anniversary of the resignation of richard nixon. . >> frank rich, for those who do not recall on on sundays in the "the new york times" give us a view of where we are now. >> i and we live in a world that is an enormous transition. not just a transition from one kind of presidential the

administration to a very different one, but obviously one in economic transition and a lot of the unquestioned rules of our economy being up for grabs. in case of america, a social transition as the country becomes more and more of a minority dominated country which is causing some interesting fissions. obviously, we are in transition around the world of american foreign policy tries to redefine itself in the middle east once again and tries to remake itself. >> how long have you been writing your 1500 word column? >> that is a good question. i am guessing about 10 years. maybe even longer i am terrible about dates. >> 1999, i guess that works out to 10 years. you have been in politics for 15 years? >> wright, i have been in the op ed and page of the times since

1994. >> not many people write one column week. how your project? >> it is completely different from doing the twice a week column that is twice that size. it has got to sustain itself as an essay to hold people and i would say that the biggest thing about how i approach it is to construct it as a narrative. even before having an argument for one thing or another, i like to tell a story. it may come out of my theater background. i like to find a topic that lends itself to having several different plot strands that you can tie up at the end >> when di. edgewood to start thinking about it? >> he had a monthly column years ago. it does not matter if it is

every day or every month. it is always above your head. i would say that my process is that monday i am considering it or nine things and i try to whittle it down by tuesday and report and research and some more. and then wednesday i've finished up as much as possible the reporting and research. and then i write on thursday and friday. the paper starts printing on friday night. if the world ended on saturday, it would not be in that section of the times. it makes for a very packed week. you can turn on a diamond shift things as major news happens, whether ribby something shocking like 9/11 or something very active like a presidential campaign. i sort of have a sense of where i'm going by the end of the week. >> how do you know you have a successful column?

>> i do not think you ever really know. you cannot really measured by response, whether a time of the e-mail -- a ton of e-mail. it hits the bill for people, particularly anything that is thought to be rather partisan. i find that columns that i wrote years earlier come back to haunt me for good or ill. i do not think you really know. if you do want to feel that your being read, but you never know what influence to have. >> you have 14 years as a theater critic for the "the new york times." and now you do politics. what do you like the best? >> i prefer this. it is a much wider world. one reason i want to get out of theater reviewing was that it was very narrow.

few on thursday night that you were born review hamlet or cats. -- you're going to review hammett or cats. to me, it has been liberating and i have always been interested in politics and i wrote about it early in my career. i have this double interest in politics. this is nhow i have been been doing it the best. broadway vs. politics, i was the butcher of broadway. i was loaded by the theater people -- i was aided by the theater people. most of what you see is not great. it was really about 10 square blocks focused on the new york

times drama critic and passions were intense and they were very readable. you liked the show they loved you. if you did not like the show, they hated you. i find positive reaction to the column, even from people who do not agree with it. i have a discussion with readers. >> i want to pick off a paragraph from a bunch of columns. i went back a lot of years to find this. i just wanted to respond to how you feel now. this is may of 2009. you say -- the title on it is the american press on suicide watch do you write your headline?

>> yes. >> if you wanted to pick the moment when the american news business and on suicide watch, it was almost exactly three years ago. that's when steven cole bear delivered a monologue of using his post of being stenographers who had, in essence, let the bush white house get away with murder, or at least the war in iraq. to prove the point, the journalists could be seen fawning over government potentates. in some cases, the very sources who had fed all those fictional sightings of saddam's weapons of mass ldestruction. >> the colbert speech will be seminal. he criticized the washington press and i feel completely for the things that he said. the people in the room did not get it.

you may recall that the general reaction of the press was that he had bombed. thithe "the new york times" said that it was a lead balloon. it ended up on youtube and the country went nuts. it showed me a dramatic this location of washington from the rest of the country. it got a fast reaction. a lot of people in that room did not understand why it was funny. they got rich little the next year. there were so afraid. i think it was an important moment. the difference in the reaction in washington and the rest of the country is much of what he set himself. >> tell me if i'm wrong.

you stuck the needle in the washington press corps at those dinners. the "the new york times" does not even go to them anymore. but i do not go to them. i cannot remember what prompted that. it is a different part of their columnists. i do feel that is a statement -- is a good to bircher taking moment of the disconnect. when you see the president of the united states doing a comedy sketch about the missiand missig weapons of mass destruction, those are interesting. i think that they televise them and that is not the smartest thing. washington has this fascination with celebrity that is counterproductive in terms of covering the news. >> this is august 31, 2008.

before the election. the headline is, well, out what's the [unintelligible] >> no major bomb speech has been a disaster. most have been triple or home runs if not grand slams. what is most surprising is how astonished the press still is that the ground hog days replay of the identical outcome. the disconnect between the reality of this campaign and how it is perceived in presented by the mainstream media is now a major part of the years story. of election 2008. if i did not know by othbetter,i would say that was written by rush limbaugh. >> where i am coming from, the press got almost everything about this campaign wrong at various stages, starting with

the fact it was going to be routed guiliani verses hillary clinton election year. it's stymied people because they just did not know what to make of this, the first black presidential candidate that had a chance of winning and one of the most bizarre things that i thought of the press was to see a largely white political press corps just assume that whites more races around the country and would not vote for him. when he won in iowa, the shock to the press corps was extraordinary. could not believe that hillary clinton was not mopping this guy up. throughout the campaign, and this happened in the liberal media as well as non-partisan media. there was this feeling that every white person in western pennsylvania hates black people and will not -- and will vote

against him. they assumed the country was racist when it was not in terms of the bombing. >> if we fall to around all week and if you invite us we will, what would we see? when i read your column on sundays, i see something i don't see anywhere else. >> you have seen me on the phone, meeting with people. corresponding with people. >> are you at home? what i am at home when i write because i can i get anything done sitting in an office. i really need tunnel vision and some of the riding i do at night. i can to work really late on thursday nights. i will be in the office, around town. i will be in other people's offices and i will be spending a lot of time looking at the internet and dealing with female. a lot of people contact me more

and more by e-mail and phone. it is amazing how phone traffic has just gone down, even from sources. the milken will -- can leave a trail. >> how often do you find people trying to get retention for something? >> a fair amoun-- your attentio? >> a fair amount. peoplthere are comments that are left by the hundreds of columns i write. people can find me pretty easily. the one place that people never find me anymore is by snail mail. it is amazing how people who use to send the documents, you gotta look at this, by mail, it is pretty much pds files. >> you lived in new york for how

long? >> most of my adult life. i moved here in 1973. >> mary? >> i am married. i have two sons that are both writers. both live in brooklyn. >> were they right? >> my oldest son, nathaniel, is aimed novelist who published his first novel last year. he is an editor at the paris review that is famous for being started by george plimpton. my younger son is a humor writer. he has written to collections of humor pieces and is a writer for sater and not live for two years now. -- for saturday night live for two years now. >> let's go to 2009. the essence of palinism is

emotional, not ideological. yes, she is of the religious right, even if she wins literally and figuratively at her own daughters a flagrant disregard of absence and abstind marriage. you can only occur so far. the real wave she is writing is allowed, resonance surge of resentment and victimization that's larger than issues like abortion and gay civil rights. how do you know that? >> i know it based on what i listened to in the people that i read and listening to her. listening to other politicians who share her views and they don't overlap. there is a point where the left and right meet, here. what we are seeing is after this huge economic downturn is a sense of inequity in our country. some people didn't play by the

rules and got away like bandits and people who play by the rules got stuck with the pleaded for a one ks and job losses. -- with depleted 401ks. i think people disillusioned by what went on before the bubble burst. i think there is a racial component as well. there is this sense that whites are to be the minority and things are changing very fast. some people are falling behind but there is a populist thing going on right now that is multi-party. you see it everywhere. you'll hear goldman sacks rightly or wrongly attacked on the right as it is on the left. there is a common denominator in all this. >> back in june of 2007, "failed

presidents aren't what they used to being." a few weeks ago i did something i never expected to do in my life. i shed a tear for richard millhouse nixon. >> i think this was about frost/maxim, the time when that movie came out. you get into george bush. >> you mentioned george bush. you really shed a tear for george nixon -- for richard nixon? >> there is something about nixon. he was probably the single most hated politician in washington. it was something you heard about constantly, not just people who agree with it -- disagree with him politically. there was something about his weirdness and his ambition which

sometimes was successful such as china. it is compelling and there is an element of tragedy because he really threw it away through a federal personal flaw of paranoia. >> back to your column. you say, "unlike nixon, president bush is less an overreaching machiavelli it then and at the plunder -- a blunder were surrounded by machiavelli's. explain that. >> my feeling about bush has not changed. he was a guy who was not terribly ideological. he certainly campaigned on not doing nation-building or having a very modest foreign policy and getting a few things done.

after 9/11, he was surrounded by very powerful personalities who had strong ideologies. he been with that wind -- he'd been with that wind -- he bent with that wind. >> nixon came from nothing, loathes himself and was all too keenly aware when he was up to dirty tricks. mr. bush has a charming biography, is full of himself and his four to blindly by self righteousness to even fleetingly recognize the havoc he's inflicted at home and abroad. although historians may judge in the worst president and nixon, at the personal level his is not a grand experience failure. it would be a waste of franklin jealous talent to play george w. bush, though not necessarily match him, hey. >>another actor.

>> nixon was probably one of the poorest of modern presidents. he really came from nothing. he had a terrible childhood and young adult life. he overcame that to become president of the united states and then through the hallway. it is a very gripping story. bush was a child of privilege. he was the product of legacy and missions to places like andover, yale and harvard. he came from one of the most famous, well-connected american families and i think that reflected in his presidency. nixon, just listening to the tapes, it is shakespearean because at the time he is

debating himself and warreworryg about things in it >. >> win sit here like this, i see a different frank rich then when i read your column. you get agree? >> no, i do not get angry. i feel like i'm not vested by way in politics. i do like to write stuff and i like to write sentences that have punch. i want to save what i say clearly. bill safire retired and gave me a bunch of advice. he said to never bibegin a

paragraph with "on the other hand." i love writing. i like it to be strong. my personal way of speaking may be different because it is not writing. it is conversational. >> so you should not do what the professor used to do when he said the, "however." he is still alive. >> incredible. >> some of the audience may have never heard of him. what's he was a wonderful comedian. >> i have never seen anyone else do that. >> i am going to go way back to november 10, 2001. just listen to the language of them. that is after september 11 and compared to what we are talking about today.

the headline is "war is heck." the collateral damage to the economy can wait, too. dick armey promises that the houses stimulus bill will create 170,000 jobs next year alone. even as 415,000 americans lost jobs in october alone, bringing total unemployment to 7.7 million. the house package also lords $5.7 billion in tax rebates to 13 fortune 500 corporations what congress earmarks at most $3 billion for fighting by of terrorism at a time of the american hospital association estimates that $11 billion is needed just to a great hospitals. but hey, what's the rush? as tom delay said on fox, these terrorists are going after specific people, people that are symbols. somebody in sugar land, texas should worry about and blacks. -- anthrax.

>> what was bothering me then was that no one wanted to instill this idea of sacrifice. the idea was somehow everything would be fine. we had a volunteer military fight this war and we would go to disneyland in the president literally said that. cut to now. i am not at all convinced that anyone in washington, including the president, wants to stand up to the public and say that if we want to reform health care and fight a war in afghanistan, somebody is going to have to sacrifice. my memory is that in the last century there were presidents and to some extent kennedy who

said that the american people have to step up to the plate. you cannot have something for nothing. some point, washington never wants to go there. a johnson kept telling everyone that you can't have guns and butter. we can have it now and 2009. but saying this to the american public is difficult. >> let me get a sense out of you. the iraq war. just a sentence. >> my feeling is that we made a mess that diverted us from the war in afghanistan, the war we thought we had one eagainst the taliban. thanks to a lot of brave and persistent troops, we have cleaned up the mess. history will progress.

>> a sentence about today in afghanistan. >> i think it is an unholy mess and i think that the bombing administration is one to have to decide what its goals are -- is going to have to decide what its goals are. it is a mess. the corruption, they don't have any kind of troops to speak of that we can train any efficient fashion. >> what will you do if the president of the united states announces another 20,000 troops in addition to what is already announced? >> look at it very carefully. around the time that barack obama was inaugurated, the main mission was said to make sure there are not people there who can attack us again. that is a worthwhile mission. everything beyond that is

optional, including nation- building and all the rest of it. he is going to have to answer our questions about whether additional troops do anything. this is what people are looking at. he is going to be in a rock and a hard place and explain to us what he is doing. he has very smart people including richard holbrooke, hillary clinton, joe biden, who know about this. >> do you know people that read your column every sunday that are in government or the media world and when you sit ther ande and write do you think abot it? >> i knew that the star of the

play would be reading my theater column. your job is to serve the general reader, not people in power or people that are stars or in politics or show business. >> how close to you get to people? >> not very. i keep my distance. i like living in new york. i am always glad to hear from people and do. whether it be in the administration or congress related areas. i never ever felt that it was my job to be friends or be an insider. by the way, when i was a theater critic, i have never been to the tony awards or party is and that is a much smaller, less important sphere. i feel you can be more objective if you are not caught up in it. i grew up in washington. my late stepfather was what we

now call a case street lawyer. he worked for airlines. he was not in politics, but he knew journalists and people like jack anderson, johnson, humphrey, and scoop jackson. i saw that as a kid. it is a culture that does not interest me. it is too easy to be stroked. >> say that ron emmanuel is watching this. he says of the president wants to talk to you. you can ask anything you want to. would you do it? >> of course. i would not give him my advice. that is not my role. i would welcome any opportunity to talk to the president of by united states or rom

emanuel. that is great. of course you do that. what i don't want to do is become part of this party circuit or the washington correspondents dinner circuit or off the record, behind-the- scenes stuff. >> i know you are a close friend of maureen dowd. >> we wrote a column together before we had our own columns. i bring he>> do you coordinate g the colonists to make sure you do not write about the same thing? >> no, we never have. we do not even tell our editors will we are writing in the advance. when readers are puzzled if three people have a column on what ever, is real, dick cheney, henry louis gates, it is

completely and other coincidence. they don't even know what is happening until it is turned in. >> in november of 2001, all want to go back to four days after 9/11, which many would of had to scrub your column and start from scratch. >> i do not even remember what it was. it was the jews duri a tuesday. i hope it was not gary, that. condit. >> at this week's nightmare, it's now clear, has awakened as from a frivolous if not decadent decade long dream even as a dozen to uncertain future we had never bargained for. the dream was simple. the week and have it all without having to pay any price, and

that national suffering of almost any time could be domesticated into an experience of virtual terror can to a theme park ride. the first part of that dream had already started to collapse with the fall of the stock market, the rise in unemployment and the evaporation of the surplus, well before terrorists achieve the literal annihilation of the most commanding edifice of american capitalism. you're talking besides the decade -- decadent dream, you're talking about the fall of the stock market, the rise of unemployment and the the the operation of the surplus, all of which we are living through. >> isn't it amazing? when i wrote that column, the history of on cable business network for everybody was buying e-toys that hold dade trading of cray is -- and that whole day of

trading of cray icraze. it was the day that changed everything. it was the day that did not change that much because we've been through another bubble with speculation on people's homes rather than crazy stocks. we just tune out reality. it is an interesting phenomenon. it happened in the 1920's. if you read about the land boom in florida in the 20s and what went on in the stock market in the 20s, it is shockingly bare ruinmimicking what is going on n contemporary america. >> this is from july 2003. it is interesting to think about where the people are today based on where they were six years

ago. maybe the only real hope for liberals is just a cyclical change in the political environment. as the press keeps asking what president bush knew about his own state of the union speech and when he knew it, his approval rating has started sinking to its pre-9/11 level. the unemployment record on the administration's watch kids heading into herbert hoover territory. this may explain why mr. franken's forthcoming book was at 550 in the sales rankings at amazon.com while mr. o'reilly is was languishing at 24,574. mr. o'reilly is on the best- seller list now. timing is everything in politics, just as it is in show business. should this realignment continue, bill reilly might have to face down competition from a

liberal talk show host with an equally self infatuated to the presence. and then the andrew cuomo factor with a question mark. in the last couple of days, andrew cuomo met with the governor. the low ridbill o'reilly is on - seller list and al franken is a senator. >> that by being off is the most fascinating. that is a very interesting tale reported in the 40 york times -- in the "the new york times" it is a very fascinating story. o'reilly has continued to be a

huge star. and even as the cycle has turned in terms of liberal politics being more in vogue than conservative, is only helping him. he has a couple of competitors like glenn back. >> start with a couple of things, al franken in the united states senate? >> fascinating, isn't it? what a crazy race that was and the analysts were counting and recounting and we will see how he does. he clearly wanted to do this. he is the first saturn nosaturdt live center. >> a bill riley's show is rated higher than any other cable news

show an almost as high as any cable show on a 99 basis. -- on a night to night basis. >> he has a loyal audience. >> why? >> why? i think he gives a voice to the agreed. fox is good television. it is impressive that anyone can have longevity. rush limbaugh is in another sphere. he has not been so capable of finding a mass communicators who deliver to their audience the way that these guys do. >> when you attack somebody in one of your columns, and i'm not sure you would even use that word, is a calculated at all?

>> it is not calculated. i am not sure that is true. there are sometimes that you can move righand light in approvingt somebody. i think that if you have no opinion and are just do in one hand on the other hand, then you will get no response. it is a calculated at all. i don't even think that way. i think about what is the story that i want to tell and how do i want to tell what? i righted as sharp as i can to further one want to say. >> i am for to go back to july 31, 1994. >> i was a child. >> one person we will mention is deceased.

gonzo vs. leach. henry gonzales, the texas democrat who runs the hearings with an iron gavel, has the facial creases, liver spots and sly down-home occucourtliness to be the next sam ervin, but all resemblances end there. who is sam irvin? >> sam ervin read the watergate hearings. >> in 4 cintas 35 minute limit on each questioner and ruling anything that might resemble a substantive -- you're making a statement there? >> yes, absolutely. do we remember anything about those hearings? we remember sam ervin, but i am not sure if we remember the gonzales whitewater hearings. >> the next person i am going to mention is in the aba my administration -- is in the

barack obama administration. jim leach almost makes mr. gonzales in ingenious. forever advertising is erudition with gratuitous scholarly references to copernicus and knitting his brow as if washington's dastardly evils by dissolving into tears, mr. leach is a dickensian windbag in search of his own bleak house. his early disclaimer of the human desire to suggest or imply criminal conduct was the republicans' funniest display of a policy. he now runs the national endowment for the humanities. >> here is the thing about leach. first of all, i have to say that my own words bring back his behavior in those hearings and i found them incredible. he ultimately voted for at least one article of impeachment and i

do not think it was his finest hour. he earned the reputation of being unusually thoughtful in terms of this republican party he was a more moderate members. it is about it academia at a certain extent and i think that some of the description that i had in that column will serve him well as he is head of the national endowment for the arts. >> by the way, he went to the democratic convention endorsed a bomb of -- and worst barack obama. -- endorsed barack obama. >> i was talking about a lot of stuff involving programming as

the new regime took over and had to retool and covered was sort of there. it has nothing to do with journalism. the one thing i am not involved with is documentaries. >> the reason i bring up that part of it is because back in 1994, you ask why marion barry? here is what you say. of the barry voters, by the way he was mayor. only one attack the media for caricaturing the canada, my father. he was enraged that nbc ran the fbi video walpole's were still open and objects that mr. barre who did time for a misdemeanor is more often referred to as a criminal ban is oliver north, who escaped a felony conviction on a technicality.

dad, now 73, is a businessman whose f street store never recovered after being looted in the 1968 riots. is your father still alive? what's my father is very much still alive. my father is a very interesting story. as i alluded to in that column, he had a family shoe business. it was a littlelooted during the riots. he wanted to rebuild and did not want to flee to the suburbs and give up his business. he wanted to -- it was really kind of a heroic fed. it allowed him to be involved.

to this day, he still volunteers for the organization that tirelessly lobbies to try to get full voted and self-government for the district of columbia. >> your dad is 88? >> es kahlah he turned 88 in april. >> here is the first sentence of 1995 article. it says, "as a media celebrity, the internet is now seriously overexposed third world debt a person, we might be as sick of it as we are of lance ito. >> i was completely wrong and i caught up eventually. but i have to say, in retrospect, i did not really understand it at the beginning. as did most of my profession. the internet has become a tale that is wagging the dog of all

endeavors. >> you did say this. the happy surprise of the the debt is its unpredictable domestic political implications. >> a stopped clock is right twice a day. that is the only thing i wrote about the internet that was correct at that time. if you look back at the second half of the clinton years, the internet became a mass communications medium. that is how the drug report and even e-mail really into people's lives for the first funds has not been some sort of fad. ever since then, we have been trying to catch up with what it means. then, we did not even understand it entirely. the political implications of been enormous ever since. >> a year later, you wrote,"as a

professional medium for breaking news, the internet is a toy for those with time and money on their hands. it repackages print and television journalism with interactive side shows as television dressed of recycled press and radio reported with primitive visuals. the internet will soon move far beyond this embryonic stage. but for the moment, on wired news jerrick these didn't worry they're missing much. in this nbc may have as little bearing on that side of future as "howdy doody" dillon tv. >> it was a completely different thing. some of you quoted me correctly. that was exactly true that them. it was parallel to television.

then, just as television completely changed everything, so is this, even a bigger works the because of the with electronics work today as opposed to tv. >> i found this " of yours and harvard magazine. you remember the profile? >> i did. >> to get any feedback? >>were you the editor? >> i was the editor of the editorial page. >> who was there? >> evan thomas was the old boy'' club. dyson was one of the great philosophers of the internet. many people. it was an interesting group. >> here is your ".

right before george w. bush runs for president, he buys a ranch to establish the image that he is a red state s-ticker rather than leave saigon of one of the most aristocratic families in the united states. a graduate of andover, yale and harvard. in the 2004 campaign, you have another yelled aristocrat, john kerry, driving a harley-davidson on to the set of the jail and a show. that's just like bush clearing brush on his ranch. barack obama, and john mccain, any association? >> i think barack obama is brilliant at packaging and we should watch it closely. i don't think he has reinvented who he is to the extent that carry tried to and bush did.

this is a master of the media that we have, now. mccain, one of the refreshen things about mccain is that he was impervious to packaging. they would try to get him to the set regions and he for the word maverick rebel tom, but what you saw was what you bought. bob dole was like that. they can't be slick. they're either too old or too stubborn and i think that is refreshing. >> have you ever met barack obama or senator mccain? >> i met them both. i met them as a journalist. i interviewed barack obama and i was in a group of columnists that he talked to just before he

was inaugurated. he came to the editorial board and did not get the endorsement. mccain, i met in passing, including a delightful if vaguely ridiculous party that he did during the republican convention in new york were a lot of journalists went during 2004. what i really remember about him is that he was alive for but what i really remember is his mother and his mother's sister were both there, these women who were still running around in their 90's who were just absolutely fun, completely and

packaged, so one like the kind of people you meet in politics. >> this is from december 2, 2007. remember that the election was in november, 2008. the headline on it was "who's afraid of barack obama?" election year isn't even here yet, and already most of the first draft him by the political press approved instantly disposable -- the family research council's ability to abort the rise of rejuvenate. the biggest bill would meth so far was undisciplined -- >> this was a steady theme of mime. >> the washington wisdom about barack obama has often been just as strong as that about mrs.

clinton. we kept being told he was making a rookie mistakes and offering voters rookie simons rather than the real beef of policy. but what about what mr. for gaffes often was the policy. >> in one of the debates worries that we might have to go into pakistan, that was considered a big gaffe when actually it was his policy. it may still be, to some extent. of the other half of that, the fact of the we -- >> it was not just trillions of dollars of wealth that will improve in the bubble. a certain american values are crumbled and vanished. rather than by investing long term and new products, innovations, technologies or

services that might grow and benefit america and the world, became the holy grail in the upper echelons of finance. the president's chief economic advisor and a $5.2 million in 2008 from a hedge fund, d. e. shaw, for one day a week job. he also earned $2.7 million in speaking fees from the likes of citigroup and goldman sacks. those institutions are not merely the beneficiaries of taxpayers' bailout since the crash. they also benefited during the boom from government favors. i could go on. i sense that you -- you like barack obama, but you have been taking regular shots at him geithner and bob rubin. >> i am very disturbed by what got us into this mess. there is no evidence that it is ending. what we have seen for the past few weeks is what had nothing to

do with a value. it had to do with getting rich quick and not building the country. to me, it is an open question about the barack obama the administration. we are recording this on the monday of the week that it goes on the network. predict to us what you will be writing about when the sunday new york times comes out. >> i am looking at a lot of things. i am fascinated by the o'reilly fame that you mentioned. whether a bomb is executing correctly on getting this done or not. a look at some of these issues

that we just talked about. some think the fallout of the sky between now and then. >> people can find you atny times.com? >> yes. >> vet don't have to pay for it yet. >> not yet. >> frank rich, thank you for joining us. >> for a dvd copy of this program, called1-877-662-7726. for three transgressions, business at the q&a.org. the show is also available as a c-span podcast.

>> next week, we will talk with ellis cose. he produced a ready a documentary series called again"it's the guns." that is next sunday here on c- span. >> this is c-span, public affairs programming. next, we will show you bbc parliament's the record. and then to reporters talk about the significance of the watergate break-in. and later, frank rich on his writings and career. >> monday, robert mcdowell on

his agency's efforts to provide more transparency as well as the commission's role in expanding broadband. "the communicators" at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2. >> hello and welcome to the " record review." coming up in the next hour, it is revealed but they have claimed cash for everything from expired mortgages to floating the islands. find out how and actor and a band of retired soldiers took on the government and one. but first, to a scandal that rocked westminster and caused the biggest outpouring of public anger in living memory and dominated news and politics for weeks. >> over the following days, more

and more damaging allegations were made. some of the most headline grabbing included. a conservative and his wife's both claimed second homes allowance. barely -- elliot morally received 16,000 pounds for a mortgage he had already paid off. this conservative cleared his most. martin ran flipped her second home. he is notorious for 1600 town floating dock island for his garden pond. the letter announced there would be standing down from parliament of the next election. >> here inside parliament, four days after the allegations were made, all eyes were on the

speaker, michael martin. he told mps that it would provide oversight of claims, but his announcement that the leaking of the information to the press have been referred to the police drew criticism from some. >> is in order to point out that many of us feel that the bringing in a police, who have a huge job in london at the moment with all sorts of problems, to bring the police in to find out who has leaked something when actually the newspapers have handled the personal detail very responsibly? is it not an awful waste of resources? >> when i turn on the television at midnight and i hear public