kurt andersen back at this table. welcome. so it will me about the creation of true believers. >> it really began, actually, as a throw away idea in i first novel. now, 13 years ago. this idea that these children in the early 1960s would get obsessed with james bond as they were 12 years old and then that would stick with them as the late sixties became the late sister ticks. so that germ was there all along and just never got out of my head and i thought this could be a great story to tell and so i told it in ten, as a girl who becomes a woman and told through her eyes. >> rose: let me just say, you decided that you wanted to look at how children of the sixties are influenced by literature and fiction? >> that was one of the ideas, i mean, i also -- i had never read a book about the late sixties that did two things i wanted to do. one, show how the early -- how lives in the early sixties became lives in the late sixties, how adolescents who went from 12 to 18 in exactly that decade, how that worked. and then i was also intere

when we come back, kurt andersen, the novelist, stay with us. kurt andersen is here, an author, a journalist and astute observer of the political landscape and writes books, he contributes to vanity fair and host as public radio program called studio 360, the la has said of him the public intellectual is a rare creature, kurt andersen helps it from going extinct his latest book is a novel about the tumultuous 1960s and the impact on the present-day. i am pleased to have our friend .. kurt table. table. welcome. so it will me about the creation of true believers. >> it really began, actually, as a throw away idea in i first novel. now, 13 years ago. this idea that thes children in the early 1960s would get obsessed with james bond as they were 12 years old and then that would stick with them as the late sixties became the late sister ticks. so that germ was there all along and just never got out of my head and i thought this could be a great story to tell and so i told it in ten, as a girl who becomes a woman and told through her eyes. >> rose: l

joining me today, radio host kurt andersen. author of the book "true believers" which hits book shelves and online book shelves today. joan walsh, editor at large at salon.com. msnbc contributor and co-host of msnbc's "the cycle," steve kornacki, who may or may not be the hardest working man in television and political correspondent for "the nation" ari berman. president obama is in iowa now, where he's expected to hammer home the issue of tax fairness and push to extend the bush tax cuts only for households making less than $250,000. governor romney is suggesting this amounts to class warfare. >> he demonized republicans, and continues to be highly divisive not only to congress members but also the american people. we do not pit american against american. we don't attack one street or another or one city or another or one person or another. the president's announcement that he plans on extending just for certain classes of americans, what he's really saying is that those that are job creators and small businesses are going to

in his new book, kurt andersen tells the fictional account of a prominent lawyer who looks back on her activist past, writing quote, those years, the universe did start revolving around us, affirming our adolescence, making our fantasy of self-importance real. practically overnight, we and everything we thought or did, our new music, new ways we dressed and talk, our sensibilities, became topic a among the grown-ups. his new book is called "true believers." i got it yesterday, i haven't finished it, but great book. i thought it's a really interesting time to be talking about the '60s. tell us a little about what you think, how the culture of the 1960s has influenced sort of where we are today. >> well, in so many ways, we saw an upsurge in occupy protests last fall, part of me thought oh, this is just young people today doing the same thing but it was different and they had, i think, many of them, the same kind of visceral repulsion at the system. in the '60s fortunately people had stopped the war or enacted civil rights. it still affects the nature of our political discourse. obama be

thank god he was on location there. >> kurt andersen, thank you as well. >> thank you. >> kurt's novele. walter isaacson stay with us. up next cnbc's david faber joins us with a look on his documentary on cyber espionage. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. >>> 29 past the hour. welcome back to "morning joe." rattner is back at the table with walter isaacson and mike barnicle and wit us now, co-anchor of cnbc's "squawk on the street" david faber, his new cnbc documentary looks at one of the biggest threats to american economic security, cyber espionage. look forward to that good to have you on board. >> nice to be here. >> let's start with the jobs numbers and unemployment situation. >> sure. >> friday's outlook, steve rattner characterized it as sort of bla and maybe not even getting better. >> yeah. blah is probably as good a term as any to use. 80,000 jobs, 8.2% where we are on the unemployment rate. the second quarter of this year, similar to last year in that again the first quarter of this year, like 2011, we looked as though we were moving somewhere. especially if

thank god he was on location there. >> kurt andersen, thank you as well. >> thank you. >> kurt's novele. walter isaacson stay with us. up next cnbc's david faber joins us with a look on his documentary on cyber espionage. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. [ truck beeping ] morning, boys. so, i'm working on a cistern intake valve, and the guy hands me a locknut wrench. no way! i'm like, what is this, a drainpipe slipknot? wherever your business takes you, nobody keeps you on the road like progressive commercial auto. [ flo speaking japanese ] [ shouting in japanese ] we work wherever you work. now, that's progressive. call or click today. >>> 29 past the hour. welcome back to "morning joe." rattner is back at the table with walter isaacson and mike barnicle and wit us now, co-anchor of cnbc's "squawk on the street" david faber, his new cnbc documentary looks at one of the biggest threats to american economic security, cyber espionage. look forward to that good to have you on board. >> nice to be here. >> let's start with the jobs numbers and unemployment situation. >> s

joining me today, radio host kurt andersen.lievers" which hits book shelves and online book shelves today. joan walsh, editor at large at salon.com. msnbc contributor and co-host of msnbc's "the cycle," steve kornacki, who may or may not be the hardest working man in television and political correspondent for "the nation" ari berman. president obama is in iowa now, where he's expected to hammer home the issue of tax fairness and push to extend the bush tax cuts only for households making less than $250,000. governor romney is suggesting this amounts to class warfare. >> he demonized republicans, and continues to be highly divisive not only to congress members but also the american people. we do not pit american against american. we don't attack one street or another or one city or another or one person or another. the president's announcement that he plans on extending just for certain classes of americans, what he's really saying is that those that are job creators and small businesses are going to see a massive tax increase a