welcome everybody to the carter center in atlanta as a juror jury you're here tonight to talk with bob herbert about his new book "losing our way" an intimate portrait of a troubled america" we're on c-span as well so all questions are being taped. bob is a longtime columnist for "the new york times". i am also a columnist for the atlanta journal constitution we were just discussing the duties and the joys in english of column writing. imus your column in the times. what i really miss that you reported and talked to people in you heard a human voices soar american voices in your column. that is missing with journalism. >> and it shows in the book. >> ordinarily someone in my position how much i enjoyed reading your book. your book may be angry or frustrated or a little frightened but i sense that is okay bayou. >> that is fine by me. that is the point. >> host: walk us through it. >> guest: sure. i left the times is in 2011 and a lot of people have asked to lightness' doing the column. the short the answer is no. i tell people 41 years on deadlines is enough. that is how long i was in the news

. >> bob herbert, thank you very much for being here. we've got lots ahead tonight.ncluding some art official insemination news for the first time-ever on this show. don't be weird, this story invovrls the state department. please stay with us. you need to catch the 4:10 huh? the equipment tracking system will get you to the loading dock. ♪ there should be a truck leaving now. i got it. now jump off the bridge. what? in 3...2...1... are you kidding me? go. right on time. right now, over 20,000 trains are running reliably. we call that predictable. thrillingly predictable. get to the terminal across town. are all the green lights you? no. it's called grid iq. the 4:51 is leaving at 4:51. ♪ they cut the power. it'll fix itself. power's back on. quick thinking traffic lights and self correcting power grids make the world predictable. thrillingly predictable. dave, i'm sorry to interrupt... i gotta take a sick day tomorrow. dads don't take sick days, dads take nyquil. the nighttime, sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, fever, best sleep with a cold, medicine. some say

bob dole, senator ted kennedy in the senate. in the house tony convey low and steve bartlett and steny hoyer. in the executive branch at the head of it all, president george herbert walker bush. attorney general dick thornburgh, boyden gray. and on the outside, people like ed roberts and marko bristo, bob kafka and the indomitable justin dart. and here, the one person who worked his heart out to bring it together, it's that staff again i tell you about. that staff. bobby silverstein. it would have never have happened without him. and so i believe that government must not be just an observant bystander to life. it must be a force for good, for lifting people up, for giving hope to the hopeless. you know, i've never had an "i love me" wall in my office. what i did have were two items on the wall by my door when i walk out to go vote or go to a committee meeting or whatever. one is a drawing of the house in which my mother was born and lived until she was 25 years of age when she emigrated to america. that small, little house was in yugoslavia. it is now sluha slovenia. that little house had a dirt floor, no running water. that was my mother's house. the second item

bob dole, senator ted kennedy in the senate. in the house tony convey low and steve bartlett and steny hoyer. in the executive branch at the head of it all, president george herbert walker bush. attorney general dick thornburgh, boyden gray. and on the outside, people like ed roberts and marko bristo, bob kafka and the indomitable justin dart. and here, the one person who worked his heart out to bring it together, it's that staff again i tell you about. that staff. bobby silverstein. it would have never have happened without him. and so i believe that government must not be just an observant bystander to life. it must be a force for good, for lifting people up, for giving hope to the hopeless. you know, i've never had an "i love me" wall in my office. what i did have were two items on the wall by my door when i walk out to go vote or go to a committee meeting or whatever. one is a drawing of the house in which my mother was born and lived until she was 25 years of age when she emigrated to america. that small, little house was in yugoslavia. it is now sluha slovenia. that little house had a dirt floor, no running water. that was my mother's house. the second item