>> now we're live with author and former active lady, lynne chaney. she will be answering your questions from now until 3:00 eastern. ms. cheney has written several books including her most recent, a biography of james madison. ..

it just was from a different angle and it just seemed to me inappropriate and confusing to put out a book setting forth my ideas. it was such a hot topic for president bush, so i started writing a children's book and that was an amazing and gratifying thing to do. i love those books till today. >> host: you are a history buff.

is that fair to say? >> guest: yes i am. >> host: you in your book, telling the truth which came out in the late 90s you wrote is sometimes said that a negative slant to what we are teaching now is overreaction to the two positive slant of the past and it is true that in the past we sometimes present a laboratory 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. at the end of the day we were taken to an undisclosed location which everybody knows by now his camp david. >> host: how much time did you spend there? >> guest: weeks, not always the ones but a long long time. and it wasn't like we were there penned up the back-and-forth and when the situation would warrant when the levels were high they would take us there.

>> 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 house are so skilled. if you want to have a dinner party they know how to do it. i maybe had to figure out who to invite that my life was not at all and close. >> host: the next call for lynne cheney comes from paul in pompano beach florida. 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. ..

>> caller: hello, peter and you are a gem. mrs. cheney, i think the world

is here. i wanted to ask you about your personal library, you and your husband's personal library. do you have any idea how many books you on what your favorite types are to read when you are not researching for your own writing. thank you very much. >> host: deborah, great question. wish i'd thought of it. >> guest: i've spent most of our married life building bookshelves are getting them built because we have so many books. i can read them once in a while, the "we the people" doesn't want to get rid of a single one of them. we have a lot in a day most of them are history. there's quite a bit of current contemporary commentary on the political scene, but most are history. if i'm not reading history i like a good thriller. right now another book i'm reading is the english spy, a

really good thriller mystery. adult stem all my time reading books. i also like to watch thrillers on my ipod and have become enchanted with a series by having mad cow. these are swedish mysteries. some of them are in english. i started watching them in swedish with subtitles of course. dick came in and said what in the world are you doing? >> host: another tax for you. did you play a role in getting him back on the straight and narrow. what did you say or do?

>> guest: i don't think i said or did anything. i made it pretty clear that i wasn't marrying him unless he shaped up. >> host: what was he doing that needed shaping up? >> guest: he had been kicked out of yale twice. he had been arrested twice for driving under the influence and he just was without direction. i don't think this is uncommon, but i think i just let them see the important of direction. >> host: do you think you have a western u.s. perspective on the world? >> guest: yes. >> host: what is that? >> guest: it is kind of straight talking. not a lot of fanciness beating around the subject. we both like to be in wyoming.

>> host: sheepherder? >> guest: we will think of it. but in the outdoors where athletes. lugosi is to ski. been out in the air in wyoming. dick is a fisherman. the last time he offered a hook to mean that year. it is not good fishing. >> host: are you still writing? >> guest: yes. >> host: do you keep horses in wyoming? >> guest: writing. i don't write but my granddaughter grace has become world-class barrel racer. she is doing not. it is like teton county, rodeo princess. so while the kids love it.

she wears a thing around her neck that says cowgirl up. >> host: next call comes from joe in carmel, indiana. go ahead. >> caller: what you just said about straight talk, it seems to me the issue is so horrendously complex it is impossible to even discuss them in a campaign whether you're trying to be straight or not. you are talking about the iran nuclear deal. one of the big complexities about is whether the united states is even able to inspect the iranian side and then there's obamacare in another example of complexity which is the one i would like to hear you talk about the most, the proposed fair tax that huckabee is behind which in my suspicion

is why trump got in the race at all because it would have real estate so hard. >> guest: i agree with you that there is too much complexity out there on too many issues. so i just picked my issue and try to understand it as well as i can. living in the household you can imagine lately it has been the iran deal. i am with you. i am so concerned about the inspections regime that proposed the fact in some instances the iranians will be able to do their own inspection was announced to me worry some. the fact that we have to give them notice and make it at least 27 days and not congruent to months months. i think you put your finger on an important part of that particular complex. >> host: we haven't gotten a call from wyoming yet.

>> guest: at his mountain time there appeared >> host: (202)748-8201. >> guest: they are outside. the weather is beautiful. >> host: i don't. i'm in the studio with you. rick, you are on with author lynne chaney. >> caller: i have my doctor friend here in my community. he had the pleasure of taking you and dick out on his boat in the key thing he said was don't get any ideas that now about getting about. -- a boat. what i really want to say it's over the years and especially 30 years ago, you'd used to be on tv quite a bit and i admired everything about you. i said to myself as i'm looking at you right now, you could have

been a senator. you could have been president of this country. you have all the pasture beers me that the ultimate sacrifice as far as i'm turned to back your husband, one of the greatest politicians or human beings on the face of the earth today. >> guest: that is very kind of you. >> host: it was pretty common knowledge that you are consider at some level for the position. >> guest: it might have been at some low and imaginative level. a more likely point would've been for me to run for the senate when there was an opening right after dick with secretary. >> host: did you think about it? >> guest: yes. but you have to want these things so much to do what is involved in getting elected. and i really like writing books.

so i appreciate the comments. i've done what i want to do. >> host: >> guest: that is absolutely true. we had a house on the short barrel in and we may be the only people who live on the water who don't have a boat. i don't even know how we got horses. these things just take up not only your resources, but your time. i did not want to vote. >> host: do you have protection today? >> guest: i don't think we should talk about that. >> host: that's a good point. >> guest: high, good afternoon. three or four years ago, george

bush is a vice not to travel to switzerland to promote his boat because it could have been charged with war crimes under your versatile jurisdiction. mr. has been a problem traveling overseas and are there any countries he has to avoid? >> guest: we manage to keep pretty busy right here in the united states. i don't feel as though there's anything am avoiding. we were in the middle east a year or so ago but we have done so much traveling in our lifetime. i don't have the longing to travel right now. i like to write my books. >> host: vice president and your daughter have a new book out, exceptional. did you have any role? >> guest: yes, if you want a good copy editor, come see me. they don't always like the idea

that there are rules for comments. i've got these things internalized so i do some copy editing for them. if i come across in historical fact, i point that out. but they are on their own. >> host: what is their writing style? >> guest: you don't really write together. you take topics in each of you undertakes that topic and then you work on it together after that. one of the interesting things in the madison book that i found his madison and hamilton were so frantic to get the federalist papers that they ended up not reading what the other had written. if you think about how the whole

thing hangs together it is like a miracle. i don't know how that happened. >> host: lynne chaney, let's go back a step. both of the federalist papers, wh is there important than when were they written? >> guest: they were 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 as virginia's failure to ratify would have been. madison and jefferson wrote these essays and they were published in newspapers to provide a rationale for ratifying the constitution. i don't think that is right. madison made sure the virginia ratifying convention had copies of the federalist papers. so that is what they were. they are not regarded as a classic, important to interpretation of the

constitution. and they do help point out a genius. they take up some of the ideas that were breakthrough ideas for the public doesn't have to be small. a public and a bag like our public areas. for madison to see his way through that prohibition, the ij you couldn't be large and the republic was to meet the breakthrough thinking that you see. >> host: we talked about what book you would require if you're a college professor today and we found some video of u.s. second lady talking about college requirement. what is your response to that? >> american history is not required because if there were faculty members would have to teach it. and there is very little professional and did for them to

do so. commencement in academia comes from publishing and there's little market for articles on subjects broadly conceived. specialized articles are compatible with specialist courses and not wanting to take on general education which is what a survey course of american history is. people in academe are doing exactly what people in other professions do, and avoiding activities for which there is little professional incentives. >> host: do you remember that? >> guest: now, but it's a really good point. we don't provide reinforcement for some activities that are really and so we shouldn't be surprised when they don't happen. i would say find the common duchenne and make it into book form and require it to be read.

>> host: goodness: and for massachusetts. >> caller: hi, i've been listening here and i see teaching of history and i see american exceptionalism coming out and i see the question, what books are of interest to you and i'm thinking of kennedys profiles and courage. what i want from kennedys profiles and courage is focused upon episodes that one teaches. i'm thinking daniel webster is the mayor and his behavior is to be celebrated as heroic, but we don't overlook the fact he was in some ways the croak of sars banks in new england were concerned. i focus on events that have made

just but really build things in this universe are event. wouldn't our american exceptionalism in dire need for recognizing this euros have clay feet, would not be taking care of by focusing her relatives and instead of her wrote people and shouldn't be there for teach kennedys profiles encouraged? >> guest: it's been a long time, but i do remember when i read it but i found it thrilling. i think that kind of statement in washington, one that they chopped down the cherry tree which isn't true, that kind of reverent treatment isn't very interesting. i agree with your point that splits look at people, look at

what they did, look at the events that surrounded creation of the constitution and let's not forget these are people like guys that they have clay feet. one of the best examples of that of course is washington and jefferson and madison and monroe all had slaves. that slavery, and they understood, morally wrong. it's even more than not. that is to explanation simple an explanation. they had slaves and i was wrong and they understood it was wrong. at the same time, madison created a constitution a friend of mine, bob goldman, they created a constitution for society more just than their

own. that's a good way to look at it. >> host: ambrose madison, james madison's father. wasn't there some questions about his death, whether he had been put to death by slaves? >> guest: it probably was. the family never wrote about it. ambrose was the first madison to have slaves. as long as they were indentured servants coming over from england, nobody thought about having slaves or wasn't an thing. when indentured servants began to dry up, slave ships began plying the rivers off the chesapeake day and ambrose is recorded to have gotten slaves and then there were more and he died in his 30s and it was sad that he died of poisoning. it was not unusual.

you've taken three human beings, transported them an awful conditions across the atlantic, brought them into a place what they don't want to do the work you want them to do and their first in various ways and poisoning your master is wrong of course but it's not surprising. >> host: paul, fort lauderdale, florida, e-mail. do you think there'll be a renaissance of history in american schools. there's a lack of interest among teachers and youth to learn our great pass. >> guest: the latter description is right that we are doing a good job of teaching history. i would do whatever we can to bring the renaissance about. children need to understand

where they are and what their ancestors had done. somebody wrote ones history is looking into a rearview mirror. it doesn't give you the forward vision that is the only thing we have. how else do you understand the universe and human life. >> host: next call is from gordon who happens to be in miami, wyoming. i come aboard and purity were on the air. >> host: howdy, folks. thank you. great show. i just want to thank the chinese for being a great conservative here in laramie. we need that here as you know. and also i'm really hoping this will run.

>> host: what part of the statist laramie, wyoming and? >> guest: >> caller: 35 miles west of cheyenne. >> host: are you a native of laramie? >> guest: >> caller: no, i am not. i have been here since 1996 and while minimizing of colorado as a kid. i love it here. >> guest: . so much to contribute in the years ahead. and you like thrillers. i now care for her politics becher writes some good

thrillers. >> guest: i like mr. bob, a native of wyoming and writes for thrillers. >> host: lynne cheney comment 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 even think i had a computer. dick and i are moving around the country. that's when we started in washington and went to wyoming. so it's a fun experiment. >> host: the book he wrote together, kings of the hill, power and personality in the house of representatives. your husband was serving at that point. nick longworth is one of the people your profile. why was seeking at the hill?

>> guest: it is no easy thing to do, plus it such a colorful character. and he is dreamy passages and i one of the things this profile tom reid speaker of the house. here he was this fascinating, fascinating person. we decided there was a bookie or anything of the last person we profiled. >> host: does the congress is significant to date as it used to be? >> guest: i think we have seen the fact that the congress has not been able to assert itself

very fact of late. i don't know what the solution is and there's lots of old town in their heads to think what the solution is. the iran agreement should have been a treaty. how can we get to the situation where we are worthwhile takes two thirds of the senate or the house to pass it. i'm sorry. it'll take two thirds of the senate or house to override the president's veto. it should be two thirds of the senate or house to pass it. i don't know how we got in this upside down situation. >> host: bill is calling in from sebastian, florida. you were on with lynne cheney. >> caller: good afternoon, mrs. cheney. i would like to know if you agree with president obama's

policies and your opinion on frankie and in the controversy that it's created. >> guest: you are not surprised one of the few decisions i agree with his drilling in the arctic. i think for our team is the way we've seen with energy independence which could not be more important to our national security. even as i say those things, one of the things i'm proud of dick for having done this for setting aside of the million acres in the west and wyoming in particular for preserving wildlife and preserving nature.

i don't think we have to either choose to be green or not green. we need to evaluate it situation by situation. postcode doug sends an e-mail and a native of orange two miles from mount hillier. in your research, did you find out infant madison traveled from point conway to montpelier? why no credit for the bill of rights and how do you believe madison was the look on to shine today? traveling as an insolent, why no credit for the bill of rights and madison constitution today. >> guest: i am having trouble thinking what body of water you have to cross, but mostly by

horse and carriage. george mason has been given him and he refused to be involved with the constitution because it did not contain a bill of rights. madison was a little more politically minded. he wanted to get the constitution ratified. that was his main goal at that point. if he started each day adding a bill of rights they would no agree. so maybe that the necessary states to ratify it then there is another huge ratification. they did exactly the right thing that kept everybody from putting a bill of rights in. but then after you got the ratification, madison is the primary author of the bill of

rights. mason was also not for another reason. he thought the vice president he was a strange office at the constitution as the vice president in the executive branch. he sought this is a great conflation that threatened the separation of powers. but there's so much interest in glad you brought it up. the third question? >> guest: madison and the user can't do to shine today. >> guest: even if you brought that, if you brought back any founders they would be absolutely confounded. i think this has gone so far beyond what any of them could possibly have imagined. >> host: in your research on

james madison, did any contemporary politicians come to mind? could you do any comparison? >> guest: i think that's really hard. the challenges are so different. >> host: wasn't james madison responsible for making the vice president or president and didn't he play a role in making sure that happen? >> guest: probably. i know when they came to be at loggerheads about how to elect a president, that was the question. madison stepped in and drove a plan and got this through the constitutional convention. it was a big state, but a state issue. if we say the number of electors is going through the number of senators plus the number of representatives, the big states are going to have to much influence on the selection of

the president. so then i think it was madison who came up with the idea of real actor has to go for two people in one of those has to be knocked from his day. in other words, the author virginia elect durst cast one vote and one vote for somebody not from virginia. so this gave the big states less power because the votes would be scattered around. then madison is so smart started worrying what people throw their second vote away. they will take all the non-virginia does and give them to go down there who doesn't have a chance to be president. they will throw it away. and then you say okay, let's make the second vote count and the person who gets the second-highest number is vice president. that is how the vice president came to be. >> host: and political

recently wrote an article entitled the father of partisanship. here's the opening sentence. partisanship gets a bad rap taken the blame for problems and government including turning citizens away from politics and you go on to say we should thank george mason for partisanship. >> guest: i would've thanked james madison. are you sure that's me? >> guest: i'm so sorry. >> guest: thomas jefferson even though james madison was more to move her. the thing that happen as i mentioned before is alexander hamilton came along and seems to have captured george washington feared in either madison or thinks is correct that they are faced with this problem. after a revolution, after a

constitution you get something going and everybody thinks if he say anything about the way we are going that is seditious. you can't act against it but that is sedition. what they did and madison in particular is get across the idea that it's okay to criticize the government, that it is their duty to hold the feet of people in power to the fire and madison wrote essays in newspapers that now it is not disloyal to criticize. it is loyalty to a principle you believe in and with that kind of camels nose and of the 10 i guess you call it, madison and jefferson formed the first opposition. it's a breakthrough in political science. >> host: steve, oklahoma city,

please go ahead. >> caller: i'm interested in whether bodysnatcher came from. there's two madison. one window with a party to marbury versus madison and allied to stop the republic from being undermined by excess national power, does the republican party. yet that is the 19th century 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 ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪