it. would be a humiliating. 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 michael we begin tonight with a conversation i had with conservative thinker and former bush speechwriter david frum promise one of those many conservatives today who 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. or vice conversations with great minds i'm joined by david frum david is a political commentator and journalist who in two thousand and 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 introduce you

somebody has been critical of the republican party yes although i remain a conservative and a republican and i would like to see modernized. publican ism and my touchstone for that is formulate that it 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 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 or they are you're using descriptions that all sound like eisenhower but the the how 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 some 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 two. 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. the conservative what does that word mean to well. in

in the kind of. every every country has shorthand is where when most of the democracies we're arguing about the same basic things are going 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 does 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 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 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 not on that over. well with 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 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 we would you accept it 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. rather than 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 america in 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 larger 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 war and was very active in the party and in fact i went door to door for barry goldwater nine

hundred sixty four i was thirteen years hard three years later i was getting arrested these lansing and you know anti-war riots but. that party you know. why it's famous letter dwight eisenhower's 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 mall in their stupid you know that party is it seems gone. 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 it's just the leadership of the party has become much more radical than the rank and file and they are taking risks you know one of the big differences between liberals and conservatives in america is 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 but twenty percent of americans call themselves liberal and about thirty eight 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 which otherwise they'll just lose when you're forty percent you have this idea of 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 but the imagined benefit of these new information systems they give themselves you know their own particular set of facts that the temptation to make take big risks go for big results as become stronger and stronger mitt romney is the latest victim of it i

mean 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 the struggle to avoid. forcing 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 him to keep from either his father george was kind of an eisenhower. was for 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 and he said i accept the goldwater nomination but i do not endorse and he refused to campaign for him and that by the way is an important reason why he was in the nominee in one nine hundred sixty eight and young mitt who was his father's one of his father's closest political allies a brilliant young man their very youngest son their very very close 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 was not is this is a place where you cannot distinguish the parties that the wash of money through washington has transformed everybody and everything over to the book that one of the villains of the book is a lot of democrats 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 honor to his old a deeper and and he then when people chant 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 as well i learned from the anti-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 a one eight to one side. for the last two cycles democrats to better two thousand and eight two thousand and four i was all pretty citizens united that's precisions unite 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 the question though as 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 middle class. republican clubs all the time i will speak without freedom. the country with all these.

people who own. very big things people who are married and have children. are the leaders of small scale communities and those people right now are they're not at their best because economic depression. as we saw in one thousand. nine hundred times bring out the worst in people fearful. 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 of the workings of economic . and. that so much. and you would have seen by the way had it happened that a. 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. we'll be back more conversations of great minds with

david frum right after this break.

it's. on the back of conversations with great minds with david frum former speechwriter special assistant to then president george w. bush and 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 this cast of characters the is startlingly from a lawyer you've got a television network patriot news network with a bunch of foxy babes who are. presenting the news and doing and the alternate universe that we were just talking about you know a presidential candidate who goes rogue but in a good way. and on any war in mexico i don't want to give away too much of the book but. a lot of the is pieces fit together and what i wanted 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 they 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 one of the more conservative party which a different name the constitutionalist they. in desperation because they have not they knew they could not win the election anyway turn to a war hero whom they can out on to be putty in their hands and this man is quite a cunning figure has allowed them to think this sort of play dumb and he's in

a wheelchair he's got terrible burns all over his body and they make him there they are persuaded by the masterminds of the party and make them their nominee he becomes president and he shows 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 party 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 who offered their muster he represents a lot of what is wrong with the american upper class he's self-indulgent cares only he thinks only at the beginning very preoccupied with the sex life in his food life and he's got some sadness in his past that he thinks gives them 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. 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 a 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 tested. 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 to himself what we have to what he has done as he has had to confront as we all have

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 this is a minority you know watching the show we do this book. that qualifies you somebody with you know probably more financial resources than most the 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 that i i have a voice i should 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 privacy and through a series of pretty ludicrous adventures in the book is a comedy and a lot of things that happened to him 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 seems to suggest that the book is you know met at a really life. of the patriot 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 standard the last of the moderate senators represent a republican constitutional rhode island and he and he meant water and the you see also the system you know you can't be too much better than the system we see i'm talking the envelopes of the campaign contributions that was. chest pocket he raises this huge this huge fund that he holds a 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 the democrats who might challenge him and. that a lot of the see a little how much of a life washington is driven by petty ego and one of the sea flattery and how that's done you see and you see the all pervasive effect of money and self-indulgence hard to get ready for dinner reservation in washington on thursday night it actually is i mean there was a 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 is one point walter there's a radio says a real voice of the people that's always excoriating the elites and they arrange that water second water then goes to work for a taxpayer funded group i mean because he's inadvertently becomes the 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 booked

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 of new can go there and you see it i mean it was going to instructive things as an instructive thing to spend an afternoon at the private aviation terminal at dulles airport yeah well i've actually seen a t.v. host do that about a hotel room yes it's that's that's. that's what unusual actually so . from from the mehta to the to the real i mean what actually what was the republican party like before fox news was yes and before rush limbaugh you know preeti seven prien ninety one fox news or ninety five years was. the republican 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 its biases and prejudices and republicans had complaints about how they were treated and the unfairness of media culture and there's a there's it's true but you forced everybody to speak with certain common frames of reference and if you see if you said the incentives for being a wild person 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 rants norma from. everywhere so i swear 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 this at the j.b.s. but there. phyllis schlafly is with 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 and. any effort to move money to people or 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 even even ever in the political system. the political the political. some 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't you 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 my favorite quotes about politics

a lot of tip o'neill's he was interviewed when he left office and had 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 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 pretty damn painful if we get it if they didn't it was in the thirty's well yeah well no i mean i'm saying you look at those look at the 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 changes in this and in this. side in this is really the great thing of the book that what we see is what we see a 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 all the problems and work only go wrong and they compete to exploit them and with worthless will that at the end of the book he has his 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 me is yes and 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 thanks for speaking with thank you for joining us to see this or other conversations the great minds go to our web site of conversations with great minds dot com. or you. might. want.