Transcripts For CSPAN2 Joe Klein On Politics And Literature 20170212

Its a pleasure to be back here. Here. Joe and i were just comparing socks, crucial political issue, and you can see he has the best ones. [applause] like everyone else who has been on this stage, perhaps myself excluded, joe clines conditionals are so numerous and so varied that you need to read about them. Theres no point in going through them here. We will lose time. Especially considering the fact that joe has just told me he has Public Service announcements to make. Some going to, if we ask any questions spirit i do have a few Public Service announcements. Since were coming to the end of the road, i just want to complement the people who put this thing on. [applause] it has been pure joy every minute of it. I mean, the endorphins are just running crazy in my brain. And also im just so honored to have been on the same stage with so many brilliant and wonderful writers. I want to do a special shout out to Joyce Carol Oates who defended against the 80 towards on this stage in your paneled the other day. [laughter] and 20 years ago when the 80 towards becoming after me after i wrote primary colors she defend me, too. And she defended the act of writing anonymously. Dont screw up my questions, joe. I also want to thank the for young cubanamerican High School Teachers who may be in audience today that we had dinner with last night. They teach in miami and it was just inspirational to hang with them. And that i have an observation. Ive been looking at that thing, the Abraham Lincoln, for the last four days. Its the only rendering of Abraham Lincoln that i found that isnt haunting. Every last other one was haunting and i was trying to think, it was kind of like photoshop. Did they have photoshop in the 19 century . I wish id figure out who he kind of look like and i think it looks like a cross between mitt romney and gary cooper. [laughter] so they had political spin doctors back then. And finally i want to say that Donna Brazile is a good friend of mine, and she gave me many of the questions in advance. [laughter] so fire away. [laughter] and the answer to the first one is that the Supreme Court really is a crucial issue in this race, but if you dont get out there and vote to not get the Supreme Court that you want. Yes. Evidently. [laughter] in payback, your book about vietnam veterans, actually im going to start with something else, sorry spirit wait a second. I dont want you to come this is a question you dont know. The narrator of primary colors knew the beginning of a guy who is sort of beginning to attach himself to the president ial candidate jack stanton says, hes trying to make a decision about whether to keep following vicki says anyway, i was curious. Thats a sentence that really struck me even though its pretty plain speech. In comparison and in relation to your career as a journalist. What is a journalist curiosity come from . Why do you, for instance, in payback which is what was going to start with, and payback you go back and talk to i think five veterans of Charlie Company and you want to know why. Well, in my case, this is a nice biographical question, it comes from having been a child of the 60s and kind of made my way through College Without ever going to college and graduated from College Without ever having learned anything except for one brilliant course but the history of the south. And i came out and i was angry about the war and is angry about segregation. And i started to write. Over time an incredible thing happened to me. I found the one action without and reported things, the results were not, didnt always conform with my preconceived notions. For example, i covered bussing in boston for the underground press for the real paper. You know if any of you remember that brilliant publication. [applause] one of the most talented staffs i ever worked with. And i couldnt find any like people who favored bussing. I would talk to these women, his these black woman at Columbia Point Housing Project and it say things like which is that the last four years try to get a Breakfast Program in this place and now theyre making our kids go off to civilize donkeys . And the fact is that 20 of Jeremiah Burke high school, the black high school, went on to college, and 4 of southie high, in fact southiegraduated more kids into the the marines than he did into college. And it seemed to me this was the beginning of my political education. That this was being imposed by liberals who did know anything about the working, poor people they were imposing this on. And so over time i just picked up things i wanted to know about. When russia was collapsing i went to russia. I did china. I did veterans because the notion of service has always been a huge thing in my life. And, in fact, charlie mike my most recent book is the one that probably of the seven ive written is closest to my heart but it was an educational process, thats all. So lets talk about, i mean, you have in your dossier three basic categories writing. One is a novel, one is a journalism reporting which you have just spoken about, and the third is column which is different from the other two obviously. Let me ask you how come since were here to talk about revealing power but also literature, how do those three different categories affect the way you write, do you feel different . I guess youre not writing fiction anymore what did you i am working on some now. Excellent. Didnt know that. I came from the underground press. I was Rolling Stones Washington Bureau chief in the mid70s, and it seemed to me the mood and from that to writing a column was a very natural thing, and also ive written a column for 30 years now, or thereabouts, but i never wrote it the way other people did. Chin and think deep thoughts. I had to go to afghanistan. I had to go to iraq. I had to go across this country many times talking to people. I had to go to tea party meetings. I had to actually see these things and experience them because of that First Experience in boston. More general way, the process of doing journalism and writing fiction are the exact opposite for me. Although both involve some research obviously, but in journalism i just report the hell out of something and i get the lead in my mind and a sit down and write the lead, and then i completely panic. With fiction writing, and this was especially true with primary colors come with a lesser extent the the running mate which was a semisequel to primary colors, i apologize i did read that book. Its the exact opposite. I have no idea what the characters are going to do next. And i sitdown totally panicked and then they Start Talking to each other. I once had a conversation with, i twice had a conversation with bill clinton about primary colors on ill tell you both of them before the end of go ahead right now. This one was, i said to him, you know, the deal was that the gimmick was going to be that he is going to lose, but he just wouldnt. I kept on throwing al all of the stupidest scanner somewhere out there at this character, xml he would wiggle his way out of there. He wrote me a wonderful note thanking me for my subconscious. [laughter] he said, i always knew you liked me. And the truth is that i did. Lets talk about primary colors for a second. I had the privilege of editing that book. I did not know who wrote it until the day before joes press conference, and i liked that fact. Lets i like the fact you thought i was lisa grunwald. I dont think that could be any higher praise that a male writer can receive than to be thought a woman. [laughter] [applause] very good. So lets not talk, i promise we will not talk about the anonymity of primary colors and the publication from the standpoint of stupid controversy. Let me ask you literary questions. Why did you decide to write it anonymously . There were three stages to this process. The first stage was cowardice and whimsy. The cowardice part is that sounds like a law firm. [laughter] it was a dickensian a law firm. My first two editors were named bob cutting and irving sheer. [laughter] but cowardice and whimsy, every last journalist thinks that they have a novel sitting in the brain, which is a really stupid conceit, because its just an entirely, entirely different thing. I didnt want to make a fool of myself, but also my wife and i, especially my wife who is best read person i know, loved 19th century english literature. Nobody put the name on anything back then. Jane austen was, it was pride and prejudice by a lady. The first semi, not the first, and early semitolerable political novel, democracy, was written anonymously by henry adams and his secret was in revealed until three years after he died. So that was the first part. Then the second part was the cowardice . No. The cowardice was i was afraid i would make a fool of myself. The second stage was things started happening to these characters. Things that i didnt expect. At one point in the second chapter, susan sten tells the story about jack stanton as a young politician that had absently no basis in reality. In fact, none of the dialogue and a book at any basis in reality. And i said where the hell did that, from . And then libby, my favorite character, my heroine, sixfoot lesbian with a mouth on her, suddenly appeared in a job that Betsey Wright had any campaign but i did know that you write. I had kathy bates in my mind when i wrote her. I would write during the day and i bring the pages up, down to victoria at night, the libby pages and she would start reading and laughing hysterically and saying where the hell did this come from . And i didnt know. I decided i wanted to have the book judged on its own merits rather than on my relationship with bill clinton i knew that if my name were on it it would not be treated fairly by my fellow journalists. And then the third stage was after it exploded, which none of us expected i did. You did . I did. And why did random house keep producing the printing week . Are you kidding . They couldnt keep up with it. After it was published. Because they didnt thats publishing for you. It got scary as hell. To have a feeding frenzy going after you. And when i became a target, we had two little kids are going to Elementary School and i said to victoria, i think i want to come up. She said no, no, no. No. I think that in the end i probably shouldve come out earlier, but there was a lot of fear going on. So thats why. Okay. How did you decide to take the voice of a young black political worker . What led to that choice of narrator . Well, it was an all my two Arthur Penn Warren who robert. Thats okay. Another anonymously. I say we give you a pass on that. Why black and why young . And the other most crucial part of this is that he was the most middleclass, uppermiddleclass character in the book, which i thought would be kind of ironic and hilarious. Blackness was in part because i had several people in mind, one of them was myself obviously. Another was george stephanopoulos, and the third was bill morton, who was in a two ron brown who was an aide to Ron Frederick was a wonderful smart guy who died in that plane crash. And years later, and this is happened to me sometimes with primary colors, a woman whod been dating bill morton came up to me and she said, how did you know that clinton had him come to an event in brooklyn and want him to be on staff . And i said i had no idea. It just, it just happened in the novel. It was in harlem. Did the choice of that narrator affect your voice . I mean, did you inhabit him . Did he inhabit you . Who knows . I mean, there was some you should. There was some kind of melding going on. I wrote the book on mondays, because you know, i was working at newsweek at the time and tuesday through saturday was the work week, and on saturday and sunday i was also doing commentary for cbs news. And i would sit down and all of a sudden it would be four hours later, and 5000 words wouldve been written. That is never happen to be before or since. Ive had some good days, but those days were kind of scary. And the active disappearing i think is a really important thing for all of us. I think that the purest state of intellectual nature is when you are so involved with what you are thinking about that you disappear, that you forget about your corporal existence. You use the word scary witches, you almost sort of glanced over it. I come in so far as i ever shared that experience, most of the writers i know would say the same thing. Its a little puzzling to me why its frightening. Do you have any ideas when you get in as they call it does so and you sort of forget yourself. Its not frightening while you are in the zone, but when you leave the zone is, the biggest fear is am i ever going to get there again . Can i come back . So i promised that we wouldnt talk about the controversy, so lets talk about the controversy. What do you say . Okay. What were your experiences going through that firestorm before, during and after . I mean, just talk about what it was like. It was a fabulous learning experience. It was incredibly painful but it was a fabulous learning experience. Guess i was just shocked. I was shocked by the anger. We did that first press conference, you and i shook hands for the first time. You hated me groucho glasses. I walked out and i said, i held them up and i said i guess i will be needing these anymore. The New York Times reported come subsequent that he gave the press Conference Wearing groucho glasses. There is nothing so humbling for a journalist as to be subject of news. Because i learned what slippery as souls most of my, many of my colleagues were. [laughter] you know, and the times, the times in particular, i mean, times has some of the greatest journals in the world especially those who i have covered wars with overseas and politics as well. But when it comes to social and cultural, there is really a lot of nonsense going on there. I mean, maureen dowd wrote three columns about primary colors e4 came out, and she said that we will know immediately who wrote it because of who the villains are. When mike nichols bought the movie, but the rights to the movie, he said the thing i liked most about this project is that there were no villains in this book which is why i wrote it. Which was a good part of my motivation. So i had that terrible press conference and that night random house put me up at the waldorf. We were up on the keep always been our summers, and at a certain point i couldnt sleep. I couldnt eat. I kept on Drinking Water and is going to the bathroom and are shaking uncontrollably. And i had this moment and i said, you know what you just experienced, joe . You just experienced an average day in the life of bill clinton. And its true, when you think about entering a press conference, i mean, it almost gives me enough, it almost watch it. Its almost enough to make me sympathetic with donald trump but i cant be spewing i knew thats where youre going. But its been then a very interesting thing happened. In the weeks after that i started getting phone calls from politicians. It has absolutely no ideological consistency. Some good friends like paul wellstone, dear kaunda wonderful , wonderful guy. John mccain on the right community, people from across the spectrum, you know, said to me we know what it feels like to be in the position you are in now. There were people who are trying to drive me out of the business, newsweek laid me off for a week, and then kay graham, bless her heart, called the up and she said how are you feeling . I said im pissed off, i want to write a column about welfare reform. She said youre in the magazine this week, im going to tell them that. All the politicians said the exact same thing. They said weve been through this, and he the way you get through it is go to work, get out there and start reporting about other people. And the final thing that happened was that i decided to change the rules of journalism. For me at least. I decided that i would have a new gotcha rule. That if a politician said something really stupid, that didnt involve, you know, a matter of life and death, national security, war and peace, and i would tell this to the if i were interviewing them for the first time on if you Say Something really stupid you can take it back. Because i really feel that, you know, politicians are no date in the park. I mean, but they are not as bad as we have come to portray them. If we want them to trust us and to tell us what they are really thinking, we have to make some concessions to them as well. And i thought at that point i had so much notoriety, i didnt need to make my name by saying Chuck Schumer said shit. It didnt, i didnt need to do it. I have upheld that principle ever since, and they have only called on themselves once or twice in the last 20 years. So lets talk about the elephant in the room, and, with regard to literature again. On this stage during the seminar, dont you like to call it a seminar and not a conference, not a festival spirit makes me feel academic. Weve heard people say that donald trump, and perhaps others like them, if there are any others, are not easy to sort of write about. That, for instance, to do, because he is so onedimensional, that he could not be jack stanton in primary colors. Do you share that feeling . I do although i am planning, im writing a novel that takes place in new york city in 1896, and im thinking of making, having a trump like character. Because i really do believe he is a figure from the. Before there was, you know, self observation, you know . I had one line in the running mate which was the unexamined life is not worth living with. [laughter] and i think about donald trump, that line comes to mind when i think about donald trump. The phenomenon of donald trump is something that we have seen in literature in the past. What was the movie with andy griffith, a face in the crowd . The demagogue, it can happen here, you know, the charming demagogue who has come a long and raped people, raped the public, is not unknown in america or overseas literature. In this case, well, let me tell you you know what, how about chinatown, the movie . Megalomania try to, but he is interesting. Thats the difference. In a way trump is, too. But only as i said a couple of days ago here, because of the quality of his misdirection, that whenever hes concerned, whenever he talks about sex, dont listen. See what else is going on because hes trying to lure you somewhere else. Can i just say that as i actually went around the country and talk to people, trump supporters, there were three reasons people voted for trump, and hillary was right. There were a basket of deplorable, just pure haters who are part of it, but im talking about other people. The rest of the people. There were three types. One were convinced he was going to get them a better job. The second or a job. Well know where the employee . Yeah, they were employed. With unemployment 4. 7 . 7 . I know the work force or registration rate is lord but thats because we are an aging population and im really sick of people saying that barack obama was a failure when he saved us from the second great depression. [applause] i know that was a slamdunk line. [laughter] the second type where people who were more comfortable with reality tv than with reality. They like the way he talked. They said he talks about arabs the way we do. Hes telling the truth. They key, i think that i missed that am really pissed off at myself about was when he slide john mccain very early on in the campaign, and his popularity ratings went up. We were all shocked. I realized that the reason why was that people would say well, thats a stupid thing to say but at least this guy speaks his mind as opposed to the focus Group Language that hillary uses, and that was the third reason. There are other awful lot of people out there who dont, who didnt like hillary, men and women alike, who felt that she was too staged and not, and not authentic. What was the question . Donna didnt give me that one. Im not sure i remember. When you, again, returning to the three kind of writing to do, that is fiction, reporting and column writing which i think the latter two are more distant from each other maybe then you do, do you, what are the common house among them . You already say . No, i didnt. The commonalities among them are that they all involve observation, obviously, and they all involve words. Theres nothing like a good sentence. Boy, is that the coolest thing. Every once and a while you may lay down what you say boy, i couldnt have done that any better. Usually you think, oh, god, why are these words not cooperating with me . All good sentences are alike. All bad sentences are bad each in their own way. [laughter] you have a great interest in folk music. Leader first book was a biography of Woody Guthrie. You and i sure not just a folk music. All music. All music. I think you said the other day that it was frightening or something, the music was scary or something. John bennett, my editor at the new yorker once said to me, music will really mess with your mind. And thing is that music has been huge part of my life because, and this was kind of at the basis of what this novel is about. My family exists at the intersection of politics and music. My grandfather on my fathers side was a jewish guy who kept the books or tammany hall, and i grandfather on my mothers side was a songwriter and played the drums for the dorsey brothers and other big band orchestras. When i survived scarlet fever at the age of four, which was no biggie because theyve been had penicillin which could like that, they got me and according and he started, he taught me how to read music before i read words. I always thought thats another thing. One of the things i love most about writing is creating rhythms. Its fun to do it in dialogue but its also fun to do it in a column. Do you think theres a connection between that love of music and, well, you just explained one thing, the commonality of tempo and sort of tone. But politically speaking, literarily speaking, your interest in folk music in particular strikes me as having a continuity with your interest in politics, strangely enough. Well, you know, i knew pete seeger and he was a real jerk. Im sorry, he was. And he once said its impossible to write a rightwing folksong. [laughter] thats not a jerky thing to say. I immediately said to him, okie from muskogee. Of course, one of the greatest honors of my life was that Merle Haggard, when he won the National Humanities award at the Kennedy Center honors was asked we want to have write a tribute to him, he said either Dolley Parton or joe klein. [laughter] and happily they said no, dolley is going to saying. Didnt he recant okie from muskogee . All, no, he didnt get what he did was he was stoned when he wrote it. It was a joke. They were driving in the bus. He then wrote fighting side of me which he did it for the money. You know, im a huge Merle Haggard fan. Im a huge Country Music fan as well as folk, singer songwriters, and yeah, i mean, when i will pay back, my second book, i saw that as i just written a biography of Woody Guthrie and it was about five guys and i saw that as five Woody Guthrie ballads in prose. So yeah, i was trying to tell a political story, just as he often did, and ever since then i have found, i and this is what i do dispute that column writing is different, there was a time back in the 80s when i was working for new york magazine, and andrew cuomo called me up, very funny. He said that mario and i had a father and son relationship which said such weird things about him and andrew and mario. He said you are so was cynical about politics, about politicians. Why dont ever write anything positive . I had always been kind of a romantic, but i said what . He said i have this welfare to work program up in the bronx, do you want to come see it . And i did, and it was great. It still exists. Its called help. From that day forward i decided that every month or two, just to clean my palette of politics, i would go and write about something that worked, something that i thought was really exciting. There are a lot of things, you know, there are answers to all of our problems out there. There are. Its unfortunate that Interest Groups of the right and the left prevented from thinking creatively about them. You know, i think you are one of the few journalists that i know of who, after an evolution of point of view and style, continues as you just said, go out there, especially with column writers. It seems to me, i wont pay you an accomplishment for immersing yourself in the world rather than an just in front of your computer, and i think that that sort of expresses itself. People, you know, very rarely will politicians tell me, Say Something interesting to me. Civilian say interesting things all the time. You know . Its bracing, its wonderful. Lets see what the civilians have to say, if there are any questions. I hope theres some time. This seems to me a particularly good person to ask questions of at this particular time. We can talk about politics as well as primary colors, as we have. I tried. I was very involved with primary colors, and i want to tell a onestory. I want to ask you about that. Anonymity thank you. You want to change chairs . Anonymity. So everybody at random house thought it was a terrible idea to have an anonymous author why . Nobody could tour. Nobody could do readings. Nobody could be interviewed. What is going on . I shared, because i was a graduate school dropout, shared joes great affection for anonymous writing as a literary tradition. And that was my very defeat reason really thinking this was a great idea. Lets read the book, not worry about who the author is. So we got, the reason those printing estimates without is your anonymity. Did you know that . No. Because you wouldnt come forward. I could tell a few people. I told my editor at newsweek because you had to tell him whenever you did a freelance project, and he read the book three months before came out, and he said joe, this is really funny. But you know, books like this never sell. That sums it up for publishing in general. Anyway, there was a panic. I mean, within the offices of what are we going to do . We dont have an author. Who is this person . After the book was published and after we couldnt find enough ranting presses to manufacture the books that were in demand and were actually ran behind, everyone took credit for the anonymity. [laughter] harry evans who is the publisher, you know, i have it on tape somewhere said oh, yes, we knew. I knew that would work very well. He was one of the people who is most consistent about trying to get an authors name on it. Publishing, like many businesses, is an exercise in a retroactive credit taking. [laughter] and i found that taking at again. Sorry. Can i, i promise the other clinton street which relates to this in some ways. At the end of his presidency, i was working for the new yorker and i decided to do a piece about what had actually been accomplished, because so much space had been spent on the scandals. Most of which i thought were nonexistent. Most of which turned out to be nonexistent. And so i started, like assistant secretary level in even people across the government, what did you do . What did you do . I was in the white house and clinton summit and he said i know what youre doing, i want to be part of it. So we did a series, and long series of interviews. A piece was eventually 22000 work and it became my book, the natural which is out there in the back, and the first thing we did was two hours on health care and welfare, and one of the reason why i glommed onto them into first place was he was a one stop Shopping Center for policy. I would read an article about someone whos an interesting things in Public Housing in omaha and i would call them up and down in arkansas and he was a that guy is pretty good, but you have to see the guy in tacoma, you know. Unbelievable. So we had this passionate discussion for two hours about health care and welfare reform. And hillary walks and afterwards and were all having a diet coke, and hes feeling great. You know, you can always tell when he was just feeling great, that someone got a bit and he said why did you write that book anyway . And i said, mr. President , i always thought as attribute a largerthanlife politicians i always saw it which point the first lady snorted derisively. [laughter] and i said, first lady, would you rather have a largerthanlife president or a smaller than life president . And at that point she was looking at the prospect of two human beings she absolutely despise, george w. Bush and al gore being bill clintons successor. So she shrugged. And i said, largerthanlife politicians of largerthanlife strengths and largerthanlife weaknesses. And she looked at me and then she looked over at him and she started to laugh and she said, thats for sure. [laughter] please. Sorry about that. Not actually, that was a good story. I was a clinton, president clinton appointed ambassador and a been in and out of government as a load all my adult life. Thank you. Thank you. I want to applaud your know got to rule and i wish that would be universally applied. That could make a big difference. My question is this. Youve talked a lot about the way you pull together information for primary colors, but did you use your Investigative Journalism background to inform yourself for the book . I swear i know people who must have contributed to your. No. I did the research at all. I mean, my research was having covered, you know, having covered clinton or number of years and having known it. And what happened was i was having a drink with a friend in washington, a place where only lived in the mid 70s. I didnt, i felt it was, you know, that i would become a prostitute if i had to have dinner with these people all of the time. And i was having a drink with a friend who was in the administration and she said to me these people are a novel. You know, i didnt have to do any more research than that. There you go. Anyone else . Yes. Politics is the art of the possible, and i wonder if you would bring your perspective to whats going on today. We were lucky to have robert caro here tell us about it president who did an enormous amount of research in order to apply his agenda to what he wanted to accomplish. I cant i tend to think of the presidency as a linear. Have we taken a turn and when we come back, or is this, rather than vacillate every eight years, we tend to go left and chemical right and michael met and we come back. Is this different . There was a piece in the wall street journal on saturday arguing that it is different. And my honest answer is, dont know. I mean, you know, someone asked me about the Rex Tillerson hearings and the said he sounded pretty good. He sounded kind of mainstream conservative. He isnt going to get us blown up i dont think, and he was reasonable on most of his answers, you know. I agree with some, disagree with others at if a grant to be prepared for the fact that we may be looking at a successful presidency here in the minds of the people. I mean, the jawboning that he did with those companies, and i know a number of jobs were small, is very popular with our people. And should be. John kennedy did the same thing with the steelmakers. And i think trauma has sent a really Important Message to american corporations that will make them think twice before they leave. Im horrified by him as a human being and what he represents. I think that, as i said the other day, you know, i named the character in primary colors after this concept, the governor of new york. Machiavelli said tokyo is the greatest enemy of our republic. What is that . Its indolence. What machiavellian was writing about was how to keep a republic coherent when it is not at war . Well, i am a 70 and during the past 70 years weve had the greatest experiment in human history. Weve had some bad times, but the prosperity is unparalleled pic with had, we had a scary cold war but none of the words that we actually fought have been existential. And during that time we developed all of these other ways to entertain ourselves. And you know, if this is a golden age of anything its the golden age of marketing. Marketing is fundamentally unamerican. Because the founding principle of this country is that the things that we have in common as human beings no matter where it came from or look like or belief are more important than the things that divide us to the fundamental principle of marketing is you sell to the niche, and weve not had the thousand channels of nothing and we have 1 million new outlets, most of them are sitting in the pajamas in the basement. And during that time i think that weve lost the habits of citizenship. We have read tribal lysed ourselves. My daughter was a member of the espn tribe. Im kind of at cspan kind of guy, and im not saying that because and i wonder, worry about our coherence as the country as i said the other day that weve been trying to do democracy without citizens. You cant come and thats just not going to work longterm. So im really worried about the impact that this guys could have on future politician. So they ought to think that the obnoxious in order to succeed. Im afraid theres a whole generation of kids coming up who learned a lesson from that election. The other thing is this. I had this thought the other day that isnt quite so terrible. I was watching Howard Schultz, the president of starbucks gift a speech pic and i said to myself, all the shit, that guy is running for president. And i think that in the past weve had a child support, right . No. No. He is there is a surprising, successful chain store owner who is a trump supporter. No. Howard schultz is exact opposite. Howard schultz makes sure his baristas can get college funding. He is working right now on a really interesting Public Service project. Ive tried to convince him that given the state of bookstores in this country, except for the independent ones, that he should open a chain of starbucks picked because he wanted star books. He wanted to last book charlie mike, and i realize in the past weve had in the Democratic Party the working class and intellectual class, the beer track and the wine track. And i think that in 2020 we will have the beer track and the champagne track, that people like Howard Schultz and mark cuban and other performer ceos may be throwing their hats into the ring. We will see whether thats a good or a bad thing. Are there other questions . Yes. I came to the microphone because i suspect that may not be the only person in your u. S. Forgotten the particulars of all the controversy that followed when you were, when you admitted you are the author of primary colors. I remember the speculation about who might have written it, but what happened that cause you to be suspended from newsweek for a week and all of that controversy . Im tempted to say cowardice and wednesday, but indicates that newsweek it certainly was cowardice. And both kay and don graham were appalled by that decision. But what happened was that an awful lot of journalists thought it was a lie because i denied writing it. You know, its an interesting existential question, but if youre writing an anonymous novel, by feeling was, now, first of all if anybody had gotten hurt by the book or hurt by the speculation, i wouldve come out. There was a moment early on when the focus shifted to paul begala whos a very sweet guy, and very, very loyal to the clintons. I did want to see paul get hurt but happily, paul is a clever guy and able to talk his way out of it in like 30 nanoseconds. But there were an awful lot of journalists who people on the left thought was an attack on the clintons. I was equally appalled. I went to a Republican Convention in 1996. I went to a party hosted by the national review, which is a rightwing publication i was toasted as this hero, and tilly, how much of it is true . I said none of it. But theres an awful lot of journalists who mistook fiction writing for journalism since i was able, i am able to do both. I want to once again come back to the New York Times. There was, and this is what really pieces people off about us, about journalists. At a certain point i was sued by a librarian in harlem who thought that she was the character of the library in the first chapter who winds up in bed with jack bed with jack stanton. She sued me for 120 million, and i thought, why not a billion, you know . And i said, i said, you know, the lawyer said you cant say anything. I didnt know the woman. I had never seen the woman. There were photos of the event that she claimed to be part of and she wasnt in any of them. And the New York Times editorialized against me, rent oped pieces against me misreported, reported that i did a press Conference Wearing groucho glasses. It was a huge, huge, or as donald would say huge, controversy. You know, and all these pious things written by journalist had joe klein is finally getting his comeuppance for what, having entertained a Million People . A million and a half actually. [laughter] put a word in for your, a least a little for your publisher. We did print some books. [laughter] and and 33 other countries as well. So we go to discovery proceedings. The case gets laughed out of course, and the times doesnt print one word. Not a word, to this day. And you know, you talk to politician about what this is them off about journalists, most, its that when they accused of something and they didnt do it and we dont note it. Cant i just rant one second about benghazi or are we out of time . We have some time but i want to get in one word diagnosis which differs radically from yours. I think they were terribly jealous. Well, maybe so. Im sure some were. Theres nothing, theres nothing so pious as a journalist scorned, you know . We are so, i mean, the things that ive written in my life that i most embarrassed about was when i got up on my high horse and he tried something. Because there arent any horses high enough, you know . To do that. You can talk about benghazi not if there are more questions. Anybody else . Were out of time. That was wrong speakers can we take one question and then, then i will do benghazi spee. How is hillary . I dont know. And im not going, you know, im sure that she will get in contact at a moment that she wants to. And at this point i dont know that i would want to talk to her because, i remember i talked to bill about right after he left office, and you just dont want to listen to two hours about the marc rich pardon. You just dont. As for benghazi, legs and on this spirit i watched the Republican Convention and i watched this woman up there and accuse Hillary Clinton of being a murderer, of murdering her son. He was one of the nav navy seal. I saw this widely reported. I saw, i talked to some my friends at fox i think fox news had a very good year actually, if you eliminate hannity. I think they ran the best. And i said why dont you guys ever tell the truth of benghazi . You know, i couldnt get a straight answer. And heres what the truth is. Amy, have you ever heard of a temporary consulate before in your life . The temporary consulate in benghazi was a fig leaf. It was a front for the cia annex. The cia ran security there. The cia, led by one of my mentors, david petraeus, provided the talking points that poor susan rice was inflicted with. Hillary clinton had absolutely nothing the state department subset absently nothing to do with benghazi. Ive written in this like three times, and yet this myth is perpetuating. I guess this is a depressing way to end this, but this is what i most scared about. I am most scared about the fate of the truth. You know, i can criticize hillary about an awful lot of things, an awful lot of policies, but the idea that someone could have that happen to them in this country where you are accused of murdering people and yo yet nothing to do with it, and the press doesnt call those people on it used to be the most terrifying thing out there right now. [applause] will thank you. Thank you all very much. I will be signing books out back. Me, too. Spirit we will both be signing books out back. We have book signings spirit we have joe klein, Daniel Menaker spewed a look at some of the current bestselling nonfiction books according to indie bound, a group of independent bookstores who are members of the american booksellers association. [inaudible conversations] good afternoon. Welcome to the cato institute. My name is john samples. And Vice President and publisher here at the cato in the two and i have looked forward to some