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brian: your new book, image yging a great republic, all, "all the king's men is the best ever." tom: it's the best american political novel. first, it is beautifully written. warren is a great craftsman. you could add in some people like steinbeck and others, but warren was a gifted writer. it is important because he captures the paradox of politics and power.

politics is inevitable and necessary, and you have to have power to make things happen and ring about change. it also talks about how power can be toxic, and can be intoxicating for somebody who ields it, and power shapes the wielder, and for the character, it captures that story. most of all, it is important because it is about moral responsibility. half the book is about governor starks aide, he is from the oligarchy in the privilege class, highly educated, a former reporter, and he gets sucked in and becomes the bagman and the dirt collector. does horrible things and rationalizes that even a flawed

person doing good things is ok to work with, and only very late in the novel does he come to understand a moral awakening bout good and bad. nobody in american literature has captured that as well as robert penn warren. which is why it won the pulitzer prize and why he is generally revered as the best american political novelist. brian: how many books did you read to write this book? tom: probably about 150 novels to select 40 or 50 novels i treated. tough decisions. "the scarlet letter," faulkner, james fenimore cooper. in many cases, which steinbeck book to use? in the middle of writing this book, harper lee came out with

her second book that talks about politics better than her first book, even though it was not a literary success. a lot of great books i had to say no to. brian: i want to go way back to the 1960's. you came to this town as a white house fellow. what were you doing at the time and what impact did the white house fellowship have on your career? tom: a good question. i first came in 1963 as an ntern for a republican senator from massachusetts, he was a three term governor, three term u.s. senator from massachusetts, wonderful man. i was an intern for a lengthy summer for him in 1963. i came back in 1966 as a white house fellow in the west wing. with bill morris and douglas cater. that was a fantastic opportunity. i was a graduate student at

stanford and studying a look opinion polls and voting analyses and city governments and all of a sudden i was thrown into what i jokingly call the original lbj school of politics. i've learned enormously. that program and similar programs like the congressional fellowship program, are invaluable. it encourages people to think differently and ask fresh questions about how democracy works. one of the great novels i treat in imagining "a great republic" is henry adams' book, "democracy: an american novel." it was written anonymously. he was so well-known he feared he would get lawsuits from people. his protagonist is a woman, madelyn lee. she comes to washington, not as white house fellow, but she

wliffs across from the white house, she's wealthy a. widow, and she gets to know senators and operations and she asks major questions. is this constitutional tellcy? is this american political experiment going to work? she read the congressional record and she would go to hearings and interview everybody. in a way, all of the fellowship programs for people in the 20's are similar to that. t really puts you in a situation of seeing political leaders in action, seeing their flaws and the ambiguities they have to live with. one of the great novels, "advise and consent." by alan curry. situation of seeing political leaders in action, seeing their nobody does a better job of dealing with the ambiguity that u.s. senators have to deal with. if robert penn warren's novel is the best political novel, llen drury's "advise and

consent," about a nomination hearing, is the best novel on congress. i daresay you can learn more about the u.s. senate from that book then you can from 100 political science and history books. brian: you call it the best political novel in american politics, let's look at robert penn warren, see what he looks and sounds like. tell us more about him. [video clip]>> a man comes to power, a hitler, a stalin, any man of power, because he feels some need and preys on some eakness. people in this context need him to get what they deserve and -- in the way of government. it is their weakness or vice

that brings the man to his role. brian: did you ever meet him? tom: no, but i admire him. he was a true southerner and a student at vanter built. top of his class, a rhodes scholar. he went to university of california berkeley, studied at oxford and was a longtime professor. he taught for 10 years at lsu. around the time huey long was dying, he met him, and he was impressed but also skeptical about the overbearingness and narcissism. long was running for president but he had done a lot to make lsu a serious research niversity. later, warren wins an additional pulitzer prize for oetry.

most of the people who know all all the king's men" episodes. didn't know he was a poet. he didn't feel "all the king's men" was about politics. he thought it was about human nature. it is really a book about moral responsibility and the urgency in the political sphere to have people be aware of and conscious of their moral responsibilities. brian: before we started, you said you saw a lot of the movies that came from the novels and then had to read the novel. explain more about that. tom: my task was to look at political fiction. as i said, i wrote about 50 novels and novelists. it was confusing, but in some

cases there are superb hollywood films, like "to kill a mockingbird" and "the manchurian candidate." i thought my obligation was to the written novel, but the fact is that many people, more people, have seen the movies than read the novel. i would read the novel at least twice and interview the novel, but also see the film if i have not already seen it. there are some interesting bservations. the most famous line in "gone ith the wind" has rhett butler saying "frankly my dear, i don't give a damn," but it is not there in the book. it's often quoted but not from the book, from the movie. steinbeck's message in "grapes of wrath" was toned down for

the movie, although he admired the movie. you have nuances and differences. i encourage people to watch the movie and read the novel. brian: here is a clip about "all the king's men." who was huey long? tom: a governor and senator rom louisiana. e is mostly known because he was a rural representative, self-designated as a red neck and that he would be the representative of the hicks taking on the oligar can chy, meaning the oil, lumber, and cotton industries of that state. he was a change agent. brian: he was assassinated. tom: in 1935. brian: in the novel? tom: he gets assassinated at he end of the novel. brian: a famous actor plays the part, broderick crawford.

tom: he won the oscar that year, as did the movie. it is a great movie. there is a second movie i do not recommend, the second version. brian: let's watch this clip. [video clip]>> now listen to me, ya hicks. yeah, you're hicks too, and they fooled you a thousand times just like they fooled me. but this time, i'm gonna fool somebody. i'm on my own and i'm gonna stay in this race. i'm on my own and i'm out for blood. now listen to me, you hicks! listen to me, and lift up your eyes and look at god's blessed and unfly-blown truth. and this is the truth! you're a hick, and nobody ever helped a hick but a hick himself! i'm on my own and i'm out for blood. now listen to me, you hicks! alright, listen to me! listen to me! i'm the hick they were gonna use to split the hick vote. well, i'm standin' right here now on my hind legs. even a dog can learn to do that. are you standin' on your hind legs? have you learned to do that much yet? here it is! here it is, ya hicks! nail up anybody who stands in your way! nail up joe harrison! nail up mcmurphy! and if they don't deliver, give me the hammer and i'll do it myself!

tom: that is a good clip. it shows that agent of populism at work, rallying people to a cause. the cause was just. the state of louisiana was ruled by the 2% and a oligarchy pure and simple. there was a time for change and he was feeding off of that. psychologists talk about people who are chronic followers, people who are chronically in need of following someone with a populist bent. warren himself said hitler's come along. robert penn warren was agonized in this novel between celebrating the need for policy and political change and worrying about how power can

corrupt and how it can intoxicate those who have power. he favored stark, the governor, but not starkism, if i can invent that term. he also said we should be worried about burdenism, his right-hand man. who became corrupted and swelled up in the vortex of power. power is needed to bring about change but power can be a toxic burden, if you will. sorry for the pun, but this book is a stark warning about the paradoxes and contradictions of power. brian: where have you spent most of your teaching life? tom: mostly at colorado college. i have been blessed to be associated with them since 1979.

i was a white house fellow and taught at a few universities elsewhere, university of north carolina, i worked at the brookings institution for a few years, a great experience for yself. i took 12 years off to be a college president at a small liberal arts college called whitman college in walla walla, washington. great experience. being a college president at a small college is still being a teacher in a way, you teach teachers, students and alumni at the same time. my wife and i still have strong ties to that town and college. i have been associated for colorado college in colorado springs for most of the last four decades. brian: which of your books has sold the best? tom: i had the good fortune as a young man to be associated with james burns and jack

peltus, who were textbook authors. i joined in as a third author. for 30 years eventually becoming the managing partner of the number one best-selling textbook in american government. we had a spinoff on state and local politics as well. those sold a million copies, when i was involved. i also wrote a book called "the state of the presidency" widely used in presidency courses. a co-author and i wrote a book called "leadership matters" a few years ago that won the leadership award for 2015. i love writing about elections, i wrote about democracy. that harvard university press published. i've done a lot of textbooks. this new book is an adventure -- a new venture for me and it goes political science and it's a combination of literature and politics.

i'm hoping it encourages more strongly a field in american poli-lit, which is how can we learn about the american experiment through the eyes of our storytellers, our national torytellers. people might be surprised but we have dozens of wonderful torytellers. harriet beecher stowe changed the nation. many of these books change individuals. i have met young people who say, i am a public defender because i read "to kill a mockingbird." or i work in poverty law because i read john steinbeck when i was a high school student. the filmmaker famous for the "civil war" series, ken burns, says "killer angels" changed his life. he read that and he wanted to do a documentary. brian: was there a novel that changed your life?

tom: i don't know that is the case, but collectively, all of these novels have altering my thinking. when you do a second or third reading of "the grapes of wrath," it is a powerfully spiritual book. although it is a real tough critique about the american economic system, wow, does it -- it shows you what humanity is all about and we need to help another, we need to have structures that are there for one another. the story of a family moving from oklahoma to southern california, a tragic story where they are exploited and scammed and so on. upton sinclair's "the jungle" is similar. many of these novelists are essentially saying, and i learned again and again as i reread these books -- we can do better. the american political experiment, the idea of equal justice under the law and

freedom and equality and opportunity is powerful. brian: let's look at john steinbeck, who won the nobel prize, this is back in 1962. "grapes of wrath." it is what you were talking about here. let us watch a bit of this. ideo clip] >> emasculated political priesthood. singing their litanies in empty churches. nor is it game for the cloistered elect. literature is as old as speech. it grew out of human need for it, but it has not changed but to become more needy. brian: what was he like? do you know? tom: i never met him, but i met his oldest sister when i was a graduate student at stanford and she hosted me for tea. in monterey, california. steinbeck went to stanford and he never graduated. he came from a republican

family in a republican town of salinas, kansas. while he was a young adult, there was a crushing of a lettuce workers' union in his town and he became embarrassed by that and he became interested in the plight of migrants. he wrote for 10 years without any success, but he found his voice when he went home to salinas and monterey and san jose. brian: california, you said kansas. tom: i meant california. hanks. steinbeck wrote so many awesome books. he was radical in some early books, "in dubious battle" was about a communist thing. but his books like "mice and men" and others, powerful contribution to american literature.

he had a writing ability, i think if you do a quick reading of "grapes of wrath" you don't profit from it as much as going back and rereading it, maybe watching the film in between nd going back to it. it is powerful in terms of its spirituality. it was thought by some people to be a contract for socialism. eleanor roosevelt immediately after she read it here in washington, d.c. said it was a profoundly urgent and spiritual and pro-american book. on that note, i would like to quote bono the singer, he recently had an album in which he had one song called "the american soul," and in a recent interview with rolling stone magazine he said, "the irish eople are wonderful people and

france and great britain are great countries, but they are not an idea. america is an idea. he said -- that is why we have become obnoxious and boisterous about when you don't ucceed. france and great britain everyone worldwide, the whole world wants the america idea to succeed. it is a special unprecedented aspirational collection of aspirations. from jefferson and ling:and the -- lincoln and the founders. what i found in writing "imagining a great republic" is that american aspirations are constantly present, even when an author is upset with america. if it is upton sinclair or sinclair lewis or philip roth or ray bradbury or richard condon, they may be critical of paranoia or failings, harriet beecher stowe, tough on our ncestry.

but there is always the notion of redemption -- that the country stands for something and we can do better. bono was right, there is an american idea and it is worth fighting for, writing about and making documentaries and movies about. i think a reading of major american political classics is ennobling and empowering. in terms of, this country tands for something, and these storytellers are saying our tribe wants to be something special. not just a city on a hill, but a city that cares and loves one another and is willing to work with one another and understand that politics is indispensable to our bringing about progress for as many people as

possible. brian: when did you start this? tom: three or four years ago. brian: where were you when you started? tom: colorado college, nearing the end of my professional teaching career. i did not have the necessity to the end of my professional teaching career. meet peers standards and i could read and write and assign things. i taught for a couple of years a course called -- the american political novel, and reading together with students was powerful. laura adler had a wonderful phrase, reading alone is almost as bad as drinking alone. i love that phrase. it is true. you need to read books like this with other people in order to get feedback. i learned enormously from students who would write a paper on some of these novels. they would sit down and have tea with me and chat about richard wright, "the native son," which is a brutal and stark treatment of racism in chicago.

it took two or three years reading -- it was a delight to read these books. brian: how hard was it to get a publisher? tom: i asked some of my regular publishers like harvard and oxford and they were polite in turning it down. it was hard. this publisher and a couple of others were quite interested. the publisher produced it within six or seven months. they have done a nice job. brian: i want to show on the screen, i think i counted 41 ovels that you list, just so people can see a lot of the different names and put them up there and we will pick a couple as you look at it. harriet beecher stowe, sinclair lewis, john steinbeck, richard wright, ayn rand. let's go to the next group.

it is hard for me to even see at this age. tom: mark twain, this is not anywhere near the most famous book, "the gilded age," but it gave a name to the post-civil war period. we all regularly refer to it as the gilded age as the post-civil war period. brian: "seven days in may," tell us about that. and what impact that had on the country. tom: we met chuck bailey in the white house. he was a reporter. a tall fella. had a distinguished heritage from new england. that is a great novel. one of my students pointed it out to me. it's really a book about military-civil relations, civilian control of the military. both the book and the movie are quite good. it was written by two veteran reporters in washington, d.c.

in the early part of the john f. kennedy presidency. and it gives us, both in the novel and the film gives us the most believable american president in american literature. even that alone. but, also, military coups occur regularly in latin america, africa and other nations. t could happen here. one of the few teams or author examples that crystallizes the possibility that a coup could occur. within seven days, the president and staff were able to prevent the coup from occurring. brian: what year was this? tom: 1962 published. rian: go to the next list. one of the ones i wanted to ask you about is "catch-22." what does that mean?

tom: the original title was "catch-18," and the publisher wanted to switch it to 22. it is now in the dictionaries. we hear people now invoking, catch-22 that have never read the book. it is fascinating. "manchurian candidate" is another word in a lexicon you know without reading the book. catch-22 means that two things are asked of you and it is impossible to do both. joe heller is a bombardier in world war ii and island off of italy. the book is largely autobiographic but in novel form. e tells of a mindless superior asking of his crew and of him to do things that are implausible or wrong or done just for bureaucratic purposes or the promotion of a colonel

in charge. his is a profound story, about dilbertism, organizational bureaucracy, where the bureaucracy becomes overwhelming in terms of its own needs and self interest rather than the individuals and souls of the people that work in them. joe heller had no compunction about serving in world war ii, he thought it was a just war, but the book becomes anti-bureaucracy, antiwar, historically because of the tales he tells. brian: here is a clip from the 1970 movie, "catch-22." [video clip]>> is orr crazy? >> of course he is. he has to be crazy to keep flying after all the close calls he's had. >> why can't you ground him? >> i can, but first he has to ask me. >> that's all he's gotta do to be grounded? >> that's all. >> then you can ground him? >> no. then i cannot ground him. >>

>> there's a catch. >> a catch? >> sure, catch-22. anyone who wants to get out of combat isn't really crazy, so i can't ground him. >> ok, let me see if i've got this straight. in order to be grounded, i've got to be crazy. and i must be crazy to keep flying. but if i ask to be grounded, that means i'm not crazy anymore, and i have to keep flying. >> you got it, that's catch-22. tom: the context is that he has already flown 50 missions. now he is asked to fly 60, and the next week 70. after a while, he feels as though they are not caring about him, they just want to submit their record. it is a long, torturous book hat should've been edited down by 100 pages or more, but it is worth reading and a classic.

brian: what is the longest you sit while you read? tom: i can usually read 200 pages or so. with "atlas shrugged" or "gone with the wind" you are talking 1500 pages. teinbeck's books are long. brian: do you have a routine while you are doing your research? tom: i have a study in my colorado home, i would go off their separate from the house, and i could read at length. i would make notes and i always mark up books, nobody would want my used books, there are scribblings all over them. i thought my obligations in this particular venture was to interview the book and the author. when possible, i went to their archives, like edward abbey's archives in arizona or the concord historical society in new hampshire.

there is an american author called winston churchill who wrote a book called, "mr. cruz career," a great book. it is about the teddy roosevelt progressive movement in new hampshire. i went to harper lee's hometown and spent a day walking around, going to the courthouse. went to margaret mitchell's apartment where she wrote "gone with the wind." and in john nichols case, i had the pleasure of having dinner with him in his hometown of taos, new mexico. apartment where she wrote "gone with the wind." whenever possible, i try to do fieldwork and visit these laces. brian: here is ayn rand, put her into perspective after we watch this. [video clip]>> i am opposed to all forms of control. i am for an absolute, laissez-faire, free, unregulated economy.

i am for the separation of state and economics, just as we have separation of state and church, which led to peaceful coexistence among different religions. after a period of religious wars. the same applies to economics. if you separate the government from economics, if you do not regulate production and trade, you will have peaceful cooperation and harmony and justice among men. brian: i want to add a quote from you in the book and put it in perspective. "novelists are generally regarded as left of center," but certainly rand was not. tom: she grew up in russia when communism was developing. her father's pharmacy was nationalized. she was an immigrant to los angeles, was a creenwriter. she is the godmother of the libertarian party, the tea party, and she is a cult.

you can run into randians. nd people who celebrate john gault her main protagonist. she has had an enormous influence. on one gault her main protagonist. phi and it's the one that celebrates individualism and freedom and liberty. she goes overboard, but she was a great storyteller. her books were turned down by a lot of publishers. i think "the fountainhead" was turned down by 12 publishers. who felt it was too radical or oo long. but she still is a bestseller, and half of president trump's cabinet view themselves as influenced by her. paul ryan used to give out to everybody on his staff, a copy of her books. he did not like that she was also anti-religious and an atheist, so he would downplay that.

but her theme that we have to much national planning, to much government control, is an important one in the american political dialogue and ebate. anybody in politics, everybody in politics should read her work and come to terms with them individually. nobody can read her work without being inspired by some of her prototypes, rugged individualist industrialists who are making things, manufacturers. i don't think president trump reads, but he would like very much the movie about "the fountainhead." brian: did you read both? tom: yes. brian: they are both big. tom: yes. brian: when was she most isible in our society? tom: probably in the 1950's and 1960's, i assume.

she lived in new york and she had a coterie of people she influenced. one of whom was alan greenspan, who viewed himself as a disciple and was very unapologetic about it. and he was chairman of the federal reserve board, economic advisor to presidents and a major economic guru. he toned down some of the randism. where he was very close to

but there was some influence in president ford's period. where he was very close to president ford. brian: who is edward abbey? tom: he grew up in appalachia, served in world war ii. he is as libertarian as rand, but with a different philosophy, to preserve the southwest. he became a radical environmentalist, almost an anarchist. he wanted to preserve the southwest, which he loved. he spent many summers and worked in moab, utah, and went to school at the university of new mexico in albuquerque. he was prickly, his nickname was cactus head. he was not particularly ecumenical. some of his writing is misogynist and racist, but he was so dedicated, like rand was, to individual freedom, he was so dedicated to preserving a place. he said the american tourist and automobile people have their national park, the

interstate highways. he did not want tourists. he was a great believer in freedom. brian: here he is from 1972. from a television station, kueb. >> the only danger to this area is too much economic development. too much building, oil exploration. mineral exploration. development of commercial tourism. southeast utah is one of the great adventure places left on earth and i think we should try to keep it wild and primitive. it really is the property not only of the american people, but all the people in the world. brian: where did you go to see ed abbey's material? tom: his archives at the university of arizona. he taught creative writing there for a while. he lived in tucson off and n. there are files and files and speeches and tapes and all the manuscripts of his in the

university of arizona library. they are accessible to anyone in the public to visit. his book, "the monkeywrench," lso gave a term to literature, monkeywrenching, among other things, means fouling things up in addition to the mechanical tool. it is entertaining, delightful storytelling, but decidedly with a point of view. he was against -- he was for population control and for border security. he would be supporting trufrl's wall today because he didn't want people coming in. very iconoclastic. it is a book that should be read. young people enjoy reading it. it is kind of a cult book, particularly in the west, for young people. he wrote a nonfiction piece of work called "desert solitaire," kind of memoirs of being a

seasonal employee in the national parks in that region from his youth. brian: in your book from time to time, we get a glimpse of what you think. this is a sentence i pulled out. they say, as earlier noted, the believing the founders of our country who wiped out indians, propagated slavery and gave us the electoral college, were the greatest geniuses in the world is flawed logic at best. tom: that is probably influenced from arthur schlesinger. who i quote around that same passage. the major thing i think you realize is ours is an experiment. i differ with people who cheer on american exceptionalism and i would refrain that to say that ours is an american experiment. experiments can fail, as all of us who took science courses in high school know. experiments can fail.

we continually need to reinvent and reinvigorate and renew the american experiment so that it does march on and succeed, like bono was talking about, america is an idea. and it is an idea -- which family you are born into or which zip code you live in hould not predetermine the opportunity to succeed in america, and everyone should have a chance to excel and to learn. there is an american dream. opportunity to succeed in one of the authors in this book is horatio alger. i would not have thought about him, but after a while, as my list got bigger, i thought i have to work on that. brian: tell us about horatio alger. who was he? tom: he grew up in boston and went to harvard. he had some problems in the young ministry where he was active and he was kicked out of boston. he went to new york and had a

second life writing about teenagers who are fatherless, orphans who found success. his formula was, work hard, to be honest, and to strive, but also get adopted by a mentor. in a sense he was saying internships and mentorships are crucial to success. he wrote 100 very readable, short novels. people like ronald reagan and my father and gerald ford, and probably your father, grew up reading these books in the 1920's and earlier. his heyday was from the civil war, he died about 1900. he sold about 15 million copies. he was the harry potter of his generation. most people misconstrue horatio alger to say that anybody can go from rags to rockefeller. that is not what he says. he says if you really work hard and study and become mentored,

you can become a modest success in america. he knows that not everybody will do this and he rails in is books against bullies and schemers and usery. he has a social conscious. is a republican, wiggish background, writing at the height of the guildist age. he is talking about the american idea in a way. i ended up going to the new york public library and spending a week in the basement with the special collections, carting out these boxes of horatio alger novels literally falling apart in my cubbyhole. they are not read today and not much available. ut horatio alger should be read, if one is an educated american. brian: what was "beloved" by toni morrison about?

tom: a woman who escaped from a plantation in kentucky, over the ohio river, and into incinnati. he fugitive slave act was in force, so plantation owners could come after her, and the fugitive slave act allowed local authorities, ordered local authorities to help ecapture slaves. she was so appalled at the slavery existence she and her whole family had had that she starts killing her children in a matricidal way, figuring that would be better than slavery. but the book, it won the nobel prize, and many of her books deserved to be in my collection. i picked out "beloved" because it perhaps is the best-known. it is really a book about what

we need to remember, and her book is urging african-americans and everyone to remember the tragedies and inhumanities of sleighry. brian: here she is in 2001 talking about the story that ed to "beloved." [video clip] toni: the story i had read a newspaper article about, about a woman who said, no, i am not doing that. this child is mine. her life is mine. she is my child. i will say how she lives and dies. nd of course it was a crime, and a sin, but on the other hand, there is this other gesture, it was complicated. [end video clip] tom: that is a beautiful clip, brian. thank you for showing that. it is shocking to read the early passages in her book, but eventually she makes sense of it.

she does not condone the mother killing the child, she tries to explain it in the context of what slavery is all about. and her book is the greatest reputation of the plantation fantasies that margaret mitchell gave us in "gone with the wind," but in it is the misleading story that slaves were happy. sixth ke bay thovene's symphony, it was a pastoral delight. and toni morrison -- hers is one of the great looks in american literature. brian: what are the couple of books that did not make the cut? tom: one novelist i have been reading lately and like is david ignatius. he has written on the cia. his recent book, "the quantum spy." i am a fan of what he does. the thrillers. but he is a serious reporter and he knows washington inside and out.

his books are a nice sequel to "harlem's ghost." that would be one example. i have done some work on colorado writers. there are delightful colorado writers. james "centennial," a sweeping book about the early founding. dalton trumbo. he wrote a book about his hometown, grand junction, colorado. called "eclipse." brian: here is johnny depp in "fear and loathing in las vegas." about 47 seconds. let us watch this. >> that was a fatal flaw, he crashed around america selling consciousness expansion without giving a thought to the grim realities for the people who ook him seriously.

[[indiscernible]but their loss was ours too. -- failures was ours too. when he took down with him was the illusion of a lifestyle he helped create, a generation of permanent cripples, veiled secrets who never understood e essential old mystic fallacy of the acid culture. the desperate assumption that somebody or at least some force is tending a light at the end of the tunnel. brian: why hunter thompson? tom: i met him a few times and we would watch monday night football at the jerome hotel bar in the mid-1970's. he was a character. that movie was a total flop, although johnny depp had a pretty good performance. but the movie had too much

juvenile pranksterism. in las vegas. vegas road trip. but my students put me onto hunter thompson. kept urging me. you have to read it. they read it with me. it took me three times to read that book to find there is -- and my publisher encouraged me to include that book in it because it's a cult favorite. there are political themes in that book. he celebrates freedom and individualism. like rand and abbey and jack kerouac, they were all fierce proponents of freedom and liberation. one of the themes of american politics is rugged individualism and liberation, privacy. hunter thompson has many themes. the subtitle of that book "fear

and loathing las vegas" is "a savage trip into the heart of the american dream." it's a complicated book. it's a prominent example of gonzo journalism or fiction, where he puts himself in the story and makes himself central to what is going on. it is disarming, it is not like a steinbeck book. brian: you mentioned this in your book, who gave him the name gonzo journalism? tom: i think it was an editor at "the boston globe." i don't know which one it was. the last person standing at a drunken beer party was referred to as a gonzo for some reason. i don't know. so this editor described thompson as gonzo journalism, gonzo writing. thompson liked it and appropriated it. there are others who put them heselves in their narratives

earlier. walt whitman and jack kerouac talked about themselves in their travels or their poetry. but i think in our time, in the recent generation or two, hunter thompson becomes known as the godfather of gonzo writing. brian: we started talking about your days as a white house fellow in the johnson white house. and in this book you have a novel by billy lee -- is it bramer or brammer? why did you put that in? "some of the way with lbj." tom: that's my take -- subtitle. it's called "the gay place," and it means the earlier definition of gay, something raucous. i chose it because political journalists view it as a cult classic. a generation of people, their

generation all read the book and loved it because they knew lbj, they covered him. brian: who was billy? tom: he was a writer for the austin texas monthly or something, but was a speechwriter for lbj from 1957 until 1959. he would've been a contemporary of ted sorensen and dick goodwin who was writing speeches for john kennedy, he was writing speeches for l.b.j. and they had a falling out. he went back to texas. he wrote this satirical book about lbj but he made him governor of texas. this book turns out to be a book -- and this is why political reporters admires it bargaining and agreement negotiating. he has lbj as governor of texas. it hur fenstimaker and

delightfully captures texas politics and legislative politics. it's actually three novels in one. one of the things i tried to do in this book was have books that talked about politics elsewhere in the country, not just washington, d.c. i have eight or 10 washington, d.c. -- but i have a book about politics in new hampshire, the progressive movement in new hampshire. i have hamlin garland's book bout politics in iowa. ill billy brammer's book in texas. one wrote a book about governorship in california. and of course "gone with the wind." historically southern. i tried to have books representative of the country. wherever possible. brian: here is another of your quotes about politics. "those who are anti-politics or don't care for politicians are giving up on the grant experiment of the american republic.

politics is the lifeblood of constitutional democracy and it is the price we pay for aspiring to achieve a resilient constitutional democracy." tom: right. i also say i think in that same passage maybe, politics to democracy is similar to the experimental method in physics and imagination to poetry and melody to music. ou have to have democracy. you cannot have a constitutional democracy unless you understand that politics and politicians are crucial and they're imperfect. we're all imperfect. we have imperfect institutions. we have an imperfect constitution, but we have to political make our institutions work and encourage good people into politics. virtually every novelist i dealt with in some way or another is saying don't give up on politics. that is the message that toni morrison and harper lee and

philip roth and john steinbeck are saying. time and again, don't give up on politics. brian: did you ever think of running for politics? tom: i ran for congress in 1982 unsuccessfully. brian: against? tom: the congressman named ken kramer, a republican. the weighingan era. -- the reagan era. my district was very conservative. my friends persuaded me that you live in a two party system, you ought to run. i was a moderate, centrist democrat. more conservative. had i won, it would not be a good example of democracy because i wouldn't have been representative. i learned a lot about myself and my area. i encourage everybody to run for office once in their life, for some office. politics is crucial. brian: what is the thing you learned as a white house fellow working around, you said bill moyers. who else? tom: douglas cater -- brian: who did a lot of domestic stuff. tom: john gardner. brian: what did you learn from

them about the presidency that's never changed? tom: if you get to work close at hand with members of congress or the president, you earn about complexity. that very rarely can you have sweeping change. most changes incremental. most change is getting part of something done, and compromise, which is a dirty word to many people, is critically important. you need to get people together with different points of view and try to work something out. in this country, we are facing the issue of gun registration and background checks and regulation. we believe in a strong second amendment but we also believe in safe schools. people have to come together and work on these things. brian: you have a quote you use in the book by alan drury.

advise and consent. you say -- they are talking about people that come to washington, they stay 50 years, they may love, marry, settle down, build homes, raise families and die beside the potomac, but they usually feel and frequently they will tell you that they are just here for a little while. tom: they are really from indiana or massachusetts. that is true. this has become a very different town in the last 50 years. it was a place where people who are temporary. e novelist ford jess wrote about washington, a book called the echo house." he became one of america's best novelist. ward just. i recommend him. brian: the name of the book is "imagining a great

republic." by thomas cronin, former president of whitman college, professor at colorado college. thank you so much for joining us. tom: it was a delight. thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> for free transcripts or to give us your comments about his program, visit us at q-and-a.org. available as c-span podcasts. >> on capitol hill, the house will be returning at about 2:00 p.m. eastern time, 40 minutes from now. today considering a number of bills dealing with homeland security security, including information -- homeland security, including information sharing and later this week, funding the government through the rest of the year, september 30. cu