to wear his jeans and these fuzzy jackets what you call them? we love the outdoors, we are not athletes anymore. we both use to ski. just to ski. just being in the air and wyoming. he loves to fish. >> host: you don't fish yes mac no he has taken me but the last time i went i hooked him in the ear. >> guest: are you--yes i ride. my niece is becoming a barrel racer. she is doing like a rodeo

princess, all the kids love it but grace has become a real cow girl. she wear something around her neck that says cowgirl up. if things aren't going right cowgirl up. >> host: next call from indiana. >> caller: in regard to what you just said about straight talk it seems to me the issues we face today are so complex it is impossible to discuss them in a campaign whether you're trying to be stick straight or not. talking about the iran nuclear deal one complexity is whether the united states is able to inspect uranium sites. then there is obama care. then another level of complexity and what i would like to hear you talk about is the proposed

fair tax that huckabee is behind. my suspicion is that's why trump got in the race at all because it would hit real estate so hard >> guest: i agree with you there is too much complexity out there too many issues. what i do, as i pick my issue and i try to understand it as well as i can. living in the house i do you can imagine lately it has been the iran deal. i am with you, i am so concerned about the inspections regime that is imposed. the fact that some instances iranians will be able to do their own inspections which sounds to me to be worry some. we give them notice then they get at least 27 days and with delays that could go into months. i think you put your finger on an important part of that

complex problem. >> host: we haven't got a call from wyoming yet. it is (202)748-8201. >> guest: besides their outside you know how beautiful it is there. >> host: ricky you're on next. >> caller: i am my dr. friend in my community, he had the pleasure of taking you and dick on his boat and the cute thing he said was you said to dick don't get any cute ideas about getting a boat. what i really want to say is over the years and especially 30 years ago, you used to be up to be quite a bit. i admired everything about you

and i said to myself as i'm looking at you right now, you could have been a senator, president of this country, you have all the attributes. you made the ultimate sacrifice is and in fact your husband is one of the greatest politicians. >> host: that is very kind of you. were you considered for the vp position. >> guest: i think the more likely thing was for me to run for the senate. right after dick was secretary of defense. >> host: did you think about it? >> guest: yes but you have to want these things so much to do what's involved in doing what is

all elected. tosh, i really like writing books. i appreciate the comments but i don't thing i have made a sacrifice. i think i have done done what i want to do. >> host: did you make the comment to the vice president about a boat? smack all yes that's absolutely true. we have a host host on the eastern shore of maryland, i think we're the only people who live on the eastern shore who don't have a boat. i don't even know how we got three horses or how graced it. these things they take up your resources and your time. i did not want to boat. we still don't have one. >> host: do you have protection yet to this day. >> guest: i don't think we should talk about that.

>> caller: three or four years of go george bush was advised not to travel to switzerland to promote his book because he could have been charged with war crimes. does your husband have any albums with traveling overseas and are there any countries he has to avoid? >> guest: we managed to keep pretty busy right here in the united states. i don't feel there is anything i am avoiding. me and liz were in the middle east a year or so ago. we have done so much traveling in our lifetime, a a lot of people do this when they are retired. i don't have this great longing to read travel right now. >> host: speaking of books, vice president and your daughter liz have a new book out, exceptional. did you have any role in that. >> guest: oh yes i am the,

queen. they don't like the rules that there are rules for commas. if if you have a series, you have a, right after each item in the series including the word and. so i i do some copyediting for them. if i come across a historical fact that needs check that point that out. they are on the own otherwise. >> host: what is there writing style, writing together? >> guest: you don't really write together, each of you under takes a different topic. then work on it together after that. one of the interesting things in the madison book is that madison and hamilton were so frantic to get the papers frantic that they

did not read what the other had written. if you think about how it all hangs together it is like a miracle. i don't know how it happened. >> host: what are the federalist papers and what is their importance today. >> guest: they are written specifically to get the constitution ratified in the state of new york. new york's failure to ratify would have been as damaging to the process, deadly to it as virginia's failure to ratify would have been. madison and jefferson wrote these essays that were published in the papers to provide a rationale for ratifying the constitution. i have heard people say they didn't have an effect beyond new york but i don't think that is right. madison made sure that the delegates had copies of the federalist papers. that's what they were. they are now regarded as a

classic. they are important to the interpretation of the constitution. they help point out the genius of the founding. they take out some of the ideas that in my opinion were breakthrough ideas. that public doesn't have to be small, can be big like our republic us. for madison to see his way through that prohibition to see that you couldn't be large and be a republic it's breakthrough thinking that you seen geniuses. >> host: you talked about earlier about what book you would require fewer college presser professor today. i want you to give a response to this. >> one of the important reasons american history is not required is if it were, faculty members would have to teach it.

there isn't very little professional incentive to do so. advancement in academia comes from publishing. there's little market in academic journals for articles and subjects that are broadly conceived. one of our specialized articles, and not wanting to take on general education which a survey course of american history is, people in academia are doing everything that people in other professions do. avoiding a topic where there's little incentive. >> guest: that has served the test of time. it is still true that we do not provide reinforcement for some activities that are really important. so we shouldn't be surprised when they don't happen. oh and the book, i would just

say dividing the constitution up and making it into book form and requiring it to be read. >> host: we have a caller from massachusetts. >> caller: i have been listening when i see teaching of history, i see american conceptualism coming out, i see the question what books are of interest to you. i i am thinking of kennedy's profiles encourage. now what i want from that is first a focus on episodes that one teaches, i'm thinking of daniel webster is in their and his behavior and stand for the union is to be celebrated as heroic but we don't overlook the fact that he was in some ways a

crook and the way banks in new england are concerned. i focus on events because of the real things in the universe are events. wouldn't our american conceptualism and our need for recognizing our heroes, wouldn't that be a take on her wrote events and shouldn't we therefore teach those profiles encourage. >> guest: it has been a long time since i've read profiles encourage. but i do remember i found it thrilling. i think that kind of reverent treatment isn't very interesting

so i like your point. let's look look at people and what they did and events that surrounded, let the constitution and let us not forget these are people like us. they had clay seats. one of the best examples of that is washington, jefferson, madison, monro, all had slaves. and they understood it was a morally wrong. it's even more than that it's too simple of an explanation of what slavery is. but they had slaves and it was wrong and they understood it was wrong. at the same time, madison in particular, a friend of mine bob

goldwin he used to say they created a constitution more just than their own. i think that is a good way to look at it. >> host: ambrose madison, wasn't there some questions about his death? whether he had been put to death by slaves? guess mac? >> guest: oh i think he probably was. the family never wrote about it. ambrose was the first madison to have slaves. as long as there were indentured servants coming from england nobody thought about having slaves, it wasn't an important things. but. but when the supply of servants began to dry up slave ships began--he was reported to by two slaves and it was thought that

he was died from a sleigh poisoning him. you think of it the slaves were in awful conditions brought into a place where they don't want to do the work where you want them to do. they therefore stay in various ways including whipping. a reese extreme expounds like poisoning your master is wrong of course, but it is not surprising. >> host: paul in florida email. do you think there will be a renaissance renaissance of american history in our nation's schools? there seems to be a lack of interest in our teachers and schools to learn a great path guess matt i think the latter description is right. we are not doing a great job of teaching history.

i would sure do whatever i can to bring this renaissance about. our children need to understand where they are and what their ancestors have done. >> guest: history is looking into a rearview mirror. that's what it gives you. it doesn't give your forward vision but it's the only thing we have. how else do you understand the universe and the human life. >> host: asks call is from gordon. from wyoming. >> caller: howdy folks. thank you ms. cheney. great show. i want to thank the cheney's for being a great conservative leavening here in laramie. we we need that here as you know. i'm also hoping liz will run.

>> host: what part of state is laramie in. >> caller: southeast wyoming we are 45 minutes south east of cheyenne. >> host: are you a native. >> caller: know i have been here since 1996. wyoming reminds me of colorado. guess mac thank you for your kind words about liz. she is a good one and she has so much to contribute. >> caller: i would vote for her for president in a heartbeat. >> guest: i would too. >> caller: you said you like thrillers i was wondering if you ever read nevada bar?

she write some good thrillers. >> guest: i will try it. i like mr. box, a native of wyoming and he writes thrillers. >> host: your first two books were novels, why. >> guest: it was much more practical. in those days you couldn't do research on your computer. i don't think i even had a computer, dick and i are moving around the country. that's about when we started in washington and went to wyoming and that was about what i could do. >> host: the book that you wrote together, kings of the hill, power and personality in the house of representatives. your husband was serving in the house at that point.

longworth is one that you profile i was seeking of the hill. >> guest: what he was he was in command of the house of representatives which is no easy thing to do. he is such a a colorful character. the whole book started when dick and i, maybe he was reading the proud tower, he is reading passages and i would grab the book so i could read the whole passage. one of the things she does is profile tom reed, speaker of the house. but we barely heard of him and he was a fascinating person. we decided there was a book here and it's darts with tom reed and i think longworth is the last person we profile. >> host: is the congress as significant today as it used to be? that is not a very elegant elegant way of asking that question.

>> guest: i think we have seen, in the iran deal the fact congress has not been able to assert itself very effectively. i don't know what the solution is. i'm sure there lots of people i capitol hill pounding their heads of what the solution is. the iran agreement should have been a treaty. how do we get to the situation where we are where it will take two thirds of the senate or the house to pass it? i'm sorry, it will take two thirds of the senate or the house to override the president's veto. it should be it will take two thirds of the senate or the house to pass it. i don't know how we got into this upside down situation. >> host: l from florida. >> caller: good afternoon. i would like to know, do you

agree with president obama's policy of drilling in the arctic and your opinion on fracking and the controversy it is creating? >> guest: you are not going to be surprised that i think one of the few decisions i would agree with the president is the drilling in the arctic. i think fracking is absolutely a way that we have seen, is leading the way to energy independence in this country which is not be more important to our national security. as i say those things, one of one of the things i'm proud of dick for having done is the setting aside of nearly 1 million acres in the

west for preserving wildlife and preserving nature. i don't think we either have to choose to be green or not green, i think we need to evaluate it situation by situation. >> host: douglas sent in an email. i am a native of orange, orange, 2 miles from our pelee air. in your research did you find how madison traveled and why no credit for mason for the bill of rights? so we have traveling for pout conway to montpelier, why no comment from mason for bill of rights? and the constitution today? guess. >> guest: i am thinking he

traveled mainly by carriage. i'm mostly by horse and carriage. george mason is someone worth of so much more study than has been given him. he refused to be involved with the constitution because it did not contain a bill of rights. madison, how should i say this, was a little more politically minded. he wanted to get the constitution ratified. that was his main goal at that point. if you started each day with adding a bill of rights, they wouldn't all agree. at the end maybe you get the necessary states to ratify but then there is a huge argument over what the bill of rights is. i think madison in the end did the right thing, he he kept everybody from putting a bill of rights in. he may george mason mad and he went home. then as you got the ratification

mason is the main--it seems to me mason was mad for another reason. he thought the vice president was a strange office set in the constitution. because the vice president had a foot in both the senate and the executive branch. heath saw this as a separation of powers. there's so much interesting about him. and the third question was. >> host: madison and the use of the constitution today. >> guest: i think if you brought back george mason and madison who is a proponent, i think if you brought back any of the founders they be absolutely confounded at the size of the federal government. i think it has gone so far beyond what any of them could

have possibly imagine. >> host: in your research on james madison any contemporary politicians come to mind? could you do any comparison their? guest mac i think it is very hard, the challenges are so different. >> host: was james madison responsible for making the ice president president of the senate? did he make a roll of making that happen. >> guest: probably, i do know when they came to be at loggerhead on how to elect a president. that was the question how to elect a president. madison stepped in and drew up a plan. he got this through the constitutional convention. it it was a big state, little state issue. if we say the number of electors is going to be the number of

senators plus a number of representatives, then then the big states who have more representatives are going to have too much influence on the selection of president. i think it was madison who came up with the idea, every elect or has to bow for two people. one of those people has to be not from his state. in other words, all the virginia electors cast one vote from virginia and one vote for someone who is not from virginia. so this gave the big states less power because those votes would be scattered around. then madison was so smart, he he thought what a people throw the second vote away. they will take all those non-virginia boats and give them to dough down there who doesn't have a chance to be president. then he said, okay let's make the second vote count and the

person who gets the second highest vote gets vice president. that's how how the vice president came to be. >> host: you wrote an article here's the opening sentence. partisanship gets a bad rap these days taken the blame for many problems in government including turning citizens away from politics. you go on to say that we should thank george mason for partisanship. >> guest: i would've thanked james madison, are you sure that's me? >> host: yes james madison. >> guest: yes it would have been madison, thomas jefferson was more the mover.

alexander hamilton came along, seems to have captured washington sphere. he moved to the country in a direction that neither madison or jefferson think is correct but they're faced with this problem. after a revolution, after a revolution, after the constitution, you get something going and everybody thinks, if you say anything about the way we are going that's an issue. you can't criticize it or act against it. what they did, madison in particular, was get across the idea that it is okay to criticize the government, it is our duty to poll the feet of hold the feet of people in power to the fire. madison wrote essays in newspapers to make his point that is not disloyalty to criticize, it is is loyal to a principal you believe in. with that camel's nose under the tent, you, you call it. madison and jefferson formed the

first political party. it is real rake through in political science. >> host: steve in oklahoma city. >> caller: i'm wondering where the body snatcher came from. there are two madisons, one mar madison. eighteenth century as father of the constitution advocated frequently and almost endlessly that the new congress be in power to veto any state law they find offensive or so-called negative. >> guest: thank you for calling in with. it's one of the most interesting episode scholarship. how did this man who is so concerned about the central

government not having enough power, so concerned he suggested there should be a veto. how did he turn into this defender of small government that he became the answer one right time is alexander hamilton. it wasn't until alexander hamilton came with his report on public credit with the national bank and george washington was perfectly aligned with this. it wasn't until then madison saw the overwhelming threat was not from the central government to weak, but too strong. you could call it a bodysnatcher or someone who looked at the situation and decided he had taken a wrong track and put himself another way.

[inaudible] >> guest: you said that twice now. ) sorry. phd 19th century british literature university of wisconsin from a senior the american enterprise institute from 94 to today, second lady of the united states 2001 to 2009, member of the board of lockheed for several years. cohost of cnn's crossfire, and author of the teen books. first of all, you used the term cheating and i know there's been talk about how to pronounce cheney -- has become cheney in today's world. how do you say? >> guest: cheney. this is a good one. this is about dick going to a

family remembers oldest living relative is. so there had been this question that cheney versus cheney. he goes for his uncle was standing with this very odd dog. he jumps in and makes you nervous. he went over and said uncle art, tommy is said cheney or cheney? they said thank you. he wants out of there but he doesn't want to be rude so he says what kind of dog is this. uncle art says it's a big old. so that leaves you perpetually confused. >> host: it's a little confusing because you said it right on the air. do you remember classmate named

tl quan h.? c-span traveled to casper wyoming. about your high school years. we are going to show a little bit video and is referred to earlier, we will show you some of the books she's reading and some of the influences in her life. we will be back to take more calls life. >> this is a copy of our county high school senior year of 1959 when dick and i were classmates and along with land all in the same class together. the first one is a picture of dick coming down the stairways and we were all juniors.

he was a junior also and that was the group of individuals picked to go to the conference around the state fairgrounds. some of the better students and boy status but is actually called. they had grossed it also of which land and this picture happens to be a picture when she was getting ready to go down to gross state, too. i moved here starting at the eighth-grade when dick and land and we all met each other at the school year. we would all go to the same

parties and they never dated until they were seniors because everybody call mingled with everybody else. not like it is today. they were very popular of ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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♪ ♪ >> host: lynne chaney, we are showing influences in your life. we talked about margaret scheidler. another is richard himmelfarb. who is she? >> guest: an amazing intellectual who i have been interested in the taurean period. she is much more insightful than i think i've ever been about while we condemn as morality of the victorian period with this

underway. how was important and what we gain when they move away and what we lose. he's been a wonderful writer on the enlightenment in america. she resigned the national and i'm up for humanities council when i was there. you could just count on her to be incredibly perceptive about whatever the subject at hand was. burchard as i call her miss mary to crystal and her husband as bill kristol of the weekly standard. it is a family that has made the intellectual life seem so energizing and reporting. >> host: when you were second lady did you maintain an office? >> guest: yes, but i didn't go down very much. this trouble to get secret

service agent and a couple of cars. >> host: this text for you. can mrs. cheney comment on the role of think tanks and contemporary politics? >> guest: well, they are different. aei is even different since i've been there. i suppose there was more influenced -- more attention paid to the humanities. i think it has evolved so the issues that are front and center are those that are front and center on capitol hill and in the white house. it has become a much more dynamic and energize placed as the evolution has occurred and we have a great leader right now. a fellow named arthur brooks. >> host: this text goes on to say what in your opinion would madison and the other founders

think of the think tanks? >> guest: they would probably want to be in one. >> host: 202. a little over an hour left. author and scholar, lynne chaney. (202)748-8201 for the mountain and pacific time zone. several other ways to get ahold of a city can get through phone lines. e-mail otb@c-span.org. or a twitter handle. facebook.com/booktv you can make a comment there. and finally, text a message (202)465-6842. lynne chaney is the author of 13 books. six or seven of those are for children. a couple novels for the most recent bestseller and james

madison and michael is in ft. pearce, florida. hi, michael. >> caller: good afternoon. mrs. cheney come i first want to let you know i have some fond memories -- memories. i have the opportunity to travel all over the rockies. so you have a beautiful postcard >> guest: it is beautiful. >> caller: my question has to do with the political environment today and why conservatives seem to have such difficult the in communicating their message to the average individual. they do very well singing in front of the choir but depending upon the audience it doesn't seem to get through relevant. >> host: michael, are you conservative? >> guest: they'll actually made a conscious effort to

maintain my independence. it hasn't kept parties from contact amy for support but i'm a registered independent. >> host: in your view what would be a good message for conservatives? >> guest: the benefits of a conservative sort of government in a place like east st. louis take a message to where it is needed. you know, speaking to the american enterprise institute, you're going to have a very nice reception is a conservative. conservatives need to get out and get their message to people who need it most. >> host: who i have heard recently talking about this in a very informed wastelands previous was the chairman of the republican party. i heard him go on at some length about the necessity for

outreach. you don't make phone calls trying to get those. you go when men say they are and the fellow failings you have with people who are working hard and making their way up. arthur brooks has also spoken about this very well in his book, the conservative heart. when you're a conservative you find yourself saying no a lot. we don't want obamacare in what you have to do is explain why it is often really gas. no, we don't want to raise taxes because yes we want to support people who are working their way and do understand the importance of free enterprise. we don't often get our message

across while, but those are a couple of people who have been contemplating the subject sensibly. >> host: text from 10 tidbit come i'm sorry, facebook comment. i'm a teacher who shares your america book every year. what advice do you have for your second grade writer? what did you like to read in elementary school and here is one of the children's books. >> guest: one assam member clearly was about my dog and the dog was named heidi and i got lots of praise for this essay from my teacher. one breakfast a home and having the teacher find what is good in that as well as pointing out where you could do better. there aren't a lot of stories in american history that would be good subjects.

one of the books i wrote for children is called when washington crossed the delaware and it is such a great story because it's enclosed. washington after this long retreat decides to go on the offense and does this heroic thing crossing the delaware, capturing a thousand haitians, taking them back and then he goes to princeton. this is the kind of a story. the glorious end of the story followed doubt and difficulty leading up to it. so i think there are stories like that they have to tell the children first. maybe you can ask them, what was heroic about what washington did? >> guest: here is the inside of america, the children's book from madison i guess you could

say. what is the difference between writing for children. how did you change your style? >> guest: you can't write for long sentences and you have to be thoughtful about your vocabulary. i have to tell you that is wonderful discipline. when you move through that, there's also this great feeling of freedom because it doesn't matter if i was sometimes prayer for lifelong. i've compared this to writing haiku. you have to condense so much in such a little space. you have to make it accurate and that is important for children and it has to be understandable and still enjoyable. i was lucky with this book and a couple others who have a wonderful illustrator who brings such joy to the process.

>> host: here is her picture. she's also a dancer. >> guest: just, she is. she has now written a series called fiancé nancy that is so wild and popular i don't know if i'll ever get to go straight again for me. >> host: another caller. >> caller: hi, i just want to say mrs. cheney in such a great admirer of the research you put into your book will be fascinating if you could write a continuation to blue skies, no fences if you could describe your phd years devoted to motherhood and also behind the scenes of her political life. is that something you would consider? >> guest: jazz, but i want to be a lot older first. you can be franker as you get

older. i don't want to tell tales right now. maybe when i'm 90. but thank you for that suggestion. there's a lot of things i would love to say that i would have to be tactful. >> host: have you kept a diary? >> guest: no. i wish i had. as someone who is close to a public figure, it would be a mistake. we could get subpoenaed. >> host: are we losing information with e-mail with some of the ways we communicate today? >> guest: washington papers are the ones that knocked me over because he had a lot of people helping him right. there are many people. you know every day for washington was doing during the revolution. every day. i'm sure there are exceptions

but mostly not. i don't think we will no doubt about president obama for president bush or anyone who has lived as far back to the 20th century. >> host: in your husband's book coming he writes about driving across country after surveying the secretary surveying the secretary of defense and delivering his papers. he delivered quite a bit of material to the university of wyoming in a u-haul. did you accompany him? >> guest: now, do i look crazy? dick likes to drive. he loves the way the various aspects and he loves going across nebraska which can take you forever. she just loves it. he wanted to take a drive. he also needed to get the car

out there. >> host: you did not participate in the driving? >> guest: i flew. it would be nice to have them all in one place. >> host: next call comes from the weeds in bozeman, montana. you are on booktv. quote >> caller: hello, mrs. cheney. it's quite an honor to speak to you. i'm going to be a celebrity at our dinner party tonight. everyone will be so jealous attack to one of the cheney members. without your daughter and her son -- and in your husband. the reason i called this i didn't know you had written so many children's books and my sister and i are in a mission to

get better history lesson. my question is simple. what are the age groups for being able to read it and secondly to read it to themselves. >> guest: i've had my own experience reading it to 4-year-old grandchildren and by the time they are six. the illustrations and that's a wonderful reason to read it with them because you can talk about the illustration. i mentioned a minute ago the book i wrote about washington crossing the delaware from an other one called we the people about the constitution. the pictures are so wonderful. here is madison, benjamin frank lindh. while they could read books themselves by the time they are six or seven, i also think the x

variants of rating them to a young person for a clinch road is very, very rich and enriching for both parties involved. >> host: dear mrs. cheney, what is your next children book in your next nonfiction memoir going to be. let's bring it back to the conversation. this is from tom in tampa. >> guest: you know, i don't know when i'm going to ride it but i sure would like to. these books are so gratifying because you go do a book signing with little kids and thompson died who want them to know about history. i look forward to doing that. i've got a couple titles in mind that i don't want to give them away. i am interested in the work of in the worker junior presidents as is a book for adults. there's so many great personal stories. not only great accomplishment,

amazing, schmidt, but just so many great stories i would like to tell. >> host: we interviewed david macauley yesterday at a book festival and a caller asked him where he got his boys in the senate put it it on the shelf for two weeks and then i go back and see if it stands up and if it bores me. >> guest: i have also heard david mccullough reads his books aloud to his wife. i think that's a great idea. britain and prose is so important. there is a copy of the declaration of independence as these marks on it. as you scan poetry to see how the river marks. another way to do it is read it out loud and you hear it working. ..

>> caller: yes, thank you. hi, ms. cheney. >> guest: hi. >> caller: i just want to ask do you think that barack obama a should be impeached? >> guest: well, no. no. i think he's been a disastrous president in many ways, but i don't see high crimes and misdemeanors. i just see taking the country in the wrong direction.

>> host: jill is in woodburn, oregon. jill? >> caller: hello, mrs. cheney. it's an honor to speak to you. i want to ask you when did you first decide that you were going to become a writer? and did you have a mentor, and was it difficult to find a publisher when you wrote your first book? and then just a real quick comment about -- i'm actually born and raised in colorado springs, and i wanted to ask you what was your experience like at colorado college? thank you. >> guest: gosh, that's a lot of questions. >> caller: jill, where'd you go to college? >> guest: i went to college in bend, oregon. >> guest: thank you for what you do. let's start with the last first. my experience at colorado college was terrific. my two daughters went there, my son-in-law went there, i have a grandchild there. it's, you know, peter and i were talking about small liberal arts colleges, and it's just my cup of tea, you know? where you can get to know the

professors. now at colorado college there's this thing called the brock plan where you -- block plan where you study one class three weeks in total depth and nothing else. and that works very well. so for me, that was terrific. i honestly -- and this doesn't sound like a very inspiring answer, but as i said before, i became a writer when i couldn't get a job teaching. and, you know, you don't know how these great disappointments in life are going to turn around and be a great blessing. but for me that was certainly the case. getting published, i think, is harder now than it has ever been. partly because the publishing industry isn't quite as robust as it once was, but there's a lot of self-publishing going on which i find very interesting. and, you know, people find ways to set up web sites and promote their own books and sell their own books. so in a way while the publishing industry itself is not as robust

as it once was, there are these other entry points that i think are very promising. >> host: your james madison was reviewed far and wide, liberal, conservative. it got pretty high marks right across the board. do you care about the reviews? >> guest: oh, yeah. i mean, i wish i didn't -- [laughter] but sure, i do. especially when you've spent five years on something. you know, you'd like to have a little ratification, a little hint that maybe it wasn't five years wasted. >> host: next call for lynne cheney comes from dorothy in kentucky, i think that's ur langer, kentucky. >> caller: hi. hello, ms. cheney, it's a privilege to talk to you. >> guest: hi. >> caller: my concern is freedom of religion. you know, the separation of church and state has gone way too far, if you ask me. the state is trying to take freedom of religion and god out

of our public, and my problem is with this ms. davis in kentucky being jailed and because of her belief, isn't that the state impeding the religion of the american people? >> guest: you know, there are many people who look at it that way, and i understand that. i guess i also think, though, that ms. davis is a public servant, and in that role has to uphold the law. i mean, it's a very difficult problem. but, you know, you can't have policemen, for example, refusing to arrest people or arrest them because -- it would be more fitting to say not arrest them because of their gender or their

race or their sexual orientation. so i find the fact that she's working for the state problem mat you can. problematic. it's a different matter in private life, i think. but i think ms. davis has to uphold the law, or she's always free to find another job. and i'm sorry you and i, i don't think, agree on that. >> host: what did james madison, what were his views on religion? >> guest: views on religion. well, he never said. i think he was most likely something like a unitarian. he thought that religion was very important to public life because it turned people toward the good rather than the bad. but he mostly, his most underlying important belief is that each of us ought to be free to worship as we wish. now, you know, i'm not sure that this case is the same as that.

we're all free to worship as we wish, but if we're in the pay, in the employ of the state, don't we have to enforce the law of the state? that's -- this is all very complicated. >> host: how did you pick the charities that the proceeds from your children's books go to? >> guest: oh, well -- >> host: i know there's some educational endowment funds there. >> guest: yes. it seems to me to put some of the money into causes that support children was very important, and i think also causes that support the armed forces. that was very important during a time that -- and it still is very important. so i have to say it wasn't as systematized as it should have been, but i felt so grateful that i could do that. >> host: and i think it was reported about eight million, at least $8 million -- >> guest: no, that's a different pot of money. >> host: isn't that the money -- oh, was that from -- that's a different pot of money?

>> guest: well, okay. about a million dollars of the children's books -- >> host: right. >> guest: -- went to charity. but when dick became vice president, he had been the ceo of halliburton, and he had these things called unvested options which basically are promises that in the future you're going to get options which are worth some money. so unvested options, promises in the future. there was nothing illegal about keeping them, because, you know, they were already a done deal. they were already baked in. but he thought, and i agreed, that it wasn't as clean as it should be. and so we set up a plan whereby the unvested options got donated to charity. and there was i'm not sure of the number, and or -- seven and or eight million dollars. a lot of that money went to

george washington hospital where dick's life has been saved many times, a lot to the university of wyoming, some to an organization in the district of columbia that helps put kids who are not in good schools into better situations, and so that, i think those were the main contributions. >> host: vicki is in meridian, mississippi. hi, vicki. >> caller: hello. >> guest: hi, vicki. >> caller: hey. i'd first like to thank c-span for booktv. it's a wonderful window for so many people. and mrs. cheney, your family for all your public service. my question is during your research of james madison, was there anything that surprised you? that you weren't expecting to find? >> guest: well, i certainly didn't know at the outset that he had epilepsy, and i am now convinced he did. i always knew that dolley madison would be fun to write

about, but i was surprised at how much fun she was to write about. when you're, when you write books, you're always trying to give people images, you know, so they can see it as well as just understand it intellectually. and dolley has some great images. one of my favorites, you know, is a pink velvet dress with lots of gold chains involved and a high white turban with peacock feathers coming out. she was already taller than james, but the time you add the turban and the peacock feathers, she must have been a foot and a half taller than he was. this is just a delight and to be able to convey to people. so those are the two things i would say, james' illness and dolley madison's wonderful dramatic self. >> host: stephen in charlotte, north carolina, e-mail. what does lynne cheney think of the decision to change hamilton's $10 bill? which woman should be on a bill and which bill? he this thinks jackson -- he

thinks jackson should be replaced on the 20. >> guest: that's interesting, because i've had that same thought, why hamilton? you know, he contributed so much to the economic system that we have in this country. also i just, not so long ago i saw the play "hamilton" in new york which is, oh, it's quite wonderful. why hamilton? i don't want to replace hamilton. now, like the person who e-mailed, i'm not that great a fan of jackson, but i'm also not sure what we're doing here. i'm not sure what we're doing about changing the name of the mountain range from mount mckinley to denali. people were already using both names. why do we have to break these connections with the past? we are more moral in some ways than our predecessors were in virginia in those days, but they had many things to contribute that we don't have. so i'm just not a fan of this.

>> host: kate is in austin, texas. kate, you're on with author and scholar lynne cheney. please go ahead. >> caller: hi, good afternoon, and thank you for this wonderful show. i'm a big fan of dolley madison, and i'm wondering, mrs. cheney, if during your research do you ever come across any evidence, for example letters, that dolley and -- influenced james' political ideas on the form our government should take or on the bill of rights? >> guest: ing no. she wasn't abigail who was quite clear in her letter to john that you shouldn't forget the women as you form the new nation. now, they did pretty much forget women as they formed it anyway, but abigail was out there pushing her point of view. dolley's influence was maybe as great but more subtle. one of my favorite dolley stories is, you know, you know

the story a little bit, how she's in the white house, and the british are coming during the war of 1812, so she saves the george washington portrait. but you look at the letter that dolley wrote, it went over three days. and it just seems such an unlikely thing, that you're writing a letter over three days while you're running away from the white house, and getting someone to cut george washington out of the frame of the painting. it almost -- she writes it as though she's writing it at the time, but i really think she wrote it after. she understood the importance of telling the story right. and so she told it really, really right. it was a different kind of influence. it wasn't a political one, i think. >> host: although he had long regarded an army, in particular as dangerous in a republic, he now realized that military strength was essential to the nation's security. from "james madison." >> guest: you know, during the revolution when the revolution

got started, it was widely believed that an army was a monster, you know? you maybe needed to gather a few militia together, maybe even a lot of them to fight this war, but you didn't want an army because they could turn on a free people and make a tyranny of what had been an independent land. so it took a long time during the revolution for congress to even come around to the idea that, you know, maybe we ought to enlist them for three years. but first it was like six months and a year. so let's enlist people for three years. and the whole notion that a standing army was evil lasted in american consciousness for quite a while. madison, faced with the war of 1812, certainly saw the need for a standing army. he also, he had never wanted us to build ships. thank goodness for john adams who managed to i think it was

six frigates that he managed to get authorized. there's a wonderful book called "six frigates" by ian toll. ian toll is the author. you know, those ships, the constitution, these ships kept american hope alive when the war of 1812 wasn't going well. >> host: we haven't talked about john adams and james madison's relationship. if any. >> guest: not much. not much. >> host: why? how did they miss each other? [laughter] >> guest: you know, adams was the interloper. he was the second president. and otherwise the virginians would be in charge. what relationship there was was pretty hostile, because adams signed the alien and sedition acts, and madison -- who was a great champion of freedom of expression -- suddenly found himself in a country where, you know, the president said, you

know, you start talking ill against this country, you start talking ill against the alliances we have, well, we'll put you in jail like we did that newspaper publisher and this newspaper publisher. so that, that was a great shock to both madison and jefferson when that happened. >> host: when you look at james madison, you look at the executive branch today, the powers, what kind of powers would james madison have as compared to today? >> guest: very small. i mean, today it's grown so amazingly. i mean, you know, executive orders, executive agreements, i think jefferson is even on record as having said, you know, when we've got some business to do, we can't always have a full treaty and the full vote and all that's involved. so that started very early. but i cannot imagine that something like the agreement with iran wouldn't have been properly regarded as a treaty. >> host: larry is in las vegas.

larry, we've got about 30 minutes left with our guest, lynne cheney. >> guest: good morning, mrs. cheney. it's a pleasure to ask you a question. number one, how do you think the people that framed the constitution and our laws feel about when they were in their later life? and also what do you think they thought about, would think about potus, the supreme court and the congress today? >> guest: i didn't quite get the first part. >> host: yeah, larry, could you repeat? >> caller: this their later life -- in their later life, the framers of the constitution and everything, how do you think they felt in their later life? do you think they felt they had achieved success? >> guest: yes, i think so. there was this whole tradition. it was around the country but especially in virginia, you know, the ideal outcome of life

was fame. and that didn't mean being famous, it meant being honored by posterity. it was regarded as a kind of immortality. and if you had done something grand, and the grandest thing you could do would be to be a founder of the nation, then you would be remembered by posterity. so i think they all understood at the end of their lives that they had, they had achieved that. it's an interesting question to think, you know, what if i could have james madison for my house guest, you know? and drive him around downtown d.c. i just, i think it would just be shock, just complete shock at the size this whole thing has achieved. now, it had to be a lot bigger. you know, the country's a lot bigger. but i still think they'd, you know, have to be taken to a bar and have a good, stiff drink, you know, after having seen the gargantuan that we've created. >> host: the president was modest when he spoke to congress

for the last time in december. he spoke of his pride that the american people have reached in safety and success their 40th year as an independent nation and that for nearly an entire generation they have had experience of their present constitution. he did not mention his role in creating the constitution. instead, attributing it to the citizens of the united states. >> guest: that's really nice, isn't it? >> host: that's from your book, "james madison: a life reconsidered." >> guest: and i think they also understood that they had created something so innate. it hadn't been seen under the sun, a great republic. and they had seen -- because they'd been through the french revolution -- they had seen how this can go awry. you know, revolutions don't always end well. revolutions don't always end up in republics. so i think, you know, yes, modesty was considered a great

virtue. that was one of the things that madison learned from reading "the spectator." modesty was really important. but inside i think they just must have burst with pride and happiness at what they had created. >> host: once you finish your manuscript, how many pages did you have? what happens to it? when do you see it again? how often do you work with an editor? >> guest: well, you get several chances, you know? the editor will read it first and send it back, and then, you know, you rework -- if you think you need to -- parts that he or she has pointed to. if you think you need to. i mean, it's usually a back and forth. and then it goes this again. you might get it back again. and pretty soon you get it back in a way that is in print, but you can still make some changes. and then you get it back again in a way that it's more firmly locked in print, and if you make changes, it better not change the lines. you know, you still want -- i don't know what it is, 23 lines

on the page. so if you're going to make an addition or subtraction, it better fit, because other the index will have to be changed. the index drives a hot at the end. they prepare the index, and it says this is on page 323, and if you do a lot of changing, it won't be. you know, it goes back and forth quite a lot. it took nearly a year, i think. now, this isn't the case with all books. >> host: did you turn in more than 400 pages of manuscript? >> guest: is that only how long the book is? >> host: i think it's about 400, is what i want to say. i'm looking at the soft copy here. about 435. >> guest: okay. that's -- you know, i'm sure that is not very far off what i turned in. i do a lot, a lot of rewriting, but not at that point. >> host: diane, mission viejo, california. hi, diane.

>> caller: hi, mrs. cheney. it's such a pleasure to talk to you. >> guest: my pleasure. >> caller: this is a funny story, but my maiden claim is cheney, but it's c-h-a -- >> guest: ah, so no question about how to say that one. >> caller: no. i'm so looking forward also to reading your husband and liz's book, but i also wanted to ask you i have a 4-year-old granddaughter, and which book of yours for chirp would be more -- for children would be more appropriate for her age level? >> guest: oh. well, i'm not sure it's age level, but whenever i'm going to give a first children's book to a girl, i give "a is for abigail." it's just a perfect gift for a little girl. what's her name? >> host: diane, you still with us? >> caller: yes. >> host: what's her name? >> caller: her name is bella. >> guest: then you buy a is for abigail, and inside the page you

say, and b is for bela. and she will love it her whole life. >> caller: yeah, because she can spell her name real well. thank you so much. it's a joy to have this program. >> host: that's diane in mission viejo, and next up is david in cape coral, florida. wow. cape coral, florida billion. hi, david, sorry about that. >> caller: hi. hi, mrs. cheney. >> guest: hi. >> caller: i just called to express, i always wanted to tell somebody how grateful we were that your husband's willing to take on the job as vice vice president at the time he did and when, you know, he really had no expectation of going on to run for president or anything like that and was so secure. we really appreciated that. >> guest: well, that's so nice. i'll pass that along. i'm sure he'll be happy to hear that. >> host: he is out on -- david, did you want to add something else? >> caller: well, no. just that irene and i just got

back from wyoming. we visited -- >> guest: oh! >> caller: it's very interesting how close and personal the political life there seems compared to other places. >> guest: that's a really good observation. everybody knows everybody. it's like someone once likened wyoming to a sort of small town with very long streets, you know? a whole state is lined up. so we all know each other. >> host: 202 is the area code, 748-8200 in the east and central time zones, 8201 if you live in the mountain and pacific time zones. we're going to put up some other addresses, including a text address, 202-465-6842. go ahead and send those texts to lynne cheney. she is the author of 13 books. we want to show you the covers of those 13 books. the first two were novels, "executive privilege" came out

in 1979. mrs. cheney, when you sat down and you saw a copy of that, you kind of laughed, because you had forgotten about that book. [laughter] >> guest: people often ask me how many books i'd written, so this morning i thought you would, and i was trying to total them up, and i don't know the number i came up with, but i didn't count "executive privilege." so thank you. >> host: sisters in 1981, another novel. tyrannical machines, 1990. telling the truth: why our culture and our country have stopped making sense and what we can do about it, 1996. kings of the kill written with her husband, 1996, it's about power and personality in the house of representatives. america: a patriotic primer, her first children's book, 2002. a is for abigail, 2003. when washington crossed the delaware: a winter time story for young patriots, 2004. a time for freedom, 2005.

our 50 statements, another children's book, a family adventure across america, 2006. and then her memoir, "blue skies, no fences: a hem worry of childhood and family," 2007. 2008 another children's book. her newest book, "james madison: a life reconsidered," came out in 2014 to very good reviews, and it also became a bestseller. did you do a book tour? >> guest: oh, yes. >> host: did you enjoy the book tour? >> guest: well, more than i might have because dick went along. he was -- he used to joke he was my arm candy. you know, wives go along on everything and, you know, smile nice at the crowds, but dick came along. and so instead of giving speeches, which i find, you know, i can give a good speech, but it's just a little bit stressful. instead of speeches, dick interviewed me. and so everybody loved it.

i loved it because i could just answer questions and not have to stand up and give a speech, and i think he enjoyed it too. and audiences, for sure did. >> host: and, in fact, booktv covered you out at the reagan or nixon library with the two of you sitting and doing that conversation when the book first came out. >> guest: yeah. >> host: was it like campaigning? >> guest: a little. but, you know, you're not so worried about saying something that, you know, is going to cause a big bruhaha on the nightly news. so it's more relaxing than campaigning. when we campaigned, i didn't get to talk very much. so this was a little more enjoyable than that since i got to talk a little bit as well. >> host: well, i remember the '04 campaign you did some town meetings where you interviewed the vice president. maybe not interviewed -- >> guest: no, that's probably right. i got to ask questions. but this time i got to answer them, so -- >> host: why is speechmaking stressful for you?

>> guest: well, not that it's -- i think it's stressful for everybody. you know? you have to try to entertain people by talking straight at them for a long time. and having been an audience member in a lot of speeches, that's just inherently boring, you know? you don't -- people always like the question and answer after better than they do the speech. so, you know, i think they just enjoy this interview format more too. it's a little easy -- it's more surprising, you know? you never quite know what's going to happen. dick will ask me a question like what's the best thing about me? [laughter] you know, i actually have never asked that, but some surprising questions. i just think the entertainment value is achieved without so much work. >> host: marty, trenton, new jersey. hi, marty, you're on with lynne cheney. >> caller: ms. cheney, i saw your list of books, and among them was david hackett fisher's -- [inaudible] and that's also one of my very

favorites. and, in fact, i taught an immigration course for quite a few years, and i used that as one of the texts. >> guest: oh, great. >> caller: and i also teach new jersey history, and david hackett fisher has also wrote "washington's crossing." >> guest: exactly. >> caller: i assume you've read that as you wrote your own book on washington. >> guest: yes. >> host: crossing the delaware. marty, why did you teach albion seed as the one of the books you taught? >> guest: it's a good introductory book to the whole problem of immigration. he poses a scenario where four groups of people, the puritans, the quakers, the virginians and the irish, scotch-irish formed

the basis for the mores of america. >> guest: yep. >> caller: but his accounts of those communities are absolutely priceless. he really is quite a good historian and a very good writer. and there's that and, of course, there's the washington's crossing. there's perhaps half a dozen or so accounts of washington crossing the delaware. i think of all of them fisher's is the latest and the best. he's a great admirer of washington. he brings out some of the superb qualities that washington had. this doesn't come out in the book, but for example, ms. cheney talked about the fear of a standing army. well, that's why they formed the society of since gnat discuss. i mean, washington could have been king. he could have been anything. and he gave up his control of

the army and went back to mount vernon. that's perhaps his finest hour, i don't know. but, you know, these are things that fisher brings out. that's all i wanted to say. >> guest: i enjoyed albion sea because it was at the time i was writing "blue skies, no fences," in which there's some genealogy. and i became interested not only in my own forebearers, but in dick's. as a result of that we figured out that dick had -- one cheney came with puritans. but another cheney came with the roilists -- royalists into maryland. and there are so many wonderful documents about the cheney that came into maryland, but you just see how one family line became so different from the other, because there's hardly a more different contrast, greater contrast than between the new englanders and the virginians,

the marylanders. this ancestor had come because of religious oppression. you know, the puritans were being discriminated against. this ancestor came because of the civil war in england. he was a royalist. and oliver cromwell was making life for the royalists difficult can. so i loved the book in that context. and, yes, when washington crossing the delaware came out, david hackett fisher's book, dick was vice president at the time, and so we were fortunate enough to have him come for dinner and talk about his book. he does a great job of that too. >> host: and you have a family tree here -- >> guest: yes. >> host: -- in "blue skies," your family tree at least. in the acknowledgments of this book, you thank i think it's the mormon church, their genealogical records and some other laces that -- are those

hard to navigate? >> guest: you know, it's easier than ever now on the internet because so many people are navigating things. i was trying to, you know, discover the identity of a young woman, her last name, in fact, was brown. but i found, you know, a great record of her in the french family records because one of her ancestors had been named french. one of my maternal ancestors was a woman named katura vaughn who was recruited in wales by brigham young and the people. so she came over as a mormon. it's just a heroic life. you know, she landed in louisiana. therecholera on the boat, her hd died, her baby died. she went up the mississippi and the missouri to council bluffs which was a stepping-off place to cross, you know, the whole west to get to utah. and, boy, they were just tough

people. and i just loved knowing her story, and i certainly got a lot of the information from the mormon archives. >> host: this is i think my favorite quote in the book, and i think it was written in your yearbook. lynne, you have a wonderful personality, you're very pretty, and you're awfully intelligent. most girls are either pretty and dumb or smart and plain. [laughter] you have a rare combination of both. >> guest: or dick. dick cheney wrote that, of course, but he's evolved. >> host: and here's a picture of lynne and dick cheney at their high school graduation, and that's your mother in the background. >> guest: yes. i remember that picture. she's trying to keep the light from coming through the door to the living room, so she's up there kind of holding it back. >> host: rita, daytona beach, florida. please go ahead. >> caller: yes, good afternoon, mrs. cheney. >> guest: good afternoon. >> caller: my mom, my mom passed

away over 30 years ago, and she suffered from epilepsy, as did james madison. she was a very intelligent woman, and she also was a lover of history. she believed, as i do, that truth in government was very important, and for those interested in truth regarding the issue of iraq, i suggest they go online at center for public integrity.org which documents over 900 lies told by the bush/cheney administration. >> guest: i'm not going to go on that, because it sounds like propaganda. but i just will say that i think president bush and my husband did a fine and honorable job, and i'll further point out that when they left office -- because of president bush's courage in pushing forward a surge -- iraq was a stable place, which it is not today. >> host: i want to go back to your mother,. [applause] cheney, because you write about

her -- mrs. cheney, because you write about her quite a bit. having her teeth pulled, it turned out, wasn't the answer. she was still sad and tired from the moment she got up in the morning. finally one doctor suggested that she wasn't sick, it was her nerves, a diagnosis that she decided was maybe right. she needed to be busier to quit thinking about herself so much, and so she got a job. >> guest: well, you know, women didn't work very much in the '50s. unless you had to, but if you could afford not to, you stayed home. she was just the whole issue of health. i mean, i look at a lot of 18th century health issues and think, gosh, if modern medicine would have been there, this would have been so different. i think it's the same with my mother. but when she got her job, it was as secretary to the police chief. and a few years later she became a deputy sheriff. and she was so proud of her badge. when she would come back to see us in washington, d.c., she kind of carried it and showed it to people. partly because it was so

unbelievable. here was a woman, and she was a deputy sheriff in casper, wyoming. i also think she provided a model for me. it's good to be busy in your life. it is good. and if you find work that is rewarding, you're very lucky. >> host: did she go to college? >> guest: no. >> host: did she finish high school? >> guest: yes. but my grandmother, her mother, came to wyoming with my grandfather to work -- my grandfather was going to work in the salt creek oilfields which is about 60 miles from casper. and through long, hard winters, i mean, they were very poor, my grandmother raised five children in a tent with wooden sides. i know. i mean, you think of these women like vaughn, like this grandmother, i could, you know, go on, these women were so strong. >> host: eleanor in texas. eleanor, what's the name of your town in texas?

>> guest: it's wax hatch chi, texas. >> host: thank you, ma'am. where is that? >> caller: it's south of dallas. >> host: all right. go ahead and ask your question or make your comment, ma'am. >> caller: okay. my comment is this. i'm so full of gratitude to vice president cheney and lynne cheney, his wife, the second lady. they were unbeatable during that time when everyone was so shaken up by the 9/11 attack. >> guest: well, that's, that is just so kind of you that you're making me a little bit weepy. but thank you for those thoughts, and i will certainly pass them on to dick. >> host: even though you've been

out of office for quite a while, do you still have any official commitments or official roles? do you get invited to certain things? >> guest: well, in wyoming where lots of our friends show up in august, you know, we go out a lot. and that's just fun. you know, these are people we've known for such a long time, and some of them don't want to do the winter in wyoming anymore, but that's great. and when we're back here, we have trends. but, you know, it's not official really. >> host: do you -- you're out there eight months. do you spend the winters in wyoming? >> guest: it varies. oh, of course. we were there all of january and february this year. i will tell you it's not as easy as it was when i was younger. you know, you worry about slipping in the parking lot at the grocery store. there i go talking about the grocery store again. [laughter] gosh, it's beautiful. i've got a wonderful picture taken at christmas time of the lights are on in the house, and

there's a moose in our backyard. you know, a christmas moose, i call him. he's eating our willows, of course. but that's okay. he's so beautiful. >> host: jane, chicago. go ahead, please. >> caller: hi, lynne, thank you so much. i'm enjoying this program very much. i also appreciate you and your husband's service to our country. >> guest: well, thank you. >> caller: i think you were there just as we needed you. i am so grateful that you and the bushes were there for 9/11. you helped the whole country get through that. but i wanted to know if you think we will ever get to the point where people limit their public service that they -- on their own, that they don't spend whole careers like 50 years in the senate? >> guest: well, you know, there are term limits now for president at least. i think public life may be --

but this isn't answering your question. i'm thinking that people maybe don't want to go into it as much as they used to because it's become so contentious and so difficult. once you are an incumbent, though, it's not so difficult. and since these people are the ones that would have to pass term limits, i'm not sure i see it happening. it's also the case, though, that there is wisdom gained. you know, i think dick was much wiser after he'd served ten years in congress than he would have been, much more prepared to be secretary of defense. and i realize he's changing jobs, but there is wisdom that comes from experience, and i'm positive that that time as secretary of defense was crucial to his being able to deal wisely with the job as vice president. so there is this other side to it. but i know what you mean. there are definitely some people

who have overstayed their usefulness. >> host: time for a few more calls with our guest. jim is in jackson, ohio. jim, hi. >> caller: hello. >> guest: hi, jim. >> caller: yes, in traveling from the state of ohio to visit my family out in washington state, we've crisscrossed wyoming many times, really enjoyed it. >> guest: good. >> caller: i have a question about the book you wrote called "telling the truth." i was just wondering if you might make comments on why you wrote it and does it still have relevance today? and perhaps to put it in context in today's world. >> guest: i think it does, certainly, have relevance. it came out of my experience dealing with people in the humanities who'd moved in a direction that i thought wasn't helpful. the whole direction thing, you know, there's no truth, there's no right, there's no wrong.

one of my favorite responses to this idea that there's no right and wrong, there's just how you think about it and i think about it, was to say that i knew things that were wrong. slavery, for example, was wrong. now, that's a very hard assertion to challenge. but that's what this book is about. and i still think we have a lot of this happening in our colleges and in our schools. the whole idea that, well, what you thought was great when you were young really isn't so great because, you know, for example, the united states' victory in world war ii wasn't really great because we interned japanese. now, we shouldn't have done that, but there was rationale for it at the time. and even recognizing that there may have been error there doesn't heene that the whole -- doesn't mean that the whole thing wasn't great. so that was the notion that i was trying to battle then.

don't think i won, but i think it's still going on today and is something we need to be aware of. >> host: one would sometimes think, you write in "telling the truth" from reading today's textbooks that the founders of this country were a most singularly flawed group of men. >> guest: it's true. the best example of this is to read howard zinn's "history of the american people." that's his story. >> host: and we had an e-mail here from somebody about howard zinn, and it was about, that howard zinn focused on people as you talked about focusing on personalities and maybe that was an area where you agreed with howard zinn. >> guest: i doubt there are many, to tell you the truth. [laughter] >> host: and i apologize, i'm misquoting the e-mail, but i'll look for it. next call is another jim, this one in per sillville, virginia. hi, jim.

>> caller: hi, thanks. i'm sorry, i was confused with your earlier caller jim, but i just want to say i have a daughter bella too, and i'm going to get her a is for abigail. i'm just wondering if a part of ms. cheney would want to vote for hillary? and if not, would she win? [laughter] >> guest: no, i won't support mrs. clinton, but, no, i don't see myself running either. i do think it's a better world than it was when i was growing up in that we have women moving into higher positions. how many are in the senate now? i think 14. we're going to have more and more chances to vote for women, but i don't think i will ever vote for someone just because of gender. i will vote for someone whom i think will make this country a secure, a more secure and better place. >> host: are you having fun watching the 2016s? >> guest: oh, gee. i mean, you know, it's terrifying and interesting, and i've never seen anything like

it. >> host: here's that e-mail, just so i didn't misquote michael in fargo. i'm glad to hear your comment that the way to teach history is to focus on the people, this is what howard zinn did in his aptly-titled "people's history of the u.s.," can you offer any thoughts about mr. zinn's contributions to our country? >> guest: well, is it -- michael, did you say? i think, michael, that was a good question. [laughter] >> host: nathan's in san antonio. hi, nathan. please go ahead, just a few minutes left. >> caller: hey, how you doing? it's an honor to speak to you, mrs. cheney. >> guest: good to speak to you. >> caller: yeah, i had a question with the founding fathers, and you had discussed name and legacy. what do you think of your husband's legacy as the guy who brought back torture? [laughter] and would a good children's book be be w is for waterboarding or

w is for war criminal -- >> host: nathan, what do you do in san antonio? >> caller: i work. >> host: you want to tell us anything about yourself? >> caller: i grew up quaker, and i'm antiwar. maybe that's it, or maybe it's that the gloves came off after 2011 or whatever the excuse was for, and i think it's wrong. if he does go to the international criminal court, and if he does get prosecuted -- i know he can't travel in certain countries -- are you going to visit him this prison? >> host: that's nathan in san antonio. >> guest: nathan in san antonio can't just say those things without my answering. you've heard, i know you probably heard that most important information that we got that kept us from suffering another attack after 3,000 people had been killed in the

first one came from khalid sheikh mohammed. there were three people who were waterboarded, and california leak shake mohammed produced information that was absolutely vital to saving more lives. let me just say, though, that i appreciate your quaker heritage and salute your belief in peace. i just am firmly convinced that the way you get to peace is through having a strong national security defense and policy. >> host: lynne cheney is the author of 13 books, she's a scholar at the american enterprise institute, she's the former chair of the national endowment for the human the cities. the e-mail, and kate repeats something that we talked about earlier in the program, but just in case people weren't listening then. mrs. cheney, dolley madison appears to have been a very highly intelligent, politically-savvy and active woman. is there any evidence that she influenced her husband's ideas and thinking about the form of

our new government in creating the bill of rights, and is the story about dolley saving the white house relics when the british burned the white house true or just legend? >> guest: you know, i don't think dolley was a policy person, so i think that the answer is, no. you know, she wasn't telling james that we have to have a bill of rights. she wasn't doing that kind of thing. actually, they weren't married then. [laughter] she wasn't telling james what to do about the war of 1812. yes, the story about her saving the washington portrait is true, though it has become distorted over years. the historical evidence is that she asks someone in the white house to cut it out of the frame. it was rolled up and sent off with a mr. carroll for safety. and she did say some -- save some other things. she put silver in her tote bag. so, yes, yes, that story's true, though it has been exaggerated. >> host: time for two more

calls. we're going to begin with tom in hollywood, florida. tom, just a few minutes left. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. i would like to say to mrs. cheney thank you and your husband for your service. >> guest: thank you. >> caller: and a comment on the japanese internment during the second world war. >> guest: good. >> caller: i believe that the colombian government at that time was greatly compromised by activities from the japanese populace in that country. and i think roosevelt was looking at that, and that's what caused the internment. although i don't completely agree that everybody should have been interned. all the japanese should have been. and they a bit overdid it. but i think that was the fear. >> guest: well, that's interesting. >> caller: and i would like to pass on to your husband thanks

for standing up and speaking out about the administration as it -- and the, oh, well, the failure of what they've done to really stand up for america. >> guest: thank you. thank you, i'll pass that along. >> host: and final word is from sarah in olympia, washington. hi, sarah, you're on booktv. >> caller: thank you. mrs. cheney, i've got to read all 13 of your books. i'm a reader. [laughter] >> guest: good. >> caller: i, unfortunately, had my career cut off very early. i wanted to be a teacher. i didn't have the chance to do what i wanted to there, and i'm thinking i've been very patriotic all my life. i've been active in politics on getting people elected sort of thing. what do you think about older people, i mean retired people,

knowledgeable people going forward to actually volunteer to run for office? it seems to me there are many young people out there who could use our help. >> guest: i think it's great. i think it's great. i heene, ageism is -- i mean, ageism is a great social impediment just as sexism is. i think if you're fit and energetic and you want to do that, you should. i was also thinking though as you were talking that being a teacher, reading to kids in school, i mean, these -- wow, is that ever needed. especially by someone who knows a little history and wants to share it. >> host: mrs. cheney, do you have to be in good shape for a presidential campaign? >> guest: oh, my, yes. i have to also say dick did it after five heart attacks. but, you know, it came at a time in his life when he was very fit. he had a bad heart, and we're so lucky now, you know, since he's left the vice presidency, he's

had a heart transplant. and it's a miracle, modern medicine. you think how it's changed our world, and when i raze history, i can't help -- read history i can't help think how it could have been different. >> guest: we've got some video we want to of -- to show of you campaigning at ellis island. >> guest: oh, what a wonderful place. >> host: there you are campaigning. what's a normal day of campaigning like in the middle of a presidential -- tell me your schedule. >> guest: well, you know, you just get up and go all day. but the wonderful thing about a political campaign is that you don't do anything else. it just totally absorbs you. you just can't worry about the laundry, you know? [laughter] it's total energizing and absorbing. >> host: were you handed a piece of paper with your schedule on it in the morning? >> guest: yes. i mean, i went -- i had some part -- maybe not during the campaign, but after in developing it. oh, look at those little girls,

they've grown so big now. >> host: do you remember that day? >> guest: yes. >> host: or do they start to bartend? >> guest: i see those little girls, and i remember that day. >> host: lynne cheney. author, scholar, second lady for eight years and the author of these books, a couple of novels, executive privilege and sisters, '79 and '81. tyrannical machines came out in 1990 on educational practices. telling the truth, which we've talked about quite extensively today, 1996, why our culture and our country have stopped making sense and what we can do about it. kings of the hill written with her husband about house of representatives. children's books while second lady, america: a patriotic primer, 2002. a is for abigail, an alma that can of amazing women, 2003. when washington crossed the delaware, a time for freedom, 2005. our 50 states, another children's book in 2006, and

blue skies, no fences, her memoir, 2007. we the people, her last children's book, was in 2008. and then james madison, a bestseller, a life reconsidered, came out in 2014. lynn cheney for the last three hours has been our guest on lynne cheney for the last three hours have been our guest book tvs "in depth." >> guest: went fast. [inaudible conversations] >> c-span, created by america's cable companies 35 years ago brought to you as a public service by your local cable or satellite provider. >> here's a look at some of the current best selling nonfiction books according to independent which represents sales in independent bookstores throughout the country.

>> many of these authors have or will be appearing on the booktv. you can watch them on our website, booktv.org. >> this is booktv on c-span2, television for serious readers. at 7 p.m. eastern --

>> some professors were standing around during a reception. these were leftist professors. and one asked me, what they think about the relationship between capitalism and slavery? i said i think slavery has existed under every economic system. he said no, i want to ask you about what you think about the slavery of their ancestors. so i said slavery is a horrible institution. but i have benefited immensely from the suffering and slavery of my ancestors come ethic i was just any there in shock. so i said, he asked me and i explain myself. i said my wealth and my freedom is higher as result of being born in the united states than any country in africa. and i asked them how was it that they came to be born in the united states.

i came to be born in the united states because of slavery. and so i have personally -- i'm not saying that slavery is good, but i'm saying i benefited from it, and most blacks have benefited. that is, black americans, and a document this in my book, if you just add income of black americans earn each year and thought of us as a nation, we would be the 17th or 18th richest nation on the face of the earth. ..

the people in england imported education, technology and all that importation of the wisdom of the romans ultimately made great britain the mightiest face of the earth. it was because colonialism, again i'm not making the argument in favor of colonialism but you can't deny the historical fact. whereby i benefited from it. >> you can watch this and other this and other programs online epoch tv.org. >> next on book tv anthony clark in the house of representatives during the 111th congress weighs in on the politics behind the presidential libraries and presents his criticisms of the government agencies that runs them.