ms. dowd: that would be my dad's family. mr. lamb: what about the most powerful journalist in america? ms. dowd: that is what "irish-america" would say. [laughter] dowd: i am sure there is another magazine that thinks paul krugman is and another that thinks paul friedman is. they were giving a boost to one of their own. mr. lamb: how important is it to be irish? ms. dowd: it gets more important as i get older, funny enough. when i was small, my dad would make us recite irish poetry into one of the old initial tape recorders. my brother's name is kevin barry, so he would have to recite barry and i would have to recite things, you know, at the time, a lot of it seemed kind of corny, but as you get older, and now the nation is obsessed with ancestry and of finding out things, as you get older, you realize it is really nice to know everything about your roots and to have a warm feeling that ancestry can get you. mr. lamb: that is something that you wrote about in your book. you have some fresh stu

ms. dowd: right. that was such a weird story. so what was the guy's name, nelson sparks? mr. lamb: nelson chang. ms. dowd: yes, he recently died. he was given a commission to do an official portrait for bill clinton, and for his own reasons, very oddly he had in his studio he had a mannequin and a blue dress, just randomly and he put the blue dress on the mannequin and painted the shadow of that into the picture. bill clinton often does not wear doesn't also does not have on a wedding ring, which is weird, so than when they found out, i do not think they wanted to put the painting up, not the clintons but it was at a museum. it is in storage. he was trying to investigate whether it was in storage because he had played this spectral trick or he had an illusion to the blue dress. there is a history of that kind of thing in arts, but i think when you get a commission to paint a president, that president definitely does not want an allusion to his white house sex scandal in there. mr. lamb: i saw

ms. dowdt gets more important as i get older, funny enough. when i was small, my dad would make us recite irish poetry into one of the old initial tape recorders. my brother's name is kevin barry, so he would have to em and ihe irish polle would have to recite things, you know, at the time, a lot of it seemed kind of corny but as you get older, and now the nation is obsessed with ancestry and of finding out things, as you get older, you realize it is really nice to know everything about your roots and to have a warm feeling that ancestry can give you. mr. lamb: that is something that you wrote about in your book. you have some fresh stuff and we will talk about that. here's something you write about and i want you to explain this portrait to the audience. [laughter] ms. dowd: right. that was such a weird story. so what was the guy's name, nelson sparks? mr. lamb: nelson shanks. ms. dowd: yes, he recently died. he was given a commission to do artificial portrait of bill clinton, and for his own

ms. dowd: yes, he recently died.e was given a commission to do an official portrait for bill clinton, and for his own

ms. discussing herwd book "the year of voting dangerously: the derangement of american politics" about the u.s. presidential race. mr. lamb: maureen dowdauthor of the book "the year of voting dangerously: the derangement of american politics." 2010 in the magazine "i wish of ameri-