>> funding for overheard with evan smith is provided in part by hillco partners, texas government affairs consultancy and its global health care consulting business unit, hillco health. and by the mattson mchail foundation in support of public television. and also by mfi foundation, improving the quality of life within our community. and also by the alice clayburg reynolds foundation and viewers like you. thank you. >> i'm evan smith, he's one of the biggest brand journalists of his generation and mine, now covering politics and other serious matters for over 40 years. a veteran of rollinn stone, newsweek, new york and the new yorker and currently a columnist for time magazine. he's also the author of several non-fiction books and several nooels, including famously and anonymously,

primary colors. he's joe klein. this is oveeheard. >> smith: joe klein, welcome. >> klein: good to be here,ú evan. >> smith: so nice to have you here. let me, let me start with an easy one. >> klein: mm-hmm. >> smith: okay. one-term president? >> klein: who knows? i don't know. >> smith: right? >> klein: i mean, this is my tenth one of these things. >> smith: yeah.3 >> klein: they don't have 12 step programs for political junkies. >> smith: maybe they should. they probably should. >> klein: but, you know, the one thing i've learned over time. >> smith: yeah. >> klein: .is that it is impossible to call these things in advance. we just don't know which way it's going to go.

>> smith: and here we are more than a year out. >> klein: yeah. >> smith: .and again we don't know the outcome of the republican primary's going to be. and we don't know what the economy's going to look like next year. >> klein: we know, we know it's not going to be fabulous. >> smith: right. we know the preeident will have things he'll have to explain. >> klein: right. >> smith: .or to win despite as opposed to because. >> klein: but the most important variable we don't know about now. >> smith: yeah. >> klein: .we don't know who, who the republiian nominee's gonna to be. >> smith: right. why is that so important? >> klein: well, because you can't beat someone with no one. >> smith: right. >> klein: i mean you have, there -- ultimately it becomes two people, so far in american history it's been two guys.ú >> smith: yeah. >> klein: .standing on the stage and it's them, their guts, their minds, their mouths and the american people. >> smith: right. >> klein: and that's when these things are decided. >> smith: what is your assessment of obama having watched him for these couple years in office? >> klein: i think that he is an extraordinarily responsible guy. he, he absolutely does what he believes. i think he's kind of deficient as a politician. >> smith: deficient as a politician. >> klein: yeah. >> smith: yeah.

>> klein: you know, i've known six of them now, presidents. >> smith: right. >> klein: and both he and bill clinton were willing to think in my presence. you know, i don't ask the usual, what do you think you're going to win next year kind of questions. >> smith: right. >> klein: i ask them, you know, how do we start getting more kids involved in making things rather than making deals on wall street, you know? and we have conversations and both he and clinton have been ones who've been willing to think in my presence. and they are two very smart dudes. difference is that clinton was always the politician. he always wanted to know what i thought of what he thought. >> smith: yeah. >> klein: obama doesn't care. he just, he wants to know what else i know. >> smith: yeah. >> klein: and his political sense is that he's gonna be who he is and the folks will take it or leave it. >> smith: yeah, under other circumstances that might be an admirable quality. maybe it's an admirable quality now. >> klein: yeah, i find

myself, i find myself eally torn... >> smith: yeah. >> klein: .as a journalist because there haae been times when i've been tempted to criticize him for qualities ttaa i find admirable. i mean, the guy as now given us three major tax cuts and not announced them. people don't know them, know that they're getting, gotten this money from the government. he's the only polit.i once said to him you're the only politician i've ever met who gives people money and doesn't tell them about it. >> smith: doesn't brag about it. jonathan alter was here lass year and he said he thought that at least one problem so far with obama has been a failure of communication by the greatest communicator we thought of our age. the guy who could convince anybody to do anything with his, with his oratory. >> klein: right. >> smith: he's been particularly bad as a communicator in office. >> klein: well, i think that, that's true. there are also some really serious strategic mistakes he made. you know, lookinggback on it now it seems, in hindsight i'm a genius. >> smmth: right. we all are, right? yeah. >> klein: prospectively i'm not so good. >> klein: but when you look back on it, we were, he took

over during, you know, a severe historic economic crisis. and he should have focused on that. 10 days before the election, i interviewed him. and he, he said the future has to be a green economy, green jobs. that's the only way we're going to get this economy moving again. >> smith: yeah. >> klein: so what does he do when he goes into office? healthcare. you know, i think that if he had spent his political capital on, you know, slapping a significant carbon tax, getting it through a democratic congress rather than fighting for a year and a half on healthcare. >> smith: yeah. >> klein: and then moved, used those proceeds to start hiring a lot of people and goosing a lot of alternative energy, we might be in a slightly better place now. >> smith: yeah, the republicans share your view that the mistake was not focusing on the economy at first. >> klein: that's right. >> smith: do you think he appreciates that he should have done that now? >> klein: i don't know. >> smith: yeah. >> klein: i don't know. i'm sure that, i'm sure he thinks about these things. >> smith: right. to, to what degree was he

the victim of circumstance? you know, mitt romney said the other night about rick perry, you know, it must be aces. to some degree wasn't president obama dealt an unsuited two, three, four, five, seven? >> klein: right. >> smith: the worst possible poker hand. because you can imagine what he came into office. >> klein: well, not only here but over, but also overseas. >> smith: overseas, yeah. >> klein: you know, he, he had to clean up one of the stupidest mistakes an american president ever made, which was the war in iraq. >> smith: right. >> klein: and he had to figure out what to do in, in afghanistan. and you know, those weren't easy things. >> smith: but the people who say now after three years, it's obama's economy, just as these are obama's wars. you, you buy that? >> klein: no. >> smith: you don't. >> klein: no. i think that -- and it's certainly not obama's deficit. you know, partially it is. but we had a president for the previous eight years, i, i think he came from here? >> smith: we, we've, we knew him a little. >> klein: yeah. >> smith: yeah. >> klein: but, you know, when he came into office we had a balanced budget. in fact, we had a surplus. and he went and spent the money on two wars, on, on

two humongous tax cuts, especially for the wealthy and, and on a, a medicare prescription drug benefit that, you know, that didn't have any reciprocal. >> smith: wasn't paid for. >> klein: yeah. >> smith: right. >> klein: so, you know, obama walked into a giant hole. and you know, we can, we can criticize him for things he did along the way or didn't do along the way. i, i certainly have. >> smith: yeah. >> klein: but this was a real hole he was walking &->> smith: before we get to -he republicans running now, i want to ask you for a moment about them. we have actually empirical evidence. we know eight years of clinton, eight years of bush under. >> klein: mm-hmm. >> smith: .bill clinton the tax rate was 39% for the wealthiest americans. it was 35% under bush. we had a surplus and a robust economy under clinton and we had the economy you described under bush and yet the people who are fighting with the president and fighting with everybody over the economy seem to think that the clinton era tax rates are still too high and that we should in fact lower them from where they are right now. >> klein: yeah we all remember the clinton

depression, right? &-[ laughter ]t. >> klein: but, yeah, it's one of the most mystifying things to me, and they, they mythologize reagan and yet reagan raised taxes three times in big ways and he raised taxes on business. the 1982 tax cut, hich was called tefra, you know, was mostly a tax on businesses. >> smith: right. >> klein: and yet all of his accolades now, someone like grover norquist who has come up with this no tax pledge. >> smith: right. >> klein: .which he says was a marketing gimmick, a marketing gimmick. but all these people are signing this no tax pledge or pledge to ronald reagan who raised taxes, raised social security taxes. >> smith: right. well, in fact john huntsman would seem conservative next to ronald reagan. ú& klein: absolutely. >> smith: ..if ronald reagan were with us today. >> klein: absolutely. and, and, and barack obama would seem a mild liberal. >> smith: right. well, let, let's -- the reagan reference is a good segue into the republicans because in fact we're looking t a republican field now that is attempting to get to the right of one

another it seems. >> klein: right. >> smith: even mitt romney who we didn't.necessarily think had. a righh to get to >> klein: right. >> smith: has suddenly reinvented himself yet again as someone who sounds very much like a conservative and is attempting to. >> klein: ah, but i think you're one reinvention behind. >> smith: am i? >> klein: i've detected in the last couple of debates. >> smith: yeah. >> klein: .republican debates, which i think have been fabulous. >> smith: they really have been great debates. >> klein: .by the way. they've been great debates. i have detectedda new, new, newer mitt romney. >> smith: okay. [audience laughter] >> klein: .which, and he is, and he's now moving to be the moderate alternative to rick perry. >> smith: riiht. but a moderate can't get elected one imagines in this republican party, true? >> klein: well, we don't party is yet. you know for my entire life, you know, the republicans were the party of the primogeniture. you, you know, a primogeniture, you nominate the oldest son. >> smith: right. it was your turn. >> klein: yeah. >> smith: right. >> klein: and, you know, it was john mccain's turn last time even though most republicans didn't like him. >> smith: right. >> klein: if it was the same old republican party, many republicans do not like mitt romney. >> smith: right.

>> klein: but he would get the nomination. >> smith: right. >> klein: but there's something new under the sun, which is called the tea party and we just don't know what this republican party is yet. >> smith: well, we know the tea party has said in many quarters becauss of course it's not one party, it's not monolithic, ii's a bunch of small groups under the umbrella of the movement, many of those groups have said we will not support mitt romney under any circumstances. so doesn't that present a problem for romney as he attempts to win an election not just in new hampshire but in alabama? >> klein: well, but that's only a partial statement. we will not support mitt romney under any circumstances unless he's the republican nominee and the only, our only choice to barack obama. >> smith: right. >> klein: .then we're going to reconsider, you know. >> smith: it's one of those double clothespins. >> klein: right. >> smith: .in case one falls off. >> klein: right. yeah. what's your read on rick perry a couple weeks in? >> klein: well, you know, i think that, you know, i just wrote it this week so i must believe it. >> smith: yeah. [ laughter ] >> klein: .that my fellow pundits gave him bad grades for the tea party debate. >> smith: right. >> klein: and, you know, the

other candidates did trump all over him a bit. but the sense i'm getting in the country is that on both sides of the aisle, things are bad enough now that the folks want to have a conversation about first things, about the most basic things, most basic assumptions of american governance. and he's a guy who's actually raising these things. >> smith: mm-hmm. >> klein: you know, there is a conversation to be had about why do, why ddes government provide old age insurance?3 i could make a really good argument for it but people want to hear that argument this time.. >> smith: right. >> klein: .as opposed to aay other time. you know, we have now had 70, 80 years of a rooseveltian welfare state. and not all of it has worked perfectly. and we really need to rethink how we do it and whether there are better ways to do it. >> smith: yeah, but of course, the challenge for perry is to articulate the need for that conversation in a way that doesn't put

off people or give thee reason to think, wait, we've seen this movie before. >> klein: yeah. >> smiih: ponzi, ponzi scheme entering the lexicon. >> klein: right. >> smith: .may not be perry's desired contribution to this conversation. >> klein: no articulation, always a problem. the big problem i've seen with, ith -- with perry is that he will articulate and then step two is someone will challenge him. >> smith: yeah. >> klein: .as michele bachmann did onnthe inoculations here. step three is perry will look like a deer caught in theeheaddights. i mean, you've got to have the second act... >> smith: yeah. >> klein: .and the third act and the fourth act to really succeed. it is way too early to tell. >> smith: yeah. >> klein: four years ago, right now, john mccain was dead. >> smith: he was. >> klein: there was no chance he was, he would get the nomination. >> smith: look what happened. >> klein: eight years ago, right now, john kerry was dead. howard dean was running away with it. >> smith: right. >> klein: i've learned to be humble. >> smith: do you, do you buy the idea that perry is not smart? mike murphy, the republican strategist, in what i thought was one of the funniest

lines in the campaign, mean, tweeted during the debate that watching perry make his way through a complicated sentencc about policy was like watching a chimp wrestle with a looked suitcase. [audience laughter] >> you know, the -- >> klein: i love mike murphy. >> smith: yeah. >> klein: he is one of my favorite republicans. >> smith: it's, well, butú it, but, but the problem i have with it is it sounds like what they said about bush and it had no more of an effect on, on undercutting bush's strength... >> klein: here's, here's a kind of dirty little secret, evan. >> smith: yeah. >> klein: being smart is a leading indicator of failure in tte presidency. >> smith: ahh. >> klein: .at least since, i mean woodrow wilson was, was brilliant. >> smith: right. >> klein: .and his presidency fell apart. herbert hoover was even smarter than -- than wilson. jimmy carter was smart. richard nixon was, was brilliant. it was my biggest worry about obama going in was that he. >> smith: too smart.ú >> klein: .yeah. on the other hand, franklin roosevelt, you know, was the famous oliver wendell holmes line about having, you know, having a second rate intellect but a first rate temperament. and you know, eisenhower was thought not to e all that

smart. reagan was thought not to be all that smart. these were -- you know, bill clinton's the exception to every rule. rule, right? >> klein: [chuckles] bill clinton breaks every last rule about what you can do as president, what you can get away with as president, you know. [ laughter ] >> smith: right. >> klein: the best politician i ever coveeed. >> smith: i get that. you mentioned iraq. i want to transition away from the campaign to what i thought was an extraordinnrily moving story that you wrote for time magazine recently and i gather it's a story line that you're going to potentially continue to. >> smith: .explore. and that is the notion of the next greatest generation. it's these young men and women who went over to iraq or afgganistan over the last 10 years and have come back home and the polarization of the war notwithstanding have really sacrificed an enormous amount on behalf of country. and are really coming back to do amazing, amazing things. >> klein: well, you know, for me this story starts 10 years ago, 9/11. >> smith: yeah. >> klein: at that poont i had retired from the new yorker. i figured i was just going to stay home and write books. but then 9/11 happened, i had to get back in. >> smith: yeah. >> klein: and i realized i

had a new mission. i wanttto learn islam. i had to double down on the to learn the u.s. military. and along the way i, i acquired a really great mentor in ddvid petraeus, who had me come out to fort leavenworth when he was writing the counterinsurgency doctrine. >> smith: yeah. >> klein: and he introduced extraordinary groups of people i've ever met. these are all really, really top notch intellects who are also warriors. >> smith: yep. >> klein: and so i realized &-action.go see 'em in and starting in 2007 i began embedding with the american troops. and what i saw was that counterinsurgency warfare demanned a different skill set than soldiering in the past. i mean, you know, in the past you think of soldiers as people who say yes, sir, no, sir, i'll take that hill, sir. here, any given captain had to be the mayor of any given town in iraq and afghanistan. not only protecting the people, but also providing services.

eech of the captains had money. >> smith: yeah. >> klein: and they would go oot into the public and they'd ask 'em do you want to have an irrigation canal cleaned out r do you want to reopen the school or do you want to have a road paved? and as i watched them doing this, under extreme duress, i realized that these were home, might be very, might they might be able to utilize very much to all oo our benefit. >> smith: yep. >> klein: and. >> smith: community building. >> klein: yeah, yeah. >> smith: yeah. >> klein: and so i've been looking into it and as i've traveled around the country i have found some extraordinary people, not just officers, not just captains. i mean, when you get a little bit north of captain you, you got desk jockeys. >> smith: yeah. >> klein: generals, i don't think so. the captains are the ones the sergeants. >> smith: right. >> klein: and they, they are doing extraordinary things not just for each other. >> klein: .in terms of helping themselves through a very, very serious case of ptsd.

>> smith: yeah. >> klein: but also they're beginning to do things for the rest of us as weel. >> smith: right. do you think that the country is showing, i think this is a loaded question, i acknowledge it, showing sufficient respect for the soldier, soldiers who are coming home from these wars? given, given the fact that the country seems so down on these wars and in some respects have even forgotten, especially in the case of iraq. >> klein: right. >> smith: .that we're even at war. >> klein: right. >> smith: is the public responding to these people coming home? >> klein: no, we're almost out of iraq. it's only a few more months and we'll. >> smith: yeah. >> klein: .but, but, but they're showing sufficient respect but not sufficient understanding. i mean they really, most people really don't know what these kids have done. >> smmth: mm-hmm. >> klein: .at remarkably. >> smith: have been through. have been through. >> klein: right, have bben through but also have done at remarkably young ages. >> smith: yeah. >> klein: i mean the st.the stories you hear are the occasional atrocity, which happens in every war and there's some, been some terrible ones. >> klein: what you don't see. >> smith: yeah. >> klein: .the stories you don't see are stories that kid gets, gets shot or is aa

victim of a mine and, and an american soldier gathers up the kid, getsshim to a medic, medevac. >> smith: right. >> klein: gets him to, to a hospital and gets him saved. -ou know, which is something that the taliban haven't been doing. >> smith: are, are we in the media complicit in not report.i mean what i think is that lynndie england is a no brainer. we'll write about abu ghraib. we won't write about these day to day acts of bravery that occur by these folks that you're referring to. and maybe we're the problem in that we're not telling the rounded story of the war. >> klein: well, we're always the problem. >> smith: we are. >> klein: .because, i mean, because you know if it bleeds, it leads. you know, you know. >> smith: right. >> klein: .the old, the, he old saying. and as or lynndie england, you know the fact that it was.the, the attention was successfully focused on her ú&ther than on dick cheney, who made all of this possible. made all of this torture. >> smith: right. >> klein: .possible through his really, really distorted ú&ew of what it is to be an american vice president.

>> smith: right. >> klein: you know, i think that that, that was a mistake we certainly made. >> smith: hey, don't, don't talk about bestselling author dick cheney that way. i mean the reality, this is interesting that you bring this up because what's come up now is that he's been on his book tour, there's been criticism of the press for essentially allowing him to do, you know, this very easy nostalgia moment for him and, you know, talk about the high points. but he hasn't been held too3 account for any of the stuff you talked about. >> klein: that's true, but, you know, then again you're talking to the person who proposed the bush memorial on the -- you know, on the mall in wassington, should be a statueeof the -- the tortured prisoner in abu, abu ghraib. >> smith: yeah, yyah you don't have your -- your point of view on this is not obscured. >> klein: no, it's not. >> smith: yeah. >> klein: i mean, you know, i knew george w. bush before he was president. i think he's a decent individual. i think he subletted his presidency to a madman. >> smith: and you don't, you don't say the same about dick cheney. >> klein: i think he's, i-i think he's dr. strangelove. >> smith: yeah. let, let me stay on the

media for a second because you're one of the only people i can sit across from who has seen the evolution of the profession and, continues to very proudly call yourself a journalist. as i said not, you haven't thrown it into neutral. you're continuing to work enormously hard although you could decide to slow down. and you really have seen. >> klein: not this month. >> smith: not this month. but you have seen the change. >> klein: mm-hmm. >> smith: and you seem to have embraced it actually. you know, you were, i recall, in your early days at time magazine, when time magazine's web operation was beginning to get going in a serious way, you were a blogger. you were on there all the time. you seem to, to take ownership of your work in the way journalists today do routinely. can you talk about how this evolution has affected you? >> klein: well, i mean, the technology, the technological evolution has all kind of still working through. >> smith: yeah. >> klein: i mean i try and do whatever, whatever comes down the pike although i drew the line at tweeting because i figure that it's, it's pretty hard to make yourself clear in 800 words in a column. to do a 140-word

tweet, my god. >> smith: characters, right. but dick, dick cheney is a madman would probably be a sufficient tweet. [ laughter ] >> klein: but for me theú most. >> smith: yeah. >> klein: .the most important transition. >> smith: yeah. >> klein: .in our, in our business over the 42 years that i've been praaticing it has been a devolution from skeppicism, which should be ouu natural state, to cynicism. you know, it has become all politicians aren't crooks, by the way. >> smith: right. >> klein: there are some real heroes. daniel patrick moynihan who was my mentor when it came to, to domestic policy tte way petraeus has been on military policy. >> smith: yeah. >> klein: .he was a hero. a lot of these people are trying to do the right thing. and yet we've reached a where the toughest story to write is a positive story about a politician. >> smith: right. >> klein: and i think that that has severely, severely damaged the public square. there's a whole generation of young americans who believe that, you know, political discourse, you know, consists of pat buchanan and eleanor cliff screaming at each other.

>> smith: or more recently who think that sean hannity and rachel maddow are journallsts. >> klein: right. >> smith: right? >> klein: exactly. >> smith: you don't make that mistake. >> klein: no. >> smith: yeah. >> klein: no. they -- and by the way neither of them will ever have me on. >> smith::they'll never have you on because yyu won't go you? asked, they've never asked me. >> smith: they know not to bring you on because you'll. >> klein: i mean youuknow the thing is my problem is that i don't just give opinions. i've been out there and i've seen things and my opinions tend not to be in an orderly straaiht line. >> smith: yeah. >> klein: .youuknow, on the left or the right. when i write my memoir someday it's going to be called flaming moderate. >> smith: yeah. [audieece laughter] but, you know, you, you, you say that the problem with the media today is cynicism but the criticism of the media is often the opposite, which is that we're not cynics, we're stenographers. >> klein: mm-hmm. >> smith: basically what we do. >> klein: sometimes we are. >> smith: .we just take down what the official line is and we don't bother to it gets to this point of not being sufficiently skeptical. but it's not that we're too negative. it's the reverse, that we're too positive. >> klein: well, i think that that's less of a problem in the end for our society hen the, then the cynicism. >> smith: why? >> klein: why? because this is a pretty

great country. there's more good here than there is bad. >> smith: yeah. >> klein: and we're at a really difficult moment right now. >> smith: mm-hmm. >> klein: i mean a really difficult moment. and i have an aphorism. ú&nicism is what passes for insight among the mediocre. and i think it'' just too easy. >> smith: yeah. >> klein: i think we got a lot of hard ttinking to do and a lot of big decisions to make. and to just dismiss politicians, even rick perry outta hand, is just too cheap. >> smith: and ultimately. >> klein: we need o, we need to be a lot better than that. >> smith: ultimately it doesn't do anything to advance the cause of. >> klein: no. >> smith: .whatever it is we stand for at any given moment, right? we're just choosing to opt out as opposed to opt in. >> klein: right. >> smith: yeah, and we're not.the other part if i'm hearing you right is we're not encouraging younger generations to, to, to take part in the process, whether it's voting or running for office or serving in some capacity. >> klein: we're discouraging them. >> smith: right. >> klein: we're making them think that it's jjst a, you upshot of this going to be?..3 what, how do we break that, break that chain?

>> smith: yeah. >> klein: i wish i knew but i think that, you know, just gets, from my point of view, it's just, it's just, the, you know, the poisonous nature of public discoursee3 has just gotten worse and worse and worse. i thought nothing could be worse than, than -- than the '90s and, and the assault on clinton. >> smith: seems quaint by comparison, doesn't it? >> klein: .and you know and, and there was a lot of tough stuff said about bush. i said some of it and wrote some of it. >> smith: you wish you could have it back? >> klein: some of it, yeah. but, you know i, i really believe that he, he, he did a terrible thing by leading us to war in iraq. you know, there are a lot of lives on his conscience i, i would think. >> smith: and the fact is that the economy, the economic impact of those wars, we're feeling the consequences of non, in a non physical sense of it. >> klein: you know, war is something that's real. and, and one of the things that has happened in our society, you know, is that we've lost track of reality because we just watch things

on tv. when those towers came down 10 years ago how many people around the country were watching it the same way they'd watch a disaster movie? >> smith: did, didn't feel the, the real world. >> klein: yeah, it's hard, you kkow, how can you be a president of the united states and go to war in iraq without knowing the difference between a sunni and a shiite? only if you've grown up in the baby boom generation, my, our lovely blessed, piggish, selfish narcissistic generation. how could you go to war without knowing the difference between a sunni and a shiite? >> smith: yeah. well, it's -- it's a terrible downcast note to have to end on, but i'm afraid. >> klein: we're ended already, my god. >> smith: we have to end i know. we just got started. well, well -- >> klein: we haven't even mentioned my road trip. [audience laughter] >> smith: well, come back. we'll talk about the road trip, too. joe klein, it's an honor to meet you and an honor to have you here. >> klein: it's been great. thanks a lot. >> smith: thank you very much, joe klein. [ applause ]

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