Transcripts For CSPAN2 Booknotes Hillary Clinton It Takes A Village 20240712

With teachers and relatives and at 14 she went to work in another womans house taking care of that womans children and she served as an example as a mother. She was loving and attentive and involved and caring. Cspan what about your dad . He had a different kind of upbringing both of his families had come to this country is young children. They were intent upon working hard his mother was a strongwilled woman. One of the things i learned the last several years is that my grandmother who died when i was quite young insisted always using her maiden name as well so hannah jones bottom. Rodham. Cspan what would have both of them do for a living . Im with the was a homemaker my father had a small business. He was the only. Employee but he came close to one man who was a continuing employee but my mother would help out. My brothers and i would help out. Righto you had two brothers. Guest two younger brothers. Cspan u. N. Tony . How much younger with you then you . Guest hugh was four years younger and tony was seven years younger. We got along pretty well. Seat. Cspan did your parents teach them differently than you . As though my father was harder on them. My brother. He was a mans man was into reading books unlike my mother so i think he was much harder on my brothers. He didnt know what to do with me and they were so encouraging of me telling me to do whatever i wanted. My father was throwing patterns around the entrees in iran with the boys just like everybody else in the neighborhood did but he was a much more demanding father for my brothers. Cspan how did you raise chelsea differently than you were raised . Guest a lot of ways in the same way but there were different circumstances. We have a very middleclass, normal upbringing my brothers and i. We were lucky to live in a suburb with a great school produces safe neighborhood. It was the same things that office space today. My child life is not as free and independent if i was and my husband being a governor now president makes a quite different. I struggle all the time to make as normal by my definition normal is my opinion. Cspan theres a part in the book where you say i think chelsea wanted to ride or bicycle and you broke down in tears for what reason . Guest her friend had been riding around and they came running in and they wanted to ride their bikes to the library which was 10 blocks away. I got tears in my eyes because nearly every day in the summertime i would ride my bike to the library to the pool and play with my friends and my mother would be home in time for dinner. Nobody worried about me. I have these two little girls and i didnt feel comfortable and it wasnt because her daddy was a governor. He was because they were two little girls in the downtown area of little rock. Its not as safe as it should be your used to be. That is to me very sad. Was one of those moments they gave me a great deal of her regrets that we have not taking care of our society in a way that would enable my daughter to be as free. Cspan chelsea is brought up in your book a lot and you brought up protecting her from public life. Did you have to make a decision to put in the book lacks wasnt hard to do . Guest its really hard to do. This book is a hybrid and its not a memoir by any means. Its my personal experiences as a daughter and a mother as well as my work as an advocate and experts say none tried to get their information. I didnt have to include here but i was very careful how i talked about her and i cleared everything with her. And wanted to feel that i was preaching or confidence or giving her an uncomfortable moment. Right to what was alike raising her in the white house . Guest its been a real challenge but its something we spent more time on before he moved there than anything else. I had great conversations about raising children in the public eye and talk to other people and read a lot of the press coverage of children who were in the white house and that led bill and i to make decisions about how we would prefer to hear even and how we would talk about her in public and really we said we were grateful that it was we could givers much space and privacy as we could. Cspan why do you think they did . Guest i think there are a lot of people who are around our age in the press and i believe that they know what they go through because if you are a journalist on television or who is wellknown because of what you write it gives you a taste of how children can be drawn into your own career and in a much more dramatic way. I think they had have a certain sympathy and empathy with that. Cspan you talk in the book about how you and the president when he was governor warned her about the awful things that would be said about both of you are least him at the time. Guest at just him at the time. Cspan she got upset. She got upset lately . Guest certainly she gets a little frustrated and concerned as would be natural but she was about six as i say in the book that i realized even though her dad had been in politics since she was born she had been oblivious to it. She didnt follow the news but now that she was reading and in school that it was going to be different. Should we talk about it and we thought we should prepare her peer children deserve to have as much information as they are ready to receive at the age that they are predicted and are we told her daddy was going to run for reelection as governor and in elections people say mean things about each other and we didnt want her to be surprised and sometimes they told stories about each other. She was very upset at first. But we have continued to work with her and we were always talking with her and asked her if she had questions. Its never easy and its always painful. Its not only my daughter put on my mother and other people who care about us and we do our best to reassure them and to let them know that its part of the process. Cspan you say you like to have released one meal together day. How often you get that done . Guest we get that done every day we are in town and its usually dinner. We sit around and talk about what families talk about, whats going on and where we might go if we get a few days off for whats happening with friends but we have tried so hard to do that and its something we have tried later and we will keep up as long as we can. Right or you have chapter on watching television. Why . Guest i just dont think theres any doubt that when i think about the difference in the way i was raised in the way life was back in the 50s with a lot of people the single biggest difference is the role of television in our lives. Its not only the content that disturbs me is also the process and the amount of hours that children spend and what it takes them away from doing in the act to the update and the instant gratification that provides. I say in the book when you have a tour 3yearold all of a sudden you have have a Remote Control device for never having to work and play the way we did or what with the experiences you go through with a young child it changes the way children learn. Cspan you quote from your own but can you say 80 of americans responding to the 1993 that they believe tv is harmful. Do you think thats true . Guest i think its true and i think most people believe its true. People feel helpless and i tried in the book to talk about what parents can do and what communities can do so we can take back our own homes and the Popular Culture represents . Cspan think its armful . Guest there is evidence found now thereve been a number of studies that havent got as much publicity as i would like. Summarizing what we know about the effects of politics. We know it has to sensitized children. Clearly if you come from an unstructured family with a lot of albums to start with you all be more effective than someone who comes from a more stable environment and its not just boys where there has been an increase of acting adding girls as well. We know the consumer culture and the kind of manipulation of children that is done even in their own Television Shows has had an impact. And public broadcasting in the Educational Programming and watching only commercial broadcasting. The personal program is better prepared and we know there are many ways the television impacts kids. Cspan i restricted the amount and the kind of television chelsea watches and we check up on her tv. How do you do that . Guest we dont have the same control that we had when she was smaller but from a very early age we didnt let her just plop down in front of the television set. We decided to keep her doing other things and even now we check in on what shes watching but mostly talking about what did you think about certain programs and how does she evaluate them and we talk about how important it is for parents to view with their children. We are all watching television. Bill and i watch television together but we try to talk about it and its implausible in so many respects. You dont solve human problems in 27 minutes plus commercials try to give children the capacity to separate what they see of television and from what we hope they will see in real life. Cspan think people in the business who have children have done this . Guest when you drive by an accident on the road we all watch and we all are rubbernecking. Its as though we have a thorough fare of accidents. Its something that we are compelled to look at. I dont but its time for us to say we have to exercise more responsibility as it affects children but also the programming. Lets be honest and admit that we have affected how children think of themselves and how they view society. Programmers can make more responsible decisions that the president is having a meeting with a major programmers to talk about what can be done on a voluntary basis and the Telecommunications Bill so i think we are beginning to move in the right direction and take responsibility. Cspan if a stranger came into home and begin telling your kids stories about the same kind of characters and events using the same words and pictures you would throw him out. Guest i believe that. I think we let television get away with so much more than we let real people in person get away with and we talk about the language and explicit textuality and the constant violence. I dont think we would put up with that in person. We would walk away from it or kick them out of our house. Cspan wears his picture on the back from . Disco duds in the backyard of the white house. Its a school nearby and this is the day we had a bird and sesame street and characters as well as other public broadcasting visitors. Theres a study at talk about the book that was done at the university comparing public broadcasting with commercial broadcasting. The kids were then we all had a great time. Cspan when did you first save yourself i i want to write a book where guest i thought about it for a long time but i take it seriously when the publisher came to see me and the publisher and of president of the trade division and the editor. My motherinlaws book which is a marvelous book and Betsy Salazar was the editor. They showed up and said that he thought about writing a book and i said i thought about it and we began to talk a year ago january. Cspan how did you go by that . Guest is something that i thought was going to be easier than it turned out to be. Original plan was for me to just sit down and talk and have a conversation transcribed and then to have some Research Done and editing the transcripts and basically that would be the book. I found out that did not work for me. Someone has to sit down and think hard about what i want to say and we went through many drafts. I had to do it in longhand because my computer skills were not up to the task so it took about a year to do. Cspan berry teen chapters and at the beginning of each chapter you have a quote. All the way from Lady Bird Johnson to booker t. Washington. Some of them are still alive and here today how would did you go about choosing them . Guest i started with the collection that ive had for a long time and i went through those but i found i had to expand. What am i a brick i did for hours on end looking for exactly the right quote that i wanted to give it to. Cspan whats your favorite one of all of them . Guest there were lots that were my favorites are probably if i can read it so that i dont miss quote it. The beginning of no families and ivan. Its one of most lives fragile things. Just look what you can do when you stick together. I just love that quote. The book came out in january when we were in the midst of 9096 teens seem particular apps. Cspan what about the size of the book and what you wanted to cover . I got a since when i read it that you would go ultimately between children and politics. Guest is filled with a lot of my views about how children because i do think all of us in whatever role we are in have a responsibility to children id dont just mean politics with a small p at how we are caeser sultan neighborhoods and communities and businesses and schools. It was suggested by the publisher and i really liked it because its a handy size to carry around. I learned a lot about the number of pages in the book meant that if i added one more page i would have had to add 16 more pages because its the way the books are put together. The size was perfect. Cspan what did you not get in that you wanted in . Guest i had so many more examples that i wanted in an more stories than i had impaired my editor was wonderful in helping me get it down to manageable size. It could have been hundreds of more pages long if i had it my way. Bright so why no index . Guest partly because it was not meant as a textbook. It was meant more of a meditation about my work in the last 25 years with children and it would have been held up even longer because i was month over the deadline that i originally set and that was something i didnt have time for. Cspan a as you know you for it many times criticism of not giving credit to the person you help to you if there was someone. They are so numerous i will not attempt to acknowledge them for fear that i might leave someone out. What do you think of the criticism and does one human being deserve credit for have done a lot of work on that . Guest that was my problem. I had so much help. I have friends who. Every word who critiqued it and i would literally would make a list for they had 60 names and i was nowhere near done. I said i cant do this because i was afraid i would leave somebody out. It was the indirect people. There are so many people in the book or talk to me on the telephone that i have yet to reach and others ive known for 20 years but i thought it was the fairest way to basically thank everybody who helped me. Cspan what do you think of the criticism of one person that was paid by Simon Schuster to spend time with you . Guest i thanked her for what she did for me. She worked for me for a number of months and i was grateful. Cspan in the book on page 148 you have a rhyme. As i was standing in the street is quiet as could be a great dig ugly man came up and tied his horse to me. Then you go on with this couple of sentences. I thought often of that rhyme in her first year of the white house. My motherinlaw lost her battle against prescott cancer and my husband and i were attacked daily from all directions. As i was standing in the street is quiet as could be a big ugly man came up and tied his horse to me. Where did you get that . Guest that was in one of chelseas nursery rhyme books that i would read it to her every night. We have this wonderful book of nonsense rhymes and that was the prominent one on the cover. We read that 100,000 times and it explains to a child and later to myself how things happen in life and you cant always predict whats going to happen. What should have been the most wonderful year of my life with my husband be inaugurated as president had a lot of personal grief and sorrow attached to it and its not predictable. Cspan what was the impact of your father stepped . Guest was rather dramatic. I think we were certainly exhausted from the campaigning and that took time off and we went through the presence preparations for the transition and the ni girl. All of a sudden my father was struck by a fatal stroke. We were with him in the hospital for two weeks or so before he died. When i look back on it now and they think of the entire time during the campaign and in that first year of 93 a lot had happened. In that year the wonder of the inauguration in a few months later my fathers death was very difficult. Cspan what did you do on the impact with chelsea . Did you feel that directly . Guest sure. We took her out of school and my brothers were there most of the time as well. Certainly my mother was there every hour. I thought that was important for her to be with us as a family and to be with her grandfather who never resumed consciousness adequately enough to recognize any of us. After the first day day at one think he even knew we were there but we were there together and i thought that was important. Cspan you say in the 16 chapter my father instructed big business and big government. That sounds like someone running for president today. Guest i think thats a very common thing in American Life and thats how my father felt in the way he talked about government in this mess. There are restraints on both which is what i believed that i think whether government or business you cant have much control or authority are left unchecked. I think there is a constant struggle in american history. Cspan du jour mother and father think alike . Guest no, i dont believe so. My father was a republican very strongly so in my mother was eyes more democratic leaning. My father was very concerned for the fact that my husband was a democrat from the south. My father also became confused as he got older and began to moderate in some way as well and embrace my husband wholeheartedly. Cspan you remember the First Political time in your life . Guest my father was so interested around the dinner table he talked about politics and whats going on and we followed the news and he would get the newspaper. So it goes way way back. Probably the first thing that i did on a National Level was when i was at goldwater girl in 1954 and my father was a staunch republican. He supported Barry Goldwater and admired his beliefs so i participated for the first time at that level. Cspan who was next . Guest the first was the president ial election in 1960 between nixon and kennedy. My father was a staunch nixon supporter. Cspan what was your mom . Guest my mother didnt ever say that she had voted for president kennedy but i then she may well have great she didnt tell my father that. During the early 1960s were we were constantly talking about politics and my family. And i was going to college and becoming involved in politics but i started off as a young republican a member of getting republicans and then i began to. More and study more and decided i had to spend time thinking about my own political beliefs. Cspan was there a moment reset i just dont belong here . Guest is more of an evolution. Probably started back in high school but i had an excellent government teacher and we had mock debates and as i said i was a goldwater girl but my government teacher made me represent president johnson and made one of my friends who is a staunch democrat with a few in my pic high school said on behalf of Barry Goldwater. I had to study all these positions and i had to learn things in a different point of view not just what my father etc. My committed to believes. That opened me up to looking at things from a different point of view. Advice had this mixture of politics or people try to pigeonhole me as they do everybody in public life and say well we know she is a fillin the blank i think that my father gave me the vigil responsibility. I think things i was raised with have been abandoned by many a call themselves republicans. Cspan you say in the book u Martin Luther king. How old were you . Guest i was 14 or 15. Cspan what do you remember about him . Guest it was my youth minister in our method is meeting had been talking about civil rights and the challenges of it resented to a christian. He took a group of us down to the hall in chicago where we heard dr. King speak. We waited until everyone else was gone we had chance to shake his hand that i remember very being buried up impressed and i remember particularly how he was taking his religion and trying to make it live in the political process which i thought was very interesting. We have seen a lot of that in the last 30 years. Cspan you remember another public official u your First National figure. Guest i met Barry Goldwater. Cspan would he remember about that experience . Guest we were out of some stop my father made and i got a chance to shake his hand. Cspan do you have a model of how you treat other people based on something you either learn or experience saying im not ever going to be like that or im going to be like that . Guest i think ive drawn from a lot of different people. Ive been lucky in the last 20 years to meet many people in public life here and around the world and i admire people who try to be the same in public and private and try to be respectful of people who listen to people who dont discount others because of their point of view and thats pretty much the model of try to follow. Cspan i dont know if he can do this or not but in the book you mentioned you were on the walmart ward but you were also on the Childrens Defense Fund board. What are the different atmospheres walking into those two different situations that you had to deal with . Guest brian they were much more alike than other situations ive been in and let me see if i can describe that . Cspan what year did you do that . Guest i was on for 20 years but i went to work for them out of high school and i worked for her during the summer or fall in love school and when i moved to Arkansas State on the words i moved into the white house. There was an atmosphere of debate and concern and intense intense brye co how big was the board . Guest 12 or 15 people but there is an atmosphere of giveandtake. People wanted to be involved than they cared about the issues. Marion was a strong leader and is a strong leader and would sit and listen. I walked into a walmart or for the first time and john walton said i want to hear from the outside whats happening in what you think and he asked each one of us will we saw happening in the world. He also was a strong charismatic leader but he was always asking questions in the eyes want to know how to do things better. A in a funny way i see similarities between them. They have both the bill extraordinary institutions that men institutions that enron ways are unique and have made lasting country since to our country. Officials might say what would this conservative entrepreneur sam walton have in common with this passionate mary nadelman and i thought the two people of great examples of what you can do if you say her mind to it to write though you say some things about corporations ceo sent for and since you point out in 1974 the ceo of a Large Corporation made 35 times and average factory worker earned and ceos almost made it two times the average factory workers wage. Does that bother you . Guest it bothers me a lot. Leaders in our country and thats not the political levers. Business leaders have more of an effect on people and how they live their lives. You have to do are willing to identify with people who are working and you have to be more respectful of the struggles for people trying to make a living in todays economy face and i dont think its right that in the last 20 years Corporate Executives have profited personally so much when the average worker in america both in actor work and Service Industries and whitecollar work have seen their way their benefits stagnate. I dont think its good for the economy or the other way aside all the ethical and reasons and i dont think is fair. He knew a Smart Business people pay people and reflect their contributions to your profitability they arent going to be able to continue to buy your goods and services think we have reached a point or country were distances need to understand what was good for henry ford at the beginning of the century is good for them and we have to share our productivity increases, or bill at the two continued the global connie moore fairly and that was those at the top but everybody throughout the organization. Brick and how long were you on the walmart or to . C since i was. Cspan unfettered free market has been the most radically disruptive course in American Life. Guess who i believe that in thats why put in the book. If you look at the argument we have had in our political life in the last several years we have. The government against everything else. I dont believe the government has had as big of an impact as commercial television and a lot of the decisions made in the marketplace about how we are going to compensate people about downsizing corporations and making workers more insecure and i just believe there has to be a healthy tension among all of our institutions in society and the market is the driving force behind our prosperity, our freedom in so many respects and it makes our lives around but it we cant be permitted to just run roughshod over peoples lives as well. Cspan when you are sitting on the ward to get to deal with this kind of things . Guest part of the reason i appreciated his business philosophy is that the workers at walmart were able to share the profits and the executives when i was on the board were very careful to keep their perks down the offices they had in the way that they lived in the way they treated their fellow associates at every level in this mess. I thought that was a good example. Cspan a bunch of underlying a dent and i will read this. Our skepticism towards government and personal responsibility from all citizens. Americans do not favor it or radical dismantling of government and ike go on with this great how far should the government go . Guest there is no way government can raise kids. The government should do things that help parents are raising kids and government can also provide a safety net for the poor and Vulnerable Children were whatever combination of reasons are not being adequately cared for by their own parents. For example the congress is the minimum wage. Should be raise rates not high enough. He can support a family on what is currently dating minimum wage for the government also has a responsibility to ensure older people and younger people in particular get the health care they need. Thats why we shouldnt even be thinking about dismantling medicare and medicaid but looking at ways to make it more effective to their many examples of where the government does have a big impact and not just the poor and the vulnerable. Government also determines what kind of atmosphere my child is going to live and i mean that literally. Hes the heir going to be safe to breathe in and the water safe to drink . Thereve been a lot of membership to regulations and last two years. We can swim and fish and rivers and like that before were so polluted they were literally on fire. The government is the only institution capable of reining in unruly businesses that put profits ahead of Peoples Health and thats the kind of thing government has roll in. Cspan if you were no longer first lady and made a choice of what you want to do in society that you would like to try what is that . Guest i got to do full fulltime what i did for 25 years parttime which was to be a voice for children and doing a way that tries to bring people together to build a consensus. Where at the far into the political the political debate in you find most people are in the middle worrying about their childrens future and trying to think about how to control television and other things. I really believe there is an opportunity for people to get beyond partisan arguments and ideologies and find what works for kids. For a long time ive been advocating but its more difficult when you have children but thats not a conservative or liberal or republican or democratic issue. You and i know so what can we do as adults if it is going to occur to make the impact is limited as possible the wellbeing of children. Thats the kind of thing i would like to help bring about in our country. Cspan how do you change the divorce laws and how do you slowed down . Guest baking a little harder a little longer requiring mandatory counseling and education so that parents if they cant get back together and work out their own differences perhaps can understand more clearly why using children as ponds and deciding over property and support is terrible for kids in coming to an understanding about how they can raise together their children after divorce. Cspan you talk about having some things that are how about the germans . Guest well i am a fan of a lot of the social policies that you find in europe and i know we are going through a rethinking about how to afford some of their policies but in my conversations with people like chancellor cole or president sharockman they are not cutting back on support to families to the extent that they are talking about doing some other things that would free up the economy. Thats because they view children as a social obligation not just a parental of the geisha and parents have the primary responsibility. The kind of policies that they have for particular Young Mothers to Health Health care policy in germany that is a private public mixture is something that i think is worth looking at. The visiting nurses per gram in england where people come into the home to try to make sure the parents know what they are doing and thats everybody from princess di to a single teenage mother. Theres more of an understanding that the entire society has a stake in making sure parents do as good of a job as they can. Cspan we talked about Yale Law School and all. Did you travel much . Guest know, didnt predict travel bit before bill was president but i never have the opportunity to travel much. Its been a real eyeopening experience and those who said they see things and as far away as chile ended in nature that would be helpful here. People think we dont have a lot to learn from other cultures but id like to see that change in we should have got a way what other cultures have done a look at the results. We have such a high level of divorce and a high level of violence within the home and outside the home are clearly there things we could be doing better. You say the 21st century with was a century of biology. What do you mean . Guest 20 century openspace in a century physics. We know a lot more about biology and in particular concern that we apply the lessons we have learned raising children that the whole chapter in their about the lessons that molecular biologists speak about the site to see the end of we clearly come equipped with their own genetic background but it depends on what happens after we come to this world. If we try to take the lessons we now have from biology and applied them to parenting a pipe into education we could do a lot better job in how we treat children and train children from the beginning of their lives. Cspan do you ever get tired of talking about this . Guest know i dont get tired of it but i get sometimes frustrated because they see such a disconnect for example between science and research and raising children and what we do in our own homes as well as in our public and business policies. Cspan do you ever get tired when someone in comes and says mrs. Clinton we have another three interviews to do on this book and you say i cant talk about this anymore . Guest i do lose my voice from time to time but i dont get tired of it. Cspan in the book you name a lot of people and a lot of companies and all. One person you name is Daniel Goldman who says Emotional Intelligence is one of the bestsellers. Guest the world young woman who is my researcher made sure to work hard to make sure nothing would come back and bite me. I thought it was a brilliant book and made a great contribution to what we knew and i was concerned and that was one of the reasons i talked about it. I wanted people to read it. I am sure that there many things that i tried to use examples that has said out. Cspan what do you find out in public to get some most response when you speak and not only technique but what do people respond to . Guest several things that allow people who people on the frontlines taking care of kids nurses and social workers and others are pleased that im talking about the things that they talk about and giving them some validation in the work that they try to do every day. Their a lot of people particular parents who share my concern that we are not as a society doing what we can for children so they are very open to talking about what works and homes. They want to know the reasons that demonstrates clearly that talking to your baby really pays off. Thats a thing a lot of people dont know. Reading to your baby is one of the best investments you can make it against different responses depending on the evidence. Rieke has your mom read it . Guest her favorite chapters the chapter about religion pray she loves that one. Cspan why . Guest i think because i asked her what she thought was the essence and she really believes that more people both because of the way they were raised and the message our society sends out have a sense of themselves as good and some value for themselves as well as respecting other. Zero. It wouldnt be a government halted the come from within. Cspan what about all the stories. I remember one story we talked about one show one day Hillary Clinton spends 54,000 at taxpayer money to fly somewhere to do a book interview. What youre into that . Guest are accredited and i wish it wouldnt happen. Secret service made a strong recommendation that we fly in a military plane. Mrs. Bush was flying around on many occasions. I would love to get one airplane and talk with people and find out whats going on but occasionally i could get a train ride back because i could go through the whole car of the train im on. I wish i didnt have to worry about security so much. Cspan we were not subjected to daily diet of secondguessing and cynicism about every leader institution. Gascoigne was talking about growing up in the 1950s and early 1960s. We can look at president eisenhower. There were some little scandals that would come and go and it wasnt as daddy diet. You could hear from the president. He could make a statement and we could judge for ourselves. Thats why i love cspan. We didnt have two seconds of a present and 20 minutes of other people. I think political scientists are now pointing out and in the book out of order but we have done to ourselves by the way we have covered leaders and its done a disservice to democracy. Im all for absolute freedom of the press people getting in there and routing around to find out what they think is important. I think sometimes we are out of balance about whats important. Its difficult for people who cherish a democracy where they are the primary decisionmaker when dan a day out there told they have xyz problems. We are only human and by any standard american politics if you go back and look at generations or even the millennia is honest and hardworking and straightforward and of course as my father was perdue have to ask questions but if you do it exclusion up engaging and with the people who are running for office have to say and if youre constantly denigrating people i dont think its good for the longterm prospects of art democracy. Cspan a lot of people say we purposely became cynical after vietnam and then after watergate. Guest there were good reasons for being cynical but i also think everything is not the vietnam war and everything is not watergate and maybe it will take a while for people to catch up with what currently is going on great many changes were made because of those two experiences. Cspan i can ask you this because of public. How old were you when you run were on the Watergate Committee . Guest lets see i was 26 and 27. Bright do and you had graduated from Yale Law School . Guest i was a grad and other yale graduates were recommended and we worked 18 to 20 hours a day. Cspan put it to work for . Guest and knott knott. Cspan what you member bout that . Guest i remember how respectful and careful the investigation was. It was made absolutely clear that no one had preconceived notions and no one could talk to the press. They got very upset with me one day because i went as a Junior Lawyer on the matter and at the end of it a reporter came up and estimate the question which i didnt answer but the fact that i was asked but just thought that we need to be as removed from the political commentary is possible and i said thats how its done and im very regretful that others have not follow that kind of thoughtful nonpartisan above the fray approach. Cspan and do you think its a different atmosphere today . Guest i think its a very different atmosphere today. Right away in what way . Guest there are so many people who shoot you for the a. M. They dont put the facts in and the make outrageous statements and judgments about other people. They have such a vested interest in trying to stay whatever is going on so no one can say they were behind the curve even though weaker to later troops out to be not very important at all. Both the nature press coverage plus increasing meanspiritedness and the partisanship, and to stand why. Its been a mutual relationship. Its not one side of the others fault. The decibel level has been raised on both sides predict just dont think its good. On think its good for the country that people scream at each other. Cspan the result of people the republicans back then wanting to get back not personally involved but they just want to get their pound of flesh from the other side . Guest ive been quoted saying it which is unfortunate. Thats not the way business should be conducted. Bright cove back to a more mundane issue. Our passion for food and National Obsession so food and our guilt over. Why did you write about that . Guest most of my advocacy work in the past i have lucas don hungry children and the need to keep programs like wic which supplements formula for mothers and other programs like that. Even though we still have hungry children, one in 12 at the biggest problem is obesity among children and that the combination of eating too much and exercising too much and television as part of the reason for that and parents letting their children the fear of letting their children to go out to play as part of its and we dont have physical education plays in a longer. I thought i would write about that because i know from my own battles with food and the way i was raised we had an enormous amount of food. Great big helpings of potatoes and bread but we were more active as children. We were playing all the time and we were on our bikes and playing softball in the streets. Kids today dont have those opportunities. Cspan would have the three of you do today about to exercise . We see the president running. Guess who he hasnt been running as much but hes been working out with weights. Chelsea is very good. Shes very active physically. I come and go. I have some months where im really quite got another month where im not. Its either too hot or too cold and. Cspan what is your technique when you travel . Have you prevent gaining weight just from eating bad food . Guest i try to stay away from it. Part of my problem and i suppose for many people today is when you travel a lot and when you work so many hours you get exhausted and food is fueling comfort or if its around i may very well be back it. Cspan its not in the book although you allude to the discussion about health care. I had people over the convincing saying mrs. Hudson has been tremendously successful in the Health Care Issue without succeeding in getting a bill passed. Guest what we were trying to do in health care and part was understood because it was neither unfettered competition nor government takeover of health care. It was a third way a different approach. I think we do have some positive for soaps. We have seen costs go down for Many Employers who provide Health Insurance for their employees. We have seen necessary hard decisions being made about services that are being offered. We now have more people without insurance up to 43 million working people and that doesnt count people on medicare or medicaid. You have 43 million in addition who are at risk because they are uninsured or they have also seen the results of competition without any regulation. Many of the managed competitions hmos and Insurance Companies are making tough decisions that i dont think her in the longterm interest of the entire population. We focus on competition and is led to some good results but i believe unchecked competition and health care is and will lead to further bad results that will affect all of us. Cspan by the way if you were sitting in my chair what question would you ask that hasnt been asked in this interview . Guess the one thing i would probably ask is what i hope happens because of this book. I wrote it because i really want to get these ideas out and get them shared and its been well received. Im grateful that people have been buying it but i would like it to be part of a broader conversation and i would like it to be something that people talk about, not the book necessarily but the ideas that are part of this conversation and about what people can do in their own homes and neighborhoods and businesses in everywhere else. I really wish the message of this book would be for parents to have responsibility for children and my daughters life will be at the tip by people who will make decisions about our economy, about our food and about all kinds of things that will determine how she lives. Cspan when does she go to college . Guest of obrien. This is a very sore sore subject. People to sore subject prepared people have asked me have them last couple of months been hard for me and i said the hardest is going to college. My husband and i went to college and we had to face up to the fact so thats not very pleasant. That is something she has to do. Cspan does she have any idea what she wants to be . Guest for a long time she thought she wanted to be a doctor and then the pediatrician and of course she loves a specialty in gerontology. Cspan to take care of her mother and father. Heres what the book looks like. Its called it takes a village and the author is Hillary Rodham clinton. Thank you for joining us. Guest thank you brian. [inaudible conversations] now on saturday evenings the summer of the tv is opening up our archives and bench watching a wellknown author or their focus tonight is a little bit different. We are focusing on former first ladies who are also authors. Up next is kate whitman or she was first lady from 2001 to 2009 and a former librarian and during her time in the white house she advocated for literacy and she cofounded the National Book festival which is observing its 20th anniversary this fall. Now from 2010 she discusses her memoir spoken from the heart to guest good evening everyone but im Richard Sharon the undersecretary for history art and culture for the smithsonian institution. Its my pleasure to welcome all of you and it really is all of you, nice crowd here tonight for this program this evening with the former first lady of the United States laura bush on the occasion of the publication of