he also discusses his career as a syndicated columnist and the controversy surrounding one of his recent columns involving sexual assault on college campuses. >> george f will, a nice little place on the north side. what is the story behind this? >> the story is that wrigley field turned 100 years old in 2014. a few years ago i saw this coming. i am a writer who often writes not to say what he thinks but to find out what he thinks. i had no idea what i was going to say. i said, there has got to be a story here. it is an interesting place with an interesting subject, baseball. also it is in a very interesting city. radio happened there for baseball and all kinds of things happened. it turns out there was a story.

>> i thought it was a baseball book and it is, but i got all the history out of it. i want to ask you about some of the history. first thing you did was define who the people are that all the streets are named around wrigley field. how long did it take you to find all those? >> not long. there is a street atlas to chicago full of information like that. >> addison and clark. >> addison was named after the fellow associated with discovering addison's disease, the major affliction of john kennedy. >> sheffield, a go-getter, you say. but many who made the northwest territories prosper. >> waveland. because the waves used to, far into chicago before they build the embankment along the lakefront. when you are up in the press box at wrigley field, you see the sales topping on the lake. it is about 11 blocks.

>> why do you care about wrigley field? >> the cubs played their, but also because it is very old. a 100-year-old structure in this country is older than the lincoln memorial, the jefferson memorial, the supreme court building. you're older than the empire state building, mount rushmore, the hoover dam. 100 years is a long time in the life of a building. the only older ballpark is fenway and it is only two years older. it is fascinating to think. you look around, first of all it is an urban space. it is in a neighborhood. they had to lock down a seminary to build it. it is a vibrant, organic neighborhood. it had to conform to a pre-existing neighborhood which is part of the fun. you realize that civil war veterans surely watch games there in 1914. people who had been at gettysburg.

now, how many generations, the six-year-olds who are there now, that is a lot of generations. >> one of the things you drew the government is a video clip we are going to show up on capitol hill. >> over here is a number 22 baseball jersey. what is that from? >> that was a gift from -- a few years ago. they know i am a cub fan. kind of encouraged my continued interest in the cubs. >> when did you throw out the first ball? >> that was about three years ago. i think three years ago. >> what was that like? >> that was the highlight of my career. [laughter]

i had all my grandchildren, most of them there. i can tell you, i was a hero that day. >> you made it from the mound to the catcher. >> absolutely. i threw it high and wide. i had to practice. >> that was him when he was still -- he is still around. why did you put him in your book? >> he served all these years. what i will be remembered for is that as a young boy, i was at the game when babe ruth allegedly pointed to the centerfield bleachers, called his shot and hit a home run. he was a young boy. i go into great length saying i have real doubts as to whether ruth did this. there was a couple other famous people there that day. there was mayor cermak whose guest was the democratic

candidate for president, franklin roosevelt. about three or four months after this, roosevelt is in miami. he gestures for mayor cermak to come and say hi. cermak comes over. someone trying to assassinate roosevelt instead kills cermak. >> we have some video on that. let's watch that story. black and white. >> at 9:35 p.m. on the evening of february 15, wrinkle and roosevelt had just completed offering a few remarks when a young italian emigrant stood up on a bench and reached in his pocket, got out a cheap eight dollar pistol and pointed it at the president elect of the united states. [gunshot] a woman standing next to him saw

what was happening and in her mind, she said, my god he is going to kill franklin roosevelt. >> when the first shot was fired, i realized he was shooting at someone. i took my right arm and pushed the pistol up as hard as i could. >> the bullet hit a man by the name of anton cermak who was mayor of chicago it, illinois. cermak was driven in roosevelt's car, cradled in roosevelt's arms all the way to a miami hospital. >> cermak, mortally wounded, told fdr, i am glad it was me instead of you. >> you question whether he said that. >> awfully convenient. one of those, now he belongs to the ages moments. >> how big a deal was that? >> a pretty big deal. eger now. you and i, history buffs, we are

interested in consistency and history. winston churchill came very close to being killed when struck by a taxicab on park avenue. long before he became prime minister. could have lost churchill and roosevelt in the 1930's. >> how do you go about doing a book like this? >> you start reading, start thinking. serendipity. as i pick up a book about bill back, a man who planted the idea that is now the defining feature of wrigley field. i am reading along and he says, when i was working in the cubs, we had a vendor who was always cheating the fans. we had to keep an eye on him. fortunately a guy named jack rubenstein we field, moved to texas, changed his name to jack ruby and shot lee harvey oswald. sometimes i feel like all of history flowed through wrigley

field. >> you tell the history of jack rubenstein in the book, which was a surprise when i read it. what was he selling? >> he would sell all kinds of things. a little toy with a stick with a bird on it. he would give it to the children and the children would get all excited and start pressuring their parents. that was considered foul play. >> you say they watched him? >> yes, with a spyglass. >> here is a moment you write about in the book. we will show this and get you to fill in the blanks. >> down the left-field line. into the stands. >> we have seen this happen here

before. awfully close to fan interference. the umpire is all over it. if he has to reach into the stands, it is fair game for the fans to catch the ball. it is very, very close. >> that is a cub fan who tried to make that catch. >> what is the story? >> at that point, this is october, 2003. the cubs haven't been to the world series since 1945. they haven't won the world series since 1908. it has been a long time. a foul ball down the line should have been made an out.

the foul ball comes close to the stands. a young man did what any fan would do instinctively. they all stood up and reached for the ball. it touched him and fell into the stands. the left fielder for the cubs acted angry and the crowd turned on him. i was sitting upstairs with the cubs president who looked at the instant replay on television and said, good call by the umpires. it wasn't fan interference. the ball was in the bleachers. it is fan interference if you reach onto the field of play. the crowd turned on bartman. he had to be escorted out in disguise out of wrigley field. it was an unpleasant and unhappy moment. >> what happened to him? >> he maintain his anonymity.

he has been offered serious money to tell his stories. turned it all down. he has never exploited this. he apologized to chicago. a lot of others think chicago should apologize to him. >> 14 books? most of your books are about politics or history. you have done three books on sports. what is the connection? you say at one point, that is the last word i am going to write about football. >> it combines the two worst features of modern life. violence punctuated by committee meetings. baseball does strike me -- i don't want to get metaphysical about this -- it is a good sport to be the national pastime of a democratic nation. democracy is about compromise and settling.

you don't get everything you want. a small is like that. there is a lot of losing in baseball. every team that goes to spring training knows it is going to win and lose 60 games. you play the whole season to sort out the middle 42. you win 10 out of 20, you are mediocre. 11 out of 20, you have a good chance to play in october. it is the sport of the half loaf. as is democracy. >> which do you like the most, politics or baseball? >> my wedding ring has the major league baseball logo on it so i take baseball really seriously. but i do love politics. >> when did you start to love baseball? >> i can't remember a life without it. i grew up in champaign, illinois. baseball was in the air. it was radio sport at that time.

the cubs were so bad that year that the owner took out ads in the chicago papers apologizing for the team. all my friends became cardinal fans. i became a conservative. >> who was wrigley? >> the two wrigley's. the wrigley after whom the ballpark is named was an early owner of the cubs, kind of a visionary. when radio came along, a lot of the owners said, this is terrible, people will stay home. wrigley said, nonsense. it is going to whet their appetite. he gave away the broadcasting rights. at one point, five chicago stations were broadcasting the game for free. he was right.

baseball fans were kind of a rough crowd. a lot of drinking, a lot of gambling in the stands. women didn't like to come. wrigley said, we are going to change that. he invented ladies day. he didn't discount tickets, he gave them away. 17,000 would show up. that is a lot more than most teams were drawing at that time. they overflowed onto the field. women got all dressed up. the high heels extended into the outfield. their heels sinking into the wrigley field turf, dressed to the nines, great picture. >> we saw john paul stevens, the supreme court and his involvement with baseball. we watched fdr and the cermak connection. you had a dinner back in early 2001 at the white house with george bush.

>> i did it every year of his presidency. they would come in and talk baseball. of course the president who knew his baseball had a wonderful time. >> you keep notes of that? >> probably should have. never wrote about it at all. >> what were the evenings like? >> talking baseball. the president knew who to ask and what was news in baseball. i remember talking about the last all-star game. i asked the president if he knew who got the winning hit. he did, it was his friend julio franco. bush knew baseball. >> small-group? >> sometimes 10, sometimes 20. no more than 20. >> was this off-season?

>> yes, so guys could,. >> do you have a memory of any particular night? >> just the president knowing julio franco got the winning hit. i think it was the 1989 all-star game. >> which president was the biggest baseball fan? >> probably william howard taft. baseball was invented by abner doubleday who wandered into farmer finnie's pastor near cooperstown, new york in 1839. a big preposterous myth invented at the turn of the 20th century. we have a creation myth in baseball about the seventh inning stretch. william howard taft who weighed about 300 pounds was a great baseball fan.

started the tradition of throwing out the first pitch on opening day. he allegedly found the seat confining, which you can understand for a 300 pound president, he stood up in the seventh inning. the fans, thinking the president was going to leave, stood up out of respect. the story is a complete fraud of course. the story is that was the beginning of the seventh inning stretch. >> what about other presidents? >> woodrow wilson was a very big baseball fan. >> did any of them play baseball? >> eisenhower i believe played baseball at west point. i don't think there are any. the best athlete to have been president probably was jerry ford that he didn't play baseball. >> how conscious are people that are running in politics about the connection to sports? >> i think they are very conscious.

a great historic and one said baseball is the greatest conversation topic ever invented. i don't care where you are about what strangers you are with, on a bus, on a train, you can always talk baseball. politicians are always looking for that. it is an easy way to converse with popular culture. >> you have done the supreme court, the white house. here is capitol hill senator dick durbin from your home state of illinois. >> there is weeping on waveland and sheffield is dark. another sad ending at addison and clark. the cubbies lost the big one in the very last game. a season so different has ended the same. there is no joy in wrigley as behind me turned brown. and who could forget the cubs lit up the town? our boys of summer were a lovable crew.

we counted on farnsworth and brodsky to close. ramirez and dallas joined miller and boko to keep the games close. our skipper was new from the city by the bay. but in dusty we trusty from opener to closing day. if baker was the brains, each win had another part. our perfect 10, ron sando was in everybody's heart. america, we thank you for loving the cubs. for cheering our longshots in your living rooms and pubs. >> what do you think? >> i think that poem is not very good but a nice sentiment. >> is that a thing that you find necessary? doing this kind of thing on the senate floor, the house floor when they give the one minute speeches?

>> or national pickle week or whatever. at least they are not harming the national interest. >> another man you say is a close friend of yours. but watch this from some time ago. >> i think we could distinguish a such thing as government too big. government in some of its aspects is essential. you wouldn't want a part-time marine corps and you wouldn't want a part-time federal bureau of investigation. we have to provide essentials of government. they are indispensable to civil society. >> you say in the book you took into cooperstown. >> he had a wonderful tiny little house up in delaware county. not far from cooperstown. he had a place called penders corner, a little one room shack where he wrote all his books.

i once was nutty enough to say pat moynahan wrote more books in the senate then he's colleagues read, which is rude but true. i love pat moynahan. the most interesting and satisfying friendship i have had in washington. >> tell us about it. >> world-class social scientist who knew the complexity of society. that makes some of us conservatives, wary of unintended consequences. it and make pat a conservative. pat was always a good new deal the sending officer. friend of organized labor. a good solid democrat. as i say, a world-class social scientist. i quote him in the book. one of the things that puzzles me is, why do we care so much about professional athletes? they do this for money. a move from one city to another.

why do we care about who wins? one of the reasons is, we are still tribal. pat had always talk about what he called the liberal expectancy, which was that as society became more scientific and more rational in its organization, the theory was that the old forces that used to shape history, tribal, ethnicity, religion, would lose their history making say. what are you reading about in the paper? ethnicity. that still drives history. i got to thinking that perhaps this residual tribalism, this yearning for identity, partly explains how much emotional energy we invest in sports loyalties. another world-class social scientist described cities as dusks of individuals.

when you get on your blue cub jacket and start coming to wrigley field, you have to come by public transportation, the crowd, the tribe that is going to be together for three hours forms slowly on this public transportation. for three hours, you are a tribe. >> speaking of public transportation, how much should government be involved in these arenas around the country? >> loading baseball parks is something i deplore in principle and enjoy in practice. it doesn't make much sense. it makes a little bit of sense for baseball because you have 81 home games a year. football i don't understand.

cities build these gigantic arenas and they play eight regular-season games, 10 games a year. basically, study after study shows it makes no economic sense. >> you bring up holmes junior and his involvement with antitrust years ago. >> a small is the only sport that has an antitrust exemption. in 1922, there was a challenge to baseball practices. he wrote an opinion that said baseball is not a business to engage in under state commerce. baseball isn't a business and general motors is a sport. obviously it is a business. but he said it and the supreme

court has always said, it is nonsense that if congress wants to correct it, that is its business. congress has not touched it. >> what do you think when congress calls baseball owners, managers, players, the hold steroid thing? >> one of the functions of congress in its understood oversight rule is to educate the public about public problems. very clearly, the use of performance-enhancing drugs by aspiring young athletes, high school kids, amounted to a public health problem. i am not going to look with my usual moral squint. it actually turned out to be useful. up to that point come of the players association had been very reluctant to move on this. they thought it was a civil

rights and privacy issue. after that, progress was made. >> ernie banks, we have some video about ernie banks. i want to ask you about the civil rights changes in baseball over the years. let's watch. >> ernie banks delighted fans with his long home runs, steady fielding and cheerful disposition. after spending two years in the negro american league emma mr. cobb belted 500 home runs in the major leagues. five times, he hit over 40 home runs in a single season. banks smashed five grand slams in 1955 and belted 47 round trippers in 1958. he also became the first national leaguer to win the m.v.p. award. he is still defined by his

signature phrase, let's play too. >> that was provided by major league baseball. did you know him? >> i did know him, still do. he is living in southern california. i think he holds the record for the most major-league games played without playing in the world series. came close to winning the pennant but never quite got there. naturally cheerful, just indestructible goodwill that he had. he was on some really rotten cubs team. 500 12 home runs, i don't know why anyone ever pitched to him. born in dallas, segregated dallas. was one of if not the last layer to come from the negro leagues to the major leagues. not a trace of bitterness.

there have been some angry players and their anger is understandable. that was not ernie. >> do you remember what his first year was? >> i think it was 1953. >> what was the racial atmosphere in the cubs? >> the cubs brought banks up and banks played shortstop at that time. they also brought up african american second baseman, jean baker. it was assumed that an african-american player had to have an african-american roommate. >> what was the attitude on the part of wrigley? >> no problem at all. >> did anybody in chicago have a problem with it? >> no one in the cubs organization did as far as i know. chicago was a very segregated

city at that point. it was the terminus of the illinois central railroad, bringing great migration partly brought by agriculture to chicago. they would come to chicago, get off at the 12th street station, illinois central, and turn south to one of the great african american communities in the american communities in the world. the cubs are in the north side. most african-americans in chicago became white sox fans on the south. but the great chicago african-american baseball player, the first great one was on the north side. >> jackie robinson. >> jackie robinson came to chicago on that magical tour of 1947 when he visited. it is so moving to read about

this. as the dodgers would come from city to city, the clergy and other city leaders would talk to their congregations saying, jackie robinson is coming and we want you to go out and support jackie. we want you to be well-dressed and well behaved. people would go to wrigley field as if they were going to church. when jackie robinson came to wrigley field, it was almost certainly the largest concentration of african americans on the north side of chicago ever to that point. >> you served on both the san diego padres board and the baltimore orioles board. what years? >> i can remember. >> when did you get off? >> 1998. bud selig asked me to be a member of baseball's blue-ribbon commission on baseball

economics. it was me, paul volcker, rick leven and george mitchell. don fehr, the president of the union said, what can we expect from him? so i got off the board. >> did you ever find yourself in a conflict where you knew something that you couldn't write about? >> the boards didn't do much. >> what did you learn from them? >> on the orioles, i was put on by a great washington who owned the orioles. on the padres, we would go to spring training but they did not govern. >> in your book, you write about a man named eugene williams. he was swimming in lake michigan off the 25th street beach in chicago.

what is the story? >> he was swimming on these beaches of lake michigan. there was a clear understanding where the white beaches and did and the blackd beaches began. self segregation. he got confused or got careless and swam into the white area of lake michigan. it is preposterous to talk about now. some whites began throwing stones at him, perhaps it was a stone hit him, he drowned. this was a time of tremendous tension. african-americans who'd served in the military had come back to chicago. having fought for democracy and experienced world travel, said, we are not going to put up with this anymore. there was tension about jobs with the returning soldiers and all the rest. chicago was a tinderbox and it

exploded in some of the worst racial rioting in american history. >> how did that relate to baseball? >> it is my theory that baseball helped heal this. not least when in 1947 jackie robinson came to town. you began to have a more, even on the north side, a more integrated experience at the ballpark. >> go back to when you started saying about doing this book. how long did it take? >> it took me two years. 196 pages or something, that is a long time for 196 pages that i i am also writing columns and another book and other things. but it was not just a labor of love, a labor of fun. all this stuff cap coming out. i didn't realize the cubs won the cold war until i wrote the book.

i will explain how. 1919, william wrigley bought catalina island off the coast of southern california. 1921, he said, the cubs will do spring training there. they did until the early 1950's. 1937, a des moines, iowa, radio broadcaster talked his radio station into sending them up to cover the cubs spring training. while he was out there, ronald reagan said, i am going to get a screen test. got a screen test, became an actor, won the cold war. all because of the cubs. he came to my house i think six times. he was a great raconteur. told incessantly a story about how he was re-creating cubs games to the telegraph. the telegraph would say, strike

one, strike two, pops out the short. and the line broke. ragan decided not to say the line broke but the stall. he had some batter up there. until the line got reestablished, he would say, fouled off another pitch. when it started again, he would pick up with the broadcast. >> did you have barack obama at your house? >> i did. >> any other presidents? >> george w. bush, i got him together with some historians. including jim mcpherson. he was interested. he is a big reader of history. >> do you do pick up the phone and say, mr. president, come to my house? >> i got to know ronald reagan before he was president. he liked to get out.

out of the bubble of the white house. george w. bush was interested in this. so i suggested it. barack obama hadn't been nominated yet. i called some of the staff and said, he is going to win. it would be nice, let me have a dinner, get some conservative columnists. try to rekindle something that was characteristic of older washington. you and i can read member, it was a more amicable -- exactly. i remember obama himself called me and said, i ought to win this first before accepting. >> what is the memory from that night? >> he was affable, he was also very confident. as he still is. i remember asking if he had a

theory as to why there was a depression, the collapse of 1937, he knew it had happened which was a good sign. he did have a theory. roosevelt declared victory too soon. it indicated he was informed and confident. >> what are the ground rules on nights like that? >> i made it clear when mr. obama was there that no one was allowed to talk about it. you can't socialize if you are on the record. you can't relax and be friends. >> anybody break the rules? >> a little bit, but not badly. >> how does it affect somebody like you writing a column? you get close to these people and you have to sit down and write the column that says what you think. >> the only president i was close to was ronald reagan. i am not sure how many people

ever got close to him. he had one friend and he married her. he and nancy were so perfectly married. his wonderful humor was actually a way of keeping people at a distance. but i did know him and admire him. it was difficult on occasion to criticize him. one day, picking up the phone, the white house operator said, the president would like to talk to you. he said, george -- this was right before the iceland summit, -- he said, george, i am not enjoying reading you as much as i used to. i said, i am not enjoying you being president as much as i used to. he laughed and said, let's talk about it. i went to the white house and we talked about it. nothing personal.

>> over the years, has any of the people you have written about taken it personally? >> yes, a lot of them but not the better ones. >> how about george w. bush's feelings about what you said about his father? >> i was probably an excessive critic looking back. the bushes are a real loyal family. but it was partly george w. bush's sign of independence that he didn't visit upon me the anger of his father. >> 14 books, three on baseball. how do they sell compared to the other books? >> [laughter] my first baseball book, maybe the best-selling baseball book ever. if so, it has probably sold as many as the other 13 combined, which means i have figured out what america is interested in. >> we are not sure about this

but this is the first clip we can find in our archive of george will. this was back in 1988. >> quite unkind to mention the cubs. [laughter] they last won a world series in 1908, two years before tolstoy died. it is now 80 years on and we have another much more entertaining and constructive event about to occur. the 1988 election about which i am now going to talk for about half an hour and then i will take any questions you might have. i am not going to predict the winner. i subscribe to a rule some of you may remember. zeke minoru was a first baseman of spectacular immobility. he understood the first

principle of baseball. you cannot be charged with an error if you do not touch the ball. [laughter] >> do you remember telling that story? >> i still do. yes. >> do you have any idea how many speeches you made as a professional speech giver? >> lots. >> you still do it? >> i still do and i love doing it. i enjoy talking to people. it also moves me around the country. wherever you go, there is something to write about. i am a writer. i have a metabolic urge to put words on paper. if i am not writing a book in addition to 100 columns a year, i feel underemployed. so the speaking gets me around the country. i get columns without a washington dateline which

editors appreciate. >> you talk about a writer named carl sandburg. what do you think of him? >> galesburg, illinois. poet, hog butcher, all that stuff about chicago. he was a poet back when poetry was popular entertainment. he addressed congress. he would appear on "the ed sullivan show." this was a time when t.s. eliot and robert frost would go to colleges and there would-be overflow crowds at auditoriums. he was a wonderful spirit. not a great historian. i think it was edmund wilson that said sandburg's biography as lincoln was the worst thing that happened to lincoln since john wilkes booth. my friend said that clichés run

through sandburg's prose like calories through cheesecake. not a great writer but a nice spirit. >> you talk about a famous hoosier writer. >> another fellow who wound up in chicago. chicago was the great incubator of models. some of his characters come from elsewhere, philadelphia and elsewhere, to chicago. it was part of this extraordinary ferment of chicago in the early 20th century when all the railroads came there and it linked the east with the western prairies that were feeding the east. it was a great time in chicago. >> you use an excerpt from one of his writings, this singing flame of a city, this all-america, this poet in chaps and duck skin. >> chicago brings the additives

-- adjectives out. >> did you ever copy another writer? >> yes. >> when? >> murray kempton. he said he got his style from lord clarence's history of the civil war. i read that just to see where he got it. murray had a very complicated syntax. but it was very efficient. if you are writing a column that has to be brief. my columns, they are 750 words. murray often wrote 675-word columns. >> years ago we had a conversation with david

mccullough and mr. halberstam. you said at the time that your favorite book was "friday night lights." >> it is a great book. aim out the same year as my baseball book, "men at work." it is about high school football in midland, texas. heartbreaking story about expectations raised and dashed. high school young men doing what high school young men will do, envisioning a high trajectory of athletic achievement and being disappointed. it is still one of the best sports books. >> what is the best writing you read in the last year or so? >> the best writing -- >> or the best new columnist you have seen. columnist,ic

"national affairs" magazine, . there is an enormous amount of young commentator talent. >> what has happened to your writing over the years? how has it changed? >> i think i write more complicated columns now because i am more understand in constitutional law. all of our disputes sooner or later become related to the constitution. the constitution read through the prism of the declaration of independence. i find myself writing more complicated matters now. >> you use to write with a pen. when you broke your arm, you stopped doing that. how do you like the computer? >> it is great. >> do you write more or less? >> more. i used to have to stop and count

the words. they have a button that says how many words you have got which is an enormous timesaver. >> here you are, 1992 book notes. what are you getting at? >> i am getting at the fact that something has changed in american politics. we have people entering politics hoping, planning, determined to have careers there, to stay there as long as possible. and using all the many facets of the modern government that permeates our lives in so many ways, all its regulating and subsidizing activities, to further their career. the founding fathers didn't worry about careers because the general sense was that people rotated in and out of office is -- offices naturally. they would go congress and then go back to virginia.

the idea that people would come to congress, live in the rooming houses in the disgusting city and make a career of it was no problem to them. it was -- the motivation wasn't there. >> smelly, disgusting city? >> when lincoln came as a congressman in the 1840's, pigs rooting around in pennsylvania avenue. south of the white house, was a swamp. a swamp full of malaria. it was a terrible, dangerous place to live. >> careerism. >> we made washington too nice. we invented air-conditioning. the importance of politics has increased and the power of the federal government -- and power is a great attraction. some people go into the private

sector and are motivated to maximize their income. people go into politics to maximize their power. it is the same principle. people make decisions in public life in very much the same way they make them in the private sector. >> i saw you say a couple months ago that you had written 4000 columns in your life. >> at least. >> what is the impact of the column that has people raging at this moment? >> right this instant? about the sexual assault -- >> a headline, george will, colleges become the victims of progressivism. today we're recording this, they dispatch" has dropped your column. >> they know how to perpetuate the rebel.

this is my job. when dubious statistics become the base of dubious and dangerous abandonment of due process, step in and say take a deep breath. what has happened is, the administration has said that one in five women in college experiences sexual assault. and that 12% of sexual assaults are actually reported. if you take that, only 12% of sexual assaults are reported, take the reporting, extrapolate from that, you don't come to anything like one in five. the administration's own statistics fall apart. but beyond that, the office of civil rights and the department of education have said schools should adjudicate sexual assault charges by a preponderance of evidence, not beyond a reasonable doubt, just a preponderance of evidence.

so there are serious due process problems here. a lot of young men and women are going to this sea of hormones and alcohol. you are going to have charges of sexual assault and you're going to have young men disciplined, their lives often seriously blighted by this, don't get to medical school, law school, all the rest. you have litigation of tremendous expense. as young men sue the colleges for damages done to them by the abandonment of rules of due process evolved over many centuries and are now in danger of casually shoving aside. >> i have a letter that you have answered from senator blumenthal, feinstein, casey and

baldwin. they begin by saying, your thesis and statistics fly in the face of everything we know about this issue -- >> have you seen my letter that i wrote back? what i say in there is, i take sexual assault more seriously than i think they do. i agree that society has correctly said that rape is second only to murder as a serious felony. and therefore, when someone is accused of rape, it should be reported to the criminal test this system, not with improvised campus processes. second, i take sexual assault more seriously than the senators

do. i think there is a danger of defining sexual assault so broadly that it begins to trivialize the seriousness of it. when remarks become sexual assault, improper touching -- that shouldn't be done but it is not sexual assault -- we begin to blur distinctions which are important to preserve if you believe that this is a serious matter. >> did you have any idea that you would get the kind of feedback you got from this? you have a lot of people calling for your head. >> the reason i wrote about it is there was a lot of passion involved. it is what i do. calling for my head -- today, for some reason, indignation is the default position of certain

people in civic discourse. they go from a standing start to fury in about 30 seconds. i think it has something to do with the internet. it has lowered -- erased the barriers to entry into public discourse. that is a good thing. unfortunately, the downside of this is that among the barriers to entry that have been reduced is you don't have to be able to read, write or think. you can just shout and call names. we have all kinds of interest groups who think they are only going to get attention if they are at maximum decibel level. so they shout and say, i don't just disagree. fire him, send him to jail. all that stuff. these are like summer storms. they dissipate fast. >> the "post" stuck by you.

"the st. louis post" says, we are going to watch him. why do you think they dropped you? >> i don't really know. >> over the years, have you had much of this kind of reaction? >> no, not really. on some occasions i might get a lot of people angry. again, that is part of my job. >> you wouldn't take back any of those words? >> no. >> you switched from abc to fox news. why? >> a lot of complicated reasons. our sunday morning show that i had been on moved to new york where george stephanopoulos does a fine job as the anchor, but i got tired of saturday nights in new york city. and fox news was interested and fox news is all news all the time.

so i am on television more during the week. i am going to leave here and go upstairs and do fox news. it was just a good time to leave. no hard feelings toward abc. i had a wonderful time there. >> so, how long are you going to keep all this going? >> i plan to file a column on may 4, 2031, my 90th birthday, and then i will look around and see. >> the cover of this book, "a nice little place on the north side: wrigley field at 100," that we have been talking about has a picture of you taken by the tour you will. victoria will. >> an exceedingly talented photographer -- very good in fact. covers fashion week in milan and paris.

she is 34. she is my daughter. very, very good photographer. >> you have got three sons? and your son jonathan if i remember right was working with the washington nationals. >> jonathan is 42 years old. when he was born in 1972, the life expectancy of down syndrome people was about 20 years. we've made a lot of progress, understanding that they flourish when they are treated as american citizens with problems, not as human discards. i have another son who is an fbi agent. and my prodigiously talented daughter and david will, who just graduated from princeton in june. >> george will, time is up. thank you for joining us. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

>> for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at www.q-and-a.org. q&a programs are also available as c-span podcasts. >> next your calls and comments live on "washington journal." live at noon the house begins with opening speeches. legislative business set to begin at 2:00. >> in the past, education was limited to the opportunities down the street at the local school. learning, some services that are formal and paid for by the state and some

that are informal. the resources that students find is becoming important that states make sure that states have access to full and part-time online learning and that they should remain open to those possibilities. >> digital learning with tom vander ark, tonight on "the communicators," on c-span2. >> national journal correspondent fawn johnson has the latest on efforts to ease the u.s. border crisis. talks aboutmour those who sign up for health insurance under the affordable health care act. later, the role of the highway trust fund and efforts to fund it before it runs out of

money by the end of the summer. and we will take your calls. "washington journal" is next. host: looking out at a live shot over the united states capital. good morning. monday, july 14. this is "washington journal." house republicans are moving plans to sue president barack obama over the administration's decision to employer mandate of the healthcare law. the house rules committee is expected to hold a hearing on this week with votes to come later this morning. this morning we want to hear your thoughts on whether or not you support or oppose this