. -- william randolph hearst was. he is responsible for marijuana being illegal. i would like to know what your take is on legalizing marijuana as a simple, common-sense solution to the problems faced by places like california. . . an issue at the state level. but it's going to be a national issue and should be. when you look on one side of tobacco, their illnesses kill 400,000 a year, more than vehiclular accidents, cocaine and alcohol, combined. it's far away the largest call of preventable death in this country. compared to which marijuana looks rev lent lyly benign. ly -- relevant benign. and more than a decade ago "national review" said that the drug war is lost. and that's dealing with the drug problem on the demand side. and we have to deal with demand. and marijuana is not cocaine in its effects and social cost and all the rest. i think what the caller raised is interestingly in the next five years a discussable issue. host: the hearings got underway on capitol hill on the health care issue. and last sunday you were talking about health care, and i saw som

surely you know enough of the history of this country to know who harry amsinger was, who william randolph hearst, two of the great megaloman yakes, th

certainly it was not a high calling as practiced by william randolph hearst in the days leading up to the spanish-american war. in fact, to some extent cursed himself and his paper was responsible for the outbreak of war in the first place. in 1998 william hearst public journal published one incendiary article after another urging the u.s. to intervene in cuba where the spaniards who controlled the island were treating the cubans viciously. they were imposing higher taxes on the cubans, they were restricting the freedoms of the cubans, they were inflicted severe punishment on the cubans for the most minor of offenses. eventually the united states government got so upset about the situation that isn't the battleship maine into havana harbor not to do anything, just to sit there as a calling or perhaps intimidating presence. but on february 15th, 1898, the maine exploded, all to under 50 people on board were killed. the new york journal insisted in big black headlines and on the basis of no evidence whatsoever that spain had been responsible, the united states have to go to war now. abs

tendency in -- i will limit this to america -- we have a tendency in this country going back to william randolph hearst -- my friend evan thomas is writing a book about the spanish-american war, eerily resonant where you have a culture in which the march to war becomes a consuming drum of -- drama. journalists are absolutely susceptible to that. a man named chris hedges wrote a book, war is a force that gives us meeting. talking about how it is a construct in which everyone has a role and can play out a certain drama. fine if you're sitting in new york or washington making editorial decisions. those doing the fighting, those who are victims of the violence that is unleashed have a different view, understandably. so the questions you raise are things we think about all the time. and the goal has to be to learn from the iraq experience so that we do a better job next time, which is not to say that the next time going to war won't be the right thing. the correct answer is not always not projecting force. but we are a fallible and human institution like any other in the media, and i think if we trie

william randolph hearst was in the midst of a circulation war with joseph pulitzer's newspaper, the world, so virtually every instance in the book given of somebody who tries to create a myth has a different motivation behind it. but as i said, i think the worst thing to me is the behavior against hauptman, which was at its core, racist. >> your book couldn't come out at a better time, whether anything written can be fit or unfit. in your research, did you see increase of frequency or in terms of malfeasance, as it progressed in terms of time, like closer to our time, did it happen more or it happened more in the past? >> i think the more serious examples happened in the past. the state of journalism is, i don't think, to be commended much today, but largely for different reasons. i don't know that journalists in any large numbers in the past 10 or 20 years, have done anything to compare with some of the examples in the book. what happens these days is much more biased. some of it disguised, some of it not disguised and largely because of the company that i used to work for, fox news chan

surely you know another of the history of this country, you know who harry is lawyer was and william randolph hearst were through and the great megalomaniacs of this history and that there are responsible for it marijuana being illegal. i like to know your take on legalizing marijuana as a simple common-sense solution to the revenue problems in places like california. thank you. >> guest: it is going to be an issue soon. it will be an issue particularly at state level, medical use of marijuana and a less and will be a national level and should be. with a look on the one side of tobacco it kills, tobacco related illnesses kill former thousand americans a year, more than vehicular accidents, cocaine, heroin, alcohol, combined. it is far and away the largest cause of preventable death in this country -- tobacco is. compared to which marijuana looks relatively benign. there are intelligent men and women of goodwill who insist it is a gateway drug to worst drugs, but i tend increasingly to believe that my old friend and employer, bill buckley, and his magazine national review were right when more