bureau and presidential historian doris kearns goodwin join us from massachusetts.hings i'm always fascinated about when i read your work and nick's work, we live in this world when we think that everything happening to us is happening for the first time when, in fact, most of this has happened before. you look at the situation that we are in, the president finds himself in, this lack of compromise, this polarized congress, this unique or have you got examples of where this has happened in the past? >> in my lifetime, it does seem like it's the most dysfunctional congress i've seen. a sense of lack of institutional loyalty. there's name calling. there's vitreal. now if you go back to the 1850s, with abraham lincoln, you didn't have anyone hitting people over the head with canes, almost killing someone, as brooks did. but some things happened in the last 30 years. tip o'neill and reagan, able to make deals with each other. lbj, civil rights act passed in 1964. because these legislators knew each other. they played poker together. that sense of calm ramaraderie, fear,

we're going to put that question to doris kearns goodwin coming up next.might call overly protective. especially behind the wheel. nothing wrong with that. in fact, allstate gives them a bonus -- twice a year -- for being safe drivers. dollar for dollar, nobody protects you like allstate. with new extra-strength bayer advanc aspirin. it has microparticles, enters the bloodstream faster and rushes relief to the site of pain. it's clinically proven to relieve pain ice as fast. new bayer advanced aspirin. it's clinically proven to relieve pain ice as fast. and those people are what i like to call wrong. take metamucil. sure it helps you keep regular, but it doesn't stop there. metamucil is the only leading fiber supplement with psyllium, which gels to help remove waste and reduce cholesterol. it can multi-multitask. it's so 2012. look at it! it's doing over a million different things right now. metamucil. ask more of your fiber. rick: well, a lot of people say it feels like we have been watching washington at its worst lately. many americans saying our govern

so doris kearns goodwin was there and david mccullough you know we would talk about different presidents and he's very interested. so it's more than i think anything it's his idea of a book club, a little bit of r&r to talk with a group of historians. >> it's a heck of a book club actually. [laughter] >> it's.it's fun. >> it's not like he's sending out an evite from down the street and saying you know bring a covered dish you know. [laughter] >> [laughs] but we don't.we don't influence him in any real way but he loves anecdotes and things. >> yeah. >> .and i think that part's a lot of fun and there.he has a great interest in ronald reagan for example. >> well and in fact a lot was made over the last couple of weeks of the fact that he took this book about reagan with him i guess to hawaii or maybe before he went to hawaii he had read this book about reagan and people are now saying, like reagan in '82. >> yes. >> .who got just the stuffing beaten out of him in the elections, was never gonna win a second term, he came back. maybe obama can look for lessons in reagan. >> well and his demea