bowl of the river of the. hello i'm tom hartman in washington d.c. and tonight we bring you a special edition of the big picture in just a model or revisit two previous conversations with great minds i had recently that are still very relevant to today's debate and still in the minds of many americans one was c.n.n. contributor and author david frum and later a conversation with investigative reporter eichenwald we begin tonight with a conversation i had with conservative thinker and former bush speechwriter david frum promise one of those many conservatives today feel left behind by the

republican party as it moves farther and farther to the right promising to devour social safety nets dividing the country on moral issues and using outrageous rhetoric to describe the president's policies in this conversation we'll hear from from about what he thinks went wrong and where his party is headed also here a bit about his new novel patriots so here it is conversations of great minds with david frum. for advice conversations and great minds i'm joined by david frum david is a political commentator and journalist between two thousand and one two thousand and two he was a speechwriter and special assistant to then president george w. bush over the last few years david has been rather critical of today's republican party as well as the role of conservative media in american politics david is a contributing editor of both newsweek and the daily beast and also a contributor on c.n.n.

he's the author of seven books including his newest his first novel patriots david joins me now in the studio dude welcome thanks it was an appropriate in an issue somebody has been critical of the republican party yes although i remain a conservative and a republican and i would like to see modern. republicanism and my touchstone for that is a formulate that has to be environmentally responsible culturally modern and economically inclusive but every democracy has a party of the right and of the left america needs one too and i'm somebody who believes in market solutions but you're you're using the word conservative in the word republican in ways that i think many people in fact the majority of the probably the entire freshman house right not acknowledge right where they are you're using descriptions that all sound like eisenhower but the look the house this new wave of republicans have been elected in a moment of national crisis they've been elected in the moment of high emotion and

they've been elected in a way that has put them inside i call i called in on alternative knowledge system but they've got a small specialized set of facts and there's an old saying your title to your opinion but not to your own facts will be pushed forward the frontiers of human rights so now people are entitled to their own facts and i think it is embittered the politics of the country it is made solutions in this time of national crisis more difficult it is led to worse results from a conservative point of view from a conservative point of view there was a better health plan that was available to be negotiated in two thousand and ten the president would have paid a lot for republican votes and the topic that i've been trying to work through in my own mind over the past three years is how did this happen what can be done about it and finally i've turned to fiction as a way to understand it or to help other people to understand it to. brilliant and funny new book patriots i want to get into that in a second second part of our conversation that's right with you if we can just hang

on with this for a minute. a conservative what does that word mean to well. in in the car but in. every every country has shorthand is where we mostly democracies we're arguing about the same basic things argue about the role of the public sector versus the private sector we're arguing about the benefits of security versus innovation and so you know the conservatives in britain the senegal us in france the conservatives in canada the liberals in australia republicans in the united states it's the same ecology but what has happened in the united states. especially recently is that there are some special factors in this political system that have pushed that party out of alignment with part with the other other kinds of parties and it has to do i think with. the desperate fiscal situation of the united states where as everybody feels that the future holds only bad news and the where is the

there's an old saying that politics is a story of who gets what when and how well now we are debating who will be disappointed and by how much and i think that there are coalitions forming in the conservative coalition for more rapidly in intensity to make sure we are going to push the burden of adjustment off our people onto other people are people being the richer the older and the whiter and and and that doesn't seem to be working well in the short term it is it is working and that the republicans in two thousand and ten did very well and out on that over. well what is the what is the ryan plan the ryan plan says the burden of adjustment is going to be borne that people over fifty five and people who make more than a certain amount of money will be largely exempted from the burden of adjustment and people under fifty five and people make less money they will bear all of the burden you know that and i know that but i'll bet. ninety percent of fox news years don't know that or patriot news network viewers don't know that that's the end and

filtered of knowledge of them and yeah exactly and probably. sixty seventy percent of americans don't but you know within the republican party when you ask republicans so how do you feel about. you know would would you accept if the choice comes down to new revenues or medicare cuts even and by the way i am in favor of you know of cuts but if you put that to the republican rank and file they say no that radical party not the activist base boy democrats a big bunch of people and they're not going to be that different from the rest of america they are going to share with overwhelming consensus on things they're going to share views and a lot of the story of what is happening to american politics is a relatively small activist groups can capture parties and move them in very extreme directions but that that classical conservative or that classical republican large or republican. is probably well reflected by the policies and presidencies of eisenhower nixon you know before nixon went crazy.

the republican of my dad my dad was eisenhower republican and were and was very active in the party and and in fact i went door to door for barry goldwater nine hundred sixty four i was thirteen years whole three years later i was getting arrested these lancing and you know anti-war riots but. that party you know a. famous letter dwight eisenhower was famous letters brother edgar nine hundred fifty four you know there's the small number of oil millionaires who think that they can do away with social security and labor protections their numbers fall in their stupid you know that party is it seems gone either have you have richard lugar in indiana he's going to get wiped out this week that but that party one of the things that i say i see with great voting is that you know that party is there is just the leadership of the party has become much more radical than the rank and file and they are taking risks and one of the big differences between liberals and conservatives and about. if you believe people

self description of people don't always most people don't follow politics very closely and they don't always describe themselves very accurately but still but if if twenty percent of americans call themselves liberal and about thirty eight and now close to forty percent of americans call themselves conservatives now when you're twenty percent of the population you know you're in the minority it is just so overwhelmingly true so you know you have to do coalition politics and so liberals are always ready to make deals with centrist democrats was otherwise they'll just lose when you're forty percent you have this idea one big push that's all it was so close to being the majority in the country why compromise and at and in recent years as the fiscal situations got more desperate and the economic situation as and as conservatives have had the nine benefit of the imagined benefit of these new information systems they give them so you know their own particular set of facts that the temptation to make take big risks go for big results and

become stronger and stronger mitt romney is the latest victim of it i mean what there's a tragedy unfolding there of a very intelligent man who's being pushed into positions that he knows are not politically good for him and that he struggles to avoid he struggled to avoid endorsing a second tax cut he struggled to avoid endorsing the ryan plan and he was pushed and pushed and pushed this latest incident with his foreign policy spokesman is is an example of this romney didn't want to see that person go but he couldn't quite mobilize them to keep them either but as his father george was kind of an eisenhower. as well his father george and his father george was a opponent of barry goldwater who in one thousand six hundred you supported you know who and what i remember george i grew up in michigan he was my governor in one thousand sixty four that george romney said i accept the goldwater nomination but i do not endorse him and he refused to campaign for him and that by the way is an important reason why he was in the nominee in one thousand nine hundred sixty eight

and young mitt who is his father's. was father's closest political allies a brilliant man their very youngest son their very very close learned his father was too blunt too confrontational and his father alternately lost the big prize too to what extent has has money corrupted the republican party and the conservative movement it seems that the values this whole the traditional value systems even have been set aside in the pursuit but it is not is this is a place where you cannot distinguish the parties that the wash of money through washington has transformed everybody and everything to avert to the book that one of the villains of the book is a lot of democrat super lobbyist who begins his life as an anti-apartheid campaigner and he now has a big farm on the eastern shore which he calls it which he calls mandela farm and on or to his old a deeper and and he then when people chat he works for to help offshore jobs to india and when people say to him how can you do this and you're

a big liberal and says well i learned from the apartheid struggle that justice is global. and that but it pays but the but the the money seems to have i mean right now conservative pacs republican pacs are out fundraising democratic pacs it's one eight to one super bowl the last two cycles democrats the better two thousand and eight two thousand and four i was all pretty citizens united that's precisions united but they'll beat new frontiers in technology it also has to do with where is the energy. you know on the campaign finance is only a small part of the of the problem of the flow of money through this city that the question though is is is the republican party even still a legitimate republican party or a legitimate political party or has it just become a shill for large transnational corporations and a small band of very loud cranky billionaires. it also represents and should represent again the aspirations and hopes of lots of middle class people i mean i

speak to republican clubs all the time i will speak without freedom clubs all across the country thanks to all these guys and what you know it's a party of people who own things but often not very big things the party of people who are married and have children. it's the party of sort of the leaders of small scale communities and those people right now are they're not at their best because we're living through an economic depression and as we saw in the 1930's as we saw in the eighty nine s. very hard times bring out the worst in people making fearful to make them angry they make them believe that this catastrophe must have been planned by somebody because nothing so terrible as this could be the result of simple mistake or the workings of economic forces there and you see that so much in and you would have seen by the way had it happened that or that republican one two thousand and eight you would see a lot of these emotions on the democratic side the democrats are calmer because

they are defending an incumbent president who is struggling to cope with these problems not all together successfully very very interesting we'll be back more conversations of great minds with david frum right after this break. wealthy british. market. find out what's really happening to the global economy mike stronger the no holds barred look at the global financial headlines. on our.

want. to a realist. arab .

world. welcome back to conversations with great minds with david frum former speechwriter special assistant to then president george w. bush an author of seven books including his newest and first novel patriots let's go back to it david in your book you've got this cast of characters the is startlingly familiar you've got a television network patriot news network with a bunch of foxy babes who are. presenting the news and doing the alternate universe that we were just talking about. a presidential candidate who goes rogue but in a good way. and any war in mexico i don't want to give away too much of the book but. a lot of these pieces fit together and what i want to do i want to do was

to show people some of the reality of our politics without getting them distracted by their feelings about current issues so i took a lot of the things that people feel most intensely about i just i created this alternate world we took them out of the way so yeah this is a long running war but it's not the war you know and there's this terrible unending depression but we're very hazy about exactly what year it is i mean it and we're very hazy about some of the recent past we don't refer to people like ronald reagan or richard nixon we know the civil war occurred we know world war two occurred but beyond that it's very it's very hazy was i want to take you to the mechanism of politics what has happened here is. that with a more conservative party which are two different name the constitution was. in desperation because they had not they knew they could not win the election anyway turn to war hero whom they can out on to be party in their hands and this man is quite a cunning figure has allowed them to think this is sort of played dumb and he's in

a wheelchair he's got terrible burns all over his body and they make him there and they are persuaded by the master. to the party and make them their nominee he becomes president and he chose that he has ideas of his own and then a mutiny begins to take form against him within his own party the action here is all within that one part of the heroes and villains are within that one part of this this mutiny takes form against him and my narrator who is a pretty aimless young man and record here muster he represents a lot of what is wrong with the american upper class he's self-indulgent cares only thinks only what at the beginning very preoccupied of the sex life in his food life and he's got some sadness in his past that he thinks gives him an excuse that he can't see what a crazily privileged person he is and he doesn't believe he has responsibilities and he is then sent to washington he's failed at everything else and he then rises because of a series of accidents and because of course of the instinct of people in the city

to kiss up to money you know if i may interrupt. that description you just gave is the description that i would use to characterize george w. bush used to work for. i'm guessing that you wouldn't think of it that way or well bush had bush had this i think you could describe bush that way for the first forty years of his life and then he had this crisis with alcohol and religion that made him a much i suddenly a very self propelled person to get to be president is a very difficult thing you know sort of bun bumble into it and whatever his faults as president and this was a man of him bush and focus and self-discipline and the way he overcame the alcohol is testament to that and maybe my character here we leave him when we say goodbye to him he still only twenty eight years old and maybe we see him beginning to grow into himself what we have what he has done as he has had to confront as we all the

dysfunction of this political system and he's also had to confront the way the kind of people who buy books. i mean i mean if this is a minority you know watching the show we do this book. that qualifies you somebody with you know probably more financial resources the most little more scope to think about things a lot more certainly more feeling than most people have that your voice deserves to be heard and one of the things i've taken from this financial crisis really had to think a lot about how most people don't think they've got a right to be heard they feel that it's correct that they are acted upon that it's correct that things happen to them but there are small number of people who think it's not correct i i have a voice i showed up on and if i don't it's a side is gonna miss and walter begins to wake up to some of those that are protagonist yes right to practice and through a series of pretty ludicrous adventures in the book is a comedy and a lot of things that happened are i want people to laugh because this situation is

grim and if you know if it isn't funny you're not going to alter the one of the my sense of of what you were calling for in the book if if if if it wouldn't be a stretch to suggest and you don't even need to acknowledge this but it's certainly seemed to suggest that the book is you know met at a railway life the other major news there. is a call for a more rational republican party or you know the one of the. inspirational figures in the book is a senator the last of the moderate senators represent a republican constitutionals from rhode island and he became more and he mentors walter and the you see also the system you know you can't be too much better than the system we see him talking the envelopes of the campaign contributions into his chest pocket he raises this huge this huge fund that he holds his seat largely because the governor of the state is an egomaniac who so hates everybody in his own

party that he would rather see this guy keep the seat then ever support any of the national sorts of the party that the. it's who might challenge him and. that a lot of these see a little how much of a life washington is driven by petty ego and one of the sea flattery and how that stunned you see and you see the all pervasive effect of money and self-indulgence hard to get dressed for dinner reservation in washington on thursday night it actually is i mean this is i've i've lived here only two years and one of the things that amazed me about washington is what a bubble it is how much wealth is in the city it's. a lobbyist started a couple hundred thousand dollars a year it's and there's thousands of them one point walter there's a radio is a real voice of the people that's always excoriated the elites and they arrange that water second water that goes to work for a taxpayer funded group i mean because he's inadvertently become this hero of the of the hard right and he goes to work for this taxpayer group and one of his

responsibilities is to book a private plane for this broadcaster and he books a plane the broadcaster doesn't think is appropriate to the broadcaster station and he throws a fit in the private aviation terminal at dulles airport. and that's a real place and you can go there and you see it i mean it was going to instructive things as an instructive thing to spend an afternoon of the private aviation terminal at dulles airport yeah well i've actually seen a t.v. host do that about a hotel room yes that's that's that's. that's usual actually so . from from the mehta to the to the real i mean to what actually what was the republican party like before fox news yes and before rush limbaugh you know preeti seven. what a certain ninety five years it was. in the republic ripple before the advent of fox news republicans had to speak the same language as everybody else. you know when we

had a common media culture with all of his biases and prejudices. and republicans had complaints about how they were treated and the unfairness of media culture and there is a lot there it's true but you forced everybody to speak with certain common frames of reference and if you see if you said that the incentives for being a wild person you i mean there were there were even in the fifty's and sixty's there are livings to be made on the political margin in their book and there's a book called none dare toiletries and you'll remember these are some are from. everywhere so i guess they would sell millions of copies but if you watch c.b.s. the c.b.s. evening news you would never know that it existed when i was there was the john birch society and that's in fact that's where i got a copy of the set of j. yes but there. phyllis schlafly book these things would be out there they would circulate but there was there was a kind of formal culture and people spoke in

a certain way and they participate in a certain way and certain subjects were discussed and republicans had to learn to play in that way so you could not say you could not play in politics. any effort to move money that people were employed was socialist because then the people the c.b.s. evening news would treat you like a wild man and you'd be in trouble and so you never dirksen and called jack kennedy a socialist he would not have been invited back on face the nation and even even have an end of the political system. the political the political system of the time because the media system reinforce a political system that forced cooperation and one of the things that has really changed is that our. you know people always say it's worse than it used to be and if you say it long enough people think what can it can't always be true that it was worse than it used to be but if you're in a long slow decline you can be and you the political system the united states that

is functioning worse and worse and you say i want to favorite quotes about politics a lot of tip o'neill's he was interviewed when he left office and he served since the early fifty's more than thirty years and he was asked how the congress changed in his time and he said the people are better the results are worse are we in a long slow decline right now little institutions of the country are in a long slow so what i mean we've we've seen these cycles we saw the the eruption of the new deal we saw the eruption of reconstruction after the civil war we saw you know the change of the revolutionary war seems like every eighty years there's a major crisis and change but you know. what will bring about the next change what's going to reform this is the same it's coming to the same thing that always reforms in the eight hundred fifty s. in the one nine hundred tens in more modern times it is the coming together of popular protest with a responsible elite that comes up with reforms both to satisfy the popular movement

but also because it doesn't want the popular movement to get out of control but isn't there a third piece which is a certain threshold of pain that has to be hit and could it be that we're not there yet i'm pretty damn painful. if you get if this is like i was in the thirty's well yeah well no i mean i'm saying you look at those look at those you know the crash of seventeen seventeen sixty eight the crash of eight hundred fifty seven the crash of one nine hundred twenty nine you know they they all brought about massive change we had this crash in two thousand and eight that easily could have been nine hundred twenty nine. what what what has happened when we've had positive change in this in this is that in this is really the great thing of the book that what we see is what we see in the book a popular protest movement that is directionless destructive and manipulated by powerful forces and we see the utter absence of the responsible elite to say. the job of political elites is to compete offer solutions to public problems and work or they go wrong and they compete to exploit them and with worthless will that at

the end of the book he has this instinct that if these if this movement if politics is to go anywhere he has to become a different kind of a weak person than he has been through his whole life and that anybody around him is he has said that as he says at the end that he has to decide when to try to make things just a little bit better over the course of my political career that sparkles well let's let's hope that we can all make it better david frum maker it speaking thank you for joining us to see this or other conversation of great minds go to our website conversations with great minds dot com. even in the autumn of the years. it's never too late to start.

treaty. or become a poet. older men for. me to leave. the. police.