captioning sponsed by publicffairs television >> this week on "bill moyers journal." >>oyers: the crash of ¡29nd the collapse o'08, what have learned? >> it could haveeen prevented. the people iauthority two, three, five yes ago knew how to prevent it. they choseot to act because they were getting a polical and an economic benefit ouof the speculative plosion that was curring. >> mers: economist james k. galbraith on then and no and, rememring william f. buckley jr. >> he changethe climate of opinion in arica. he me conservative ideas respectable. >> moyers: and facinthe truth in afghanistan. stayuned. >> fr our studios in new york, ll moyers. >> moyers:elcome to the journal. americans are mad at banke. just googlthe three words "i hate banks," and see wt comes . but nowhere s the anger been morealpable than outside the annualonvention of the american bkers association in chicago this week. >> we're fired up, can take no more! we're fired upcan't take no more >> moys: these demonstrators wanted to kn why regular folks are facing foreclores, rising credit card and checkingees, while bankerare laughing all the way... wel all the way to the bank. >>e're fired up, can't take no more we're fireup, can't take no more >> moyer they protested wall street's outrageous bonus, subsided with trillions-- and i do mean trilons-- of taxper dollars, after their reckless gaming with other peop's money brought down the economa year ago. there's some historical iry in the timing othis meeting and the protts. 80 years a this week, on october 29, 29, the stock marketrashed, bringing the roaring twentieso a screeching halt. the aring twenties-- that era of flappers, bathtub ginand dancing ¡til dawn, of reckless speculation and living it while raki in money from the stk market and buying on credit as if there were no torrow. the ultimate jgment came from al capone, theity's celebrated gangster. the market's "a racket," h said. "those stockarket guys are crooked." ack tuesday, as the crh was called, saw already-shaky shes plunge 25% ijust two days. fortunes were wiped out in minutes and small instors saw dreams oprosperity, even serity, disappear. as the wks and months went by, the nation slipped deeper d deeper intthe abyss of the great depreson. all these years ter we're still arguing over what brout the hard times. if y want to join the argumentyou need to start with this classic: "t great crash, 1929" byhe noted economist johnenneth galbraith. first publisd in 1955, it has never been out of prt, in part because its analysis is prcient and, excuse the exprsion, on the money. a new edition isut, as timely as today's headles. and itomes with a new introductiony another noteworthy econost, james k. galbith. that'sight, the son of john kenneth. mes k. galbraith, onetime exutive director of congress' joint economic committee teaches economics at the universityf texas, where he holds the lloyd m. bents chair at the l.b. school of public affairs. he also dires the university's inequalityroject, which analyzes wes and industrial change around the worl his own seven bos include this one, "the predator ste: how conservatives andoned the free market and why libals should too." james galbrah, welcome back to the journal. >> thank you vy much. >> moyers:ow does this last year compa with what happened after the grt crash in '29? >> it's similar in iortant respects and different in hers. if you lk at the trends in world trade and manucturing, they're ry similar. there's been a massive collapse, a coapse which is comparable in scale to 1930. the overall economy hasn'tome down nearly as much, and t reason for thais that we have the instutions that were eated in the new deal and th great sociy, institutions of e welfare state, social security. and, ocourse, there has been the influence of john maard keynes, which gaves the very quick reaction in e form of the pansion bill of the stimulus package. and that alshas kept the damage from beinas large as it s in 1930 to '32. so what we're seeing tod is distss of a different kind. and i think it's playi out on a long timeframe. the great wealth that th american middlclass built up over 70 ars, largely in their mes, has been terrifically impaired in many cas, wiped out. people are upside down in eir mortgages. their mortgages are woh more than the houses at they live in. and that doesn mean that they're going toefault or millions will be forlosed, but many millions moreimply can't sell, cat move, can't change their circumstances, don't he a cushion. and at is a factor that will bring stressnto their lives over te. >> moyers: a long ti, right? >> over a long tim yes. >> moys: ...not something from which people recov. i mean, my fher was about 24, maybe, at the time of the great crash of 1929, ande ver recovered from it for th rest of his life he never got over that experience. is tt likely to be the case withll these people suffering out across t country now? >> the same s true of my andfather on my mother's sid whwas a lawyer whose practice dended upon the prosperity of e 1920s. my motr, who lived until last year, ver really overcame the attitudes that we inculcated in her in the great pression. it will ve a... if something is not de to provide particularlyoung people, who are looking for wo and cannot find it, wh an opportunity to move on in life at this stag itill mark them for the rest of their lives. i think there's no doubt aut that. >> moyers: the "w york times" had a story justhe other day about community colleges bng sorowded right now that they're holding classeup until two o'clk in the morning. what dyou make of that? what does that s to you? it says that first of all, peopleannot find jobs. and secondly, they a looking the educational system to pride them with something to do, and some way out othis dilemm t until jobs are created, an in gat numbers, there will not be places r those people to come out of the communit college system andind useful work. that's the problem. we have a stimus package, which is helping now, but will be over with the end of next year. willhere be a basis for anothestrong, privately financed expsion at that point? i don't see e evidence for that now. anthat seems to me to be something wehould be worrying out. >> moyers: so what shod we do? >> wneed to find another path for economicxpansion. we need to set atrategic direction. our problem now, our b social and enviroental problem, is energy. it's clima change. it's the greenhouse gaemission ise. ife built a set of stitutions that could deal th that problem effectively, you could ploy a large part of the labor foe for a generation dealing withhat. and you'd en make that profitle for private terprise to get into in a serious way. >> moyers:he candidate obama talked a lotbout this green ergy in the campaign. and he's talked lot about it since he becampresident. do youee signs that those aspirations are being implemente in institutional ways >> they made a start, and certainly inhe stimulus paage, there were important initiatives. but e stimulus package is framed as a stimus, as something whh is temporary, which will go ay after a couple of years. and that is not the wato preed here. the ovwhelming emphasis, in the administration's programi think, has bn to return things to a condion of normalcy, to use a 1920s word, at prevailed five and ten years ago that is to say, we'rback to a world in whi wall street and the major bas are leading, and settg the path... >> moyers: to restore whatas. >> to restore what w... >> moyers: inste of reform wh is. >> and i don't thinkhat was can be restore >> moyers: and you say that' the obctive of the adminiration's policies? geithner, bernanke, summer the esident himself? >> to the extent that thers a defined objecte, that's it, ye i think the immediate day-to-day work, ty've largely been preoccued with keeping the exisng system from collapsing. and the government is powerf. it has subantially succeeded at that, but you reay have to think about, do you want to ve a financial ctor dominated by a all number of very large institutions, veryifficult to manage, practically impossle to regulate, anduled by, essentially, the same peop and the same cture that caused the crisis in the rst place? >> moyer well, that's what we're getting, becau after all of the mgers, shakedowns, losses of the last year, you have five monster financia institions really driving the system, rit? >> and they're highly profitable, and they a already paying, in some cases, extraordinary bonuses. and you ve an enormous problem, as the public sees ry clearly at a very small number of people reallyave been kept afloat by public actio and yethere is no visible benefit to peoplwho are looking for jo or people who e looking to try and save their houses or to sehow get out of a catastrophipersonal bt situation that they're in >> moyers: but when presiden obama came intoffice, people said, "this is aooseveltian moment. this is a moment tseize a cris and do what f.d.r. did." how do you... hodo you trace the comparis in the last 40 weeks, of obama with rsevelt? >> well, the public way ahead of the political system. the public certain wanted a roeveltian moment. the congress, the washington press corps, wanted a turn to their famili patterns of activi. ani'm not saying... the congress did, in fact,espond quicy on the stimulus package, but in gener, they're always more cfortable dealing with the issues they knowthan framg ideas, with respect to new challenges. and so, obama's objective situatn is much more like herberhoover's than it is like roevelt's. >> moyers: whado you mean? >>n the sense that roosevelt was... when roosevelcame in, in march, 1933, and there re chine guns nests on the roofps of washington for the inaugural pade, everybody knewthe banks were closed, everyby knew that you needed imdiate action. roevelt's cabinet was sworn in on the fir day. he had initiatives ready to . this was not theituation that faced president ama, by any stretch. >> moyers: suppose that your father were around todayand '08 had happened, the grt collapse. do you think he mighhave said, "a-ha. told you so" >> he d say, "i told you so," in this book, in.. >> moys: "the great crash"? >> ...in "the great ash." he tked about the conditions under whicit would recur, and he said, "no one can dbt that the americaneople remain susctible to the speculative mood, to t conviction that enterise can be attended by unlimited rewards which they, indivially, were meant to share. a rising market can still ing the reality of riches. the vernment preventatives and controls are rdy. in the hands of determined gornment, their efficacy cannot be doubted. there are,owever, a hundred reasons why a govement will determe not to use them." anthat's the point about the crisis, is that it could he been prevented. the people iauthority two, three, five years ago, knehow to prevent i theyhose not to act, because they were tting a political and an enomic benefit out of thspeculative explosion that waoccurring. >> moyers: you mean, theeople who could have prevented theam from breaking were too by fishing above itand reaping big rewardto want to fix the crack in it? >>ure. the federal resee, in rticular, knew that the dam was cracking. al greenspan, i think, almost surely knew th, and chose to wait until it had wash away. >> moyers: why? >> they let all of this n, because they were getting perficially stronger economy out of it. thownership society, all that was a scam, basilly, designed to lure peop who could never afford theseortgages into acceptg them. and yes, i think they, any rational person, certaly people in the instry, knew that this s not going to last. there s a little industry code, i've learn, i.b.g.y.b.g. "i'll be gone. you' be gone." >> moyers: reall >> yeah. >> moyers: the industrbeing e securities industry? >> well, and the mortgage originators d the bankers, generay. >> moyers: but tt's criminal frau >> oh, sure. there was huge amount of it. the bush ainistration did not actively investigate the fra that ty knew, that the f.b.i. ew was occurring, from 2004 onward. and there willave to be full-scale investigaon and cleaning up ofhe residue of thatefore you can have, i thk, a return of confidence in the financial seor. and that's a process wch needs to get underway. >> mers: the perplexing question tme is whether or not you can rerm a system that is so infiltratedy the monefrom the people who are benefitg from what's going on, o have a vested interest, andse their moy to promote that vested intere to make sure nothing changes. >> i think you can i think the lais powerful. i think you cannot legalize financial frd. you cannot ful conceal the tracks of financial fraud. you have to put the resoces in toncover it. you have to prosecutit. you have to give approprte punishments, but we have system, in this country,or doing that. it is a queson of a decision to use t judicial resources that we have tclean up the system. >> moyers: timothy geithner wants to provi a per-regulator to keep those big five firms iline. will that rk? >> n it will not work. the super-regur will not be able to control those institutions. and prably will make all of the mistes that the, if it's the federal rerve, that the federal rerve made in the run- to the last crisis. >> moyers: und greenspan. >> yes, because the prrities of the fed arelways going to be with e larger problem of ecomic growth, monetary licy. the cuure is dominated by its economists. the regulatorsre down in the hierarchy. so it y have the authority, but in 1929 it will, in the crunch, choose noto use it. i think wh you have to do is to aim to reduce the market power of the enormous, strategically, stemically dangerous stitutions. and the way too that is by re-imposing so internal barriersthe glass-steagall separaon of commercial and investment banking. and by resolvi, auditing and resolving the institutionshat are really cse to failure. those institutio, if they're taken ouof the picture, that would permit smaller ban who did not get caught uin this dreadful business, tgrow into their market roles. d you would have a more competitive and healthr financial systemas a result. >>oyers: but as you speak, congress iwatering down the leslation proposed to regulate the tings agencies that were such a part of the problem. >> wl, the fact that there is lobbying going on, from fincial institutions that were only yesterday bailed ouby the taxpayeris just egregious. it's an outrag and i know the admintration has said this. and i applauthem for having said it, but the political position of the nks, to me, is just totly unacceptable. the public was obliged to reue them. it is not eir role, now, to be trying to tell congreswhat shape and direction of t refo should take. is really should be out of their hands entirely >> moyers: so you can unrstand thatnger on the streets, outsidthe american bankers associatn's meeting in chicago this wee >>f course. it's eirely justified. >> moyer where do you think that anger might go? it could go eith direction. >> well, of course. i mean, that's the gre danger, ishat if there is not a construcve program that people can entify with, there will be a destctive program that they ll identify with. and it will come along qte soon. and what forit will take, and it's anybody's guess, buthe result will be, very well cod beisastrous. >> mers: so we're not out of the ods yet. >>o, not by any means. i thk we're in an extremely dangerous period. and which, as i said, evybody can see that a few, ve small number of ople have come out of this. and they cannot see w this is bringi any benefit to their own lives. it'sot saving their houses. it'sot providing them with jobs. >> moyers: is our stem so vulnerable that thiss going to ep happening, '29, the savin and loan scands in '89, and nothe great collapse of '08. >> it's clr that it's vulnerable and that this ia cyclical problem. is is something which comes back after a few dades, cause... >> moyer because we forget? >> bause people forget, and because when theystem succeeds, then y build up prosperous institutions anthey start bbying. they say, "everythg's fine. things are going wel" and they start lobbyinfor a relaxation of the rules. so youave... it's never going to go away. but you want to have tse 20, 30, 40ear periods when you have relatively stab growth. and when you're focud on achiing a certain goal, you n eliminate poverty. you can deal witthe environmental quesons. you can, in fact, this if you can sustain a course of pocy for, let's saya 30 or 40-year period. that... and then you may have strongnstitutions which can cay you even further. soal security, for example, is a nice example. it kee the elderly population of the countryargely out of poverty. if i had onehing i could add to theealth care debate, i would lower the age of igibility of medicare, say, 55 anthe reason for that is that would help workers who are only hanging onto their jo because they don't want to le their medil benefits, to move out of t labor force. and there e a fair number of the, and it's a fairly heavy burden on the business secr. so what you want to do, u want to cree jobs. but you've got to recognize. we've lo 7 million jobs. many of thosare older workers, and the jobs thayou create, you want tgive the first crack athose jobs to people who have started their careers. you want to get themnto the work for. >> moyers: young peoe. >> young people,ure. let oldepeople, you know, some of the anyway, a fair number of tm, pass to retirement comfortably, aittle earlier thanhey otherwise would. i mean, you've got to think about every ssible way to make getting through this crisis torable for the population. cognizing that a year, even two years from now, were not ing to be through it. the official forecas say we're not going too back to 5% unemployme till 2014. >> moyers: the headle this week. "recession unofficially en as onomy grows." >> that meanwe're at the bottom. but from thetandpoint of the population, the ttom is going to go on for a long time. >>oyers: didn't you recommend recely that anybody who wants a job should be able to t a job, paid $8 an ur or someing like that? >> i tnk it's a very sensible idea whnot have a large job core involving, among other this, ighborhood conservation efforts,r health home care efrts or... moyers: shades of the new deal, right? of course. of course. >> moyers: but when yotalk li that, you immediately bring chillso the back of the deficit hawks, who s, "wait a minute. we can't afford too what we're doing now. we're putting it all oour grandchildren's credit card. hocan jamie galbraith be arguing for more deficit spendingow?" >> with all respt to the deficit wks, they don't understand theituation. and they don't know wh they're talking abt, in terms of feral finances. the united states is aarge and powerful country. and itan, if it chooses, employ its work forcin a useful way. but the point would make about jobs programis that the alternative is not snding nothing. e alternative is keeping peoplen the dole, the term roosevelt hated. >> moyers: a lyndon johnson hated... >> and lyndon johnn, keeping them othe dole, which is costly but it's also bilitating to those people. and you don't get anytng out of it, frothe standpoint of the country. the obstacle he is not fiscal, federafinance. the federal governme can finae what it wants to finance. it's, as i say, the st powerfulinancial entity in the world. the problem here i orgazational. it's a matter of wl. it a matter of creating appropriate instutions that e in the public sector, and incentives ithe private sectorto get certain jobs done. when you approach it wh that frame of min we wouldn't be asking aut the budget deficit. we'd be asking abo the unemployment re. 'd be asking about how we're doing in getting down, meeng our energy a our environmental goals. >> moyer so what is the fundamental queson, the one question you think all of us should be thinking abo right now? >> where do we want to be 30 years time? how do we get there? it's not a questn of how do we return to full emploent prosperity in five years but how we sve the fundamental problems that we face,n a way which giveus a generation of steadyrogress. and ving standards that people can accept, that they'll le with, that they'll be hay with, while at the same time achieving sustainabilitynd reestablishi the american positions a leading and responsible untry in the world. so that we are deloping the technologies and the pctices that otherountries will then opt, something which we have done vereffectively for a century, but which we are certainly not ing now. >> moyers: i wanto show you somethinthat resonates with what you're sang. i've been looking at ifor a while now. it's an excet from a speech that frankn delano roosevelt made in 1944, in the mst of war, a speech that not my people have en, but take a look at is excerpt. >> in our day certaieconomic truths have beco accepted as self-evident. a secondill of rights under which a nebasis of security d prosperity can be tablished for all regardless of station, or race, or cree among these are:he right to a useful and remunerativjob in the industries or shops farms or mines throughout the naon. the right earn enough to provide adeqte food and clothing and recreation. the right of every farmer raise and sell his produs at a return which will ve him and his family a decent living the right ofvery businessman, large ansmall, to trade in an atmohere of freedom, freedom om unfair competition and domination by monolies at home or abroad. the right ofvery family to a decent home. the righto adequate medical care and the opportuni to achieve and joy good health. the right to adequate otection from theconomic fears of old age, sickness, accident and unemoyment. the right a good education. all ofhese rights spell security. and after thisar is won, we must be prepar to move forward in themplementation of these rights to new goals of han happiness and we-being. for less there is security here at home, the cannot be lasting peace inhe world. >> moyers: what doou think about listening to that? >>t's wonderful. it's splendid. it defined what we shoulhave achievedn the last 50 years and inany ways, what we still needo achieve. it's a test. it's a test for the country a whe, as to whether we have the capacity to state and puue a truly publicurpose. we've come through a geration where have really denied the existence of a commogood or a public purpose. d i think we've recognized that that path leads t collapse, the collse that we've seen. and that theay out is to somehow reestablish for ourselves thisision of what we really could be. >> moyers: james k. garaith, thank you for beg with me again on the journal. >> my pleasure. >> wgot sold out! >> moyers: after our ierview, james galbraith and i talked about how his famo father, as liberal a democr as i've ever met, bame very close friends with the icon of the moder consvative movement, the late wiiam f. buckley jr. they had debat each other on buley's influential talk show, "firing line," which ran on puic television stations for 28 years. he left, i promised james a copy of this newook, "right time, right place: coming age wi william f. buckley jr. and the consertive movement," by richard brookhise when richard brookhiser waa teenager in upate new york, he and his familyere fans of buckley'show, and in 1969, unhappy at the protests, his classmates wermounting against richard nixon and the wain etnam, the young brookhiser decided to protest the prost. he wrote an article d sent it off to the "national revie" that influential cservative magazine founded and editeby buckley, whom brookhiser kne only from telesion. yocan imagine his surprise and delight wheneveral months lar, the article showed up on "national reew's" cover, a day after brookhiser's 15th birthday. that precocious beginng lached richard brookhiser on a prolic career. firsat buckley's side and then as t author of several claimed books on our foundin fathers, incding george shington and alexander hamilton. he was last here othe journal discussing the lifand legacy ofhomas paine. richard brkhiser, welcome back to the journal. >> thanks for having me. >> moyers: what wathe right time a the right place? >>ell, for me, it was 1969 and shortly thereafter and it was thexcitement of discering the conservative movement. which my family did rough "firing line." >> moyers: ithat right? watching? >> that was the firstime we were aware of bill buckl, was the tv show. then my father bought one his books, his third book, "uprom liberalism." and then we subsibed to the magazine. so thawas how we got in the slip stream. and then i, as you said, had the good forne to send him a piece which he decid to publish. so, you know, he was the thri of being a kid who loved to write and he's this guy, who's a great writer, anhe says, "i like yourtuff. i'm gointo publish it." was just like getting a arge directly from the maste >> moyers: you are not t only one who s said, of that period, that it s a pivotal moment in r political and intellectual history. what made it s >> a post-pression, post-war liberal conssus was finally ming apart, was beginning to come apart. world war iiad been won, obviouy, by an exertion of the government. and the depression seemed have been ended by the exertns of the goverent. and there was a nsensus that this was theay that we should address all oufuture problems. and that we couldo it successfully by bringing, u ow, the best thoughts, and then the powers of the state to bear upon them. but, in the late '60s, f a lot of rsons, the war in vietnam, racial troles that the civil rights bills didn't se to be able to address. people all across e spectrum began having dbts. and many of them were the right. and that was really the ment that conservativcriticisms of this consensus began to ge traction. >> moyers: you beg the book with thelat assertion, "wilam f. buckley changed the rld." how so? >> i think he did becaushe changed a climate of onion in americ he made consertive ideas respectable. and the y he did that was by making sure presented them at e highest level. you know, whether heas doing it himself, orhether his magane was doing it, and he also did it very aggreively, especially if he felt he w being shown diespect. and that was somhing... moyers: give me an example at. what do you mean? >> well, arthur schlesinger ., the great historian... >> moyers: liberal. >> ...and a liral man alhis life. and and bill were tussling about something or other, an schlesinger wrote him a lett. and, in passing, he sa, "'naonal review,' or the 'national enquir,' or whatever you call your gazine." well, bill was jusnot going to let that ps. so, when he wrote back, said, "now, arthur, suose i began a letter, 'dear arthuror dear barf, or whatever you call yourself.'" and that just to call a pulitzer prize winner torder d say, "look, we can have a debate. but if you want to, ke, call names, il do that too. i'll do it as ll as you." >> moyers: i alws thought that the man o defined his mission as standing athwart history yelling, "st," was something of a utopian. was he? >> yes. >> moyers: becau history can't be stopped. history, that's not nare's to give. of course, that's right. now, bl, you know, bill had contradictory impuls, as do we all. helso often quoted a line of ittaker chambers, whom he admired maybe more thaanyone else andhambers said, "to lose to meuver." and bill always, he quotedhat line many, many mes. and you know certain battl are lost, and they're st forever. but you don't just thego home and say, "oh, the heck wh it. the heck with the world." you have tbe out there doing the most you c. and then also, surprisiny, sometimes battles you wrote f it turns out youan win them. for instance, the fall of e berlin wall in 19. who would have thoughthe "national revi" actually did run a covewith a picture of lenin and the glass being smashed righat the beginning of thayear. t that was, you know, that w a kind of, almost, a whimsic cover of ours. and, yet, then, in989, the berlin wall lls. so sometimes those old bates do e in victory. >> moyers: he couldn'ttop history. but, if he could have,e would have stopped theivil rights movement, right? i mean, i still ha... >> early on. >>oyers: i still have some of his columns whe, he not only defended segretion, 1959, but he defended ite supremacy. heaid, "the white community is entitled to prail politically because, for the time bein anyway, the leers of american civilizaon are white." >> tt's what he thought in the late '50s. he came to see that that w wrong. and he said that he had been wrong. now, to his credit, he was n sayinghat for reasons of innateacial superiority, or at blacks were innately racially ierior, which many southeers were saying. that w sort of a cultural argument. i thk it was, nonetheless, it was wrong. and it was wrong for h to have made it. but, you know, so that's an eay position that he had, and at he abandoned as the '60s went on. >>oyers: i was struck, in the late '90s, when ckley called for decriminalizing marijuana. i mean, he published an edion of his magazine announcing t war drugs is lost. what led him to that cclusion? because th was not in line with theonservative philosophy of the day. well, he has been thinking about the ug problem, serisly, since the mid '60s. i mean, as early as 19, when he r for mayor of new york. and he had... moyers: when he was asked wh would happen if he won, he said, "i'd demd a recount." >> he also saihe'd put nets outside the windows ofthe new york tes" to catch the editors jumpg out. but he made some sort anti-drug proposal during at race. and lton friedman sent him a postcard, you kn, with sort of a libertarian critique, yo know, "waron drugs are futile." and on. and th was a problem that bill wrestl with. and he jt saw, over the years, he ce to see that resources were being wasted this. it was a combination of the futili of it, and at a certain level,he injustice of it because forcement has to be so capricious you kn, some people get it in the neck. othepeople go blithely along. and so that's why he wro that issue d printed that issue. >> mers: just the other day on your blog, you saluted predent obama for deciding n to prosecute olations of federal laws again pot in those states where medical rijuana is permitted. what appealed to you abo that? >> i think it was a recognitn of the politic reality that in 14 states,tate laws have been ssed to lift the penalties o mecal use of marijuana. now,his is something i had to do myself. i had cancer in 1992. and one ing marijuana can do is relieve t nausea that's often an effect of cmotherapy. that's a hobby horse of min i think it's a very impoant issue. and voters in 14 statehave taken that position. now, federal lawrevails over those state laws. but what president obama dided wawe will not use our resources ofaw enforcement to osecute medical users in ates where the state laws allow em to do that. >> moyers: and you wrote, "l and order is not served by paing laws that bring the system into coempt. liberty is not serveby inserting the ate between patients and their doctors and morality is not serv by withholding help from the si." >> well, one of ththings i was stru with when i was going througchemotherapy is that every ctor and nurse i dealt withad had patients who had used medical mijuana. everyone of th. and none of them hadiscouraged this. but, of course, u know, you can't prescribe it. it's illegal. so they said, "well,ou know, smokit in the bathroom of your room. don't,ike, do it out in the hall." and that just struck me a crazy situation. >> moyers: buckley was a rmidable intellect. a n of ideas. even when some of us thoughtis ideas were wng, we had to respect his grapplinwith ideas. but none of the celebry standard bears who have replaced himas spokesmen or voices of the conservative moveme, glenn beck, sean hannity, sarah pin, rush limbaugh, would last minute on "firg line." what's your take on sara palin's appe as a conservative voice toy? >> well, look, cole porter wte a song, "you've gothat thing, that certain thi, that makes the biies forget to sing." well, sarah palin has at. you know, you can look at certain liticians and just sa "oh, okay." you know, that person rely has something. that ia quality that she has. i think a lot of conservives idtify with her life situatn, her life story. e mother who's the governor. and, you know, theort of the frontier aspects of alka, when she was on that ver, was it "newsweek,when she had the shotgun th she was carrying ov her shoulder, you know. and people respond to th very werfully. now, can she have e stuff to be a viable presential candidator a viable president? that is something we jt have to see in e grinding of the mills this process. >> moyers: let mask you something that y write about in the introductn to your book. "in the agof obama, consvatism is in retreat. though, perhap its retreat began ck with bill clinton, or the shs, father and son. but it wilbe back. and its s and downs are of interest to conservaves, their enemies, and ordary americans." i mean, why shld the ups and downs of the conservativ movement be of concern of to anye who's not in that movement? >> for the same reasonhat the ups and downs of the liberal movement are intesting to me. i mean, these arforces in our body politic that ve an effect on all of our lis. you ow, whether we agree with them or oppose them. they're out there. ese are the places whe the ideas argenerated and dieminated. it's very porful and influential. and so is worth paying atntion to. >>oyers: is obama the embodiment, you see it, of thliberalism of our time? and ifo, what does that say about liberalism? >> oma is a complicated phenomenon becse he is a great historal achievement. i mean, i vered his auguration for the "newshour and that was moving moment. i did not vote forim. finally all n are created equal bemes real in a way that it h not been until that moment. so that's one aspect of hi but then tre also, well, okay, mr. president, what do we today? the's also that. and he's a very liral politician bu he's got, you know, at let three and half more years to go. and that's a lot of policyime at has to be filled. and we're going to see how wl he does it. >> moyers: bkley believed conservatives had use the republican par as their vehie because there were no other choices. there's noistinction today, is there? the republican partynd the conservative movemt are one in the me. >> well, some places there still a stinction. new york's 23rd congressiol district. to fill... was it jo mchugh's seat? the man who obamnamed secretary of t army. and th is up in the adirondacks. it's a pretty consertive distct. so the local republicaparty pick a woman to be the nominee for that seat. and she's prabortion, and she's prgay marriage, and she was for cash forlunkers, and she was for the stimulus package. and then, now, n york state has a conservati party. and ey have nominated another pers to challenge her. so it's a the person race the. >> moyers: conseatives worked ha for president bush in the 2000lection after the praries, and they worked hard for his reelection i2004. then after he made a wck of thgs, they abandoned him. abandoned thman who had been their agent. what happened ther >> there were alys things about bush that "national review" did not like we never bought compassiate conservatism ittruck us partly as an empty slogan, d to the extent it had y content we didn't like it. 9/11, in our view, changed everythi. certainly changed gege bush's wod. he w not expecting to be a reign policy president. he just wasn't. and then a of a sudden here we are. and this is the -years war in my vie i will not see thend of it. i will not see the end of th forces that were unleashed o 9/11 so that, to me, and many conservative became the primary thing. and that'shy we continued to back bush. and, in terms of his makg a wrk of it, i would just say, as historian, if presidential reputations are stocksbuy george w. bush. if it moves at a, it will go up. and i will predict he ll be like ulysses grantwho's finallbeing recognized as actually a prey good president after 100 ars, 150 years of abusfrom patrician historians and converted confedates. >> moyers:hat have you taken away from digging so deeply d writing so broadly abo the founding era and the fnding fathers? >> these were all politians. they were just like liticians today. they made deals. they stabbed each othein the back. they did all the blackrts of litics. but they were also ialists and great men. and so, in that daily world of politics, they iused something important. anthey achieved something that's been goinon for over 200 years. anthat is still alive and valuable. and that'sorth looking at. just how does thatappen? >> moyers: can we real know what the founders uld think about our world? and should we care? >> well, two points. e is that they're not that f away from us. i mean, it's not like charlemagne, rht? or alfred the grea a lile over 200 years is not that long when you look atll the countriein the world. the other thinis the founders believed in human ture. that's what the declation begins by talking about,bout e rights that we have as men that's what tom ine wrote about. that's what they all believe so if theyere right then certain, you know, the observationsnd the discoveries at they made have an ongoing relevance. and, of course, thingshange. a million thgs change. but we're stl men. we're still men and women. we're ill human. ancertain qualities that we have, aspirations, nds, flaws, haveot changed and never will ange. and so howhese men navigate all that is an ooing interest. >> moyers: i confess that i admired ll buckley, because he believed there was morto life than politic and i think must have been oud of the way you lived you life becse you've written all ofhese books. and all of us who ha enjoyed your booksre indebted to bill bucky because he changed his mind about you, rit? >> yes, u know, he told me when i was 23, that would succeed him as editor of the "national reew." and then he told me,hen i was 32, "no, you're not gog to do that." >> moyers: he d picked you as his heir, and you ca back from lunch one day and ere was the lett. what didt say? well, it was a long letter. but the me of it was, "you n't have executi flare. and it would be wrong fome to inict you on ¡national review,' and ¡nation review' on you." that's in effect what itaid. >> moyers: so he gave you l that time toesearch and write those books on the fouing fathers,ashington, hamilton, adams, now madis you are working on, right? >> well, i had tfigure that out, though. i mean, when i reathat letter i was not thinking of writg foundingather books. i mean, this was, ke, okay, now i have to do pn b in my life. and, by the way,hat is that? i didn't know. anit was a process of figuring that out. one thing i had to do was reestablish my rationship with my... you ow, my hero here, who's dealt me this very odd wild card. i mean, i was rious. i was enraged. i was rious. >> moyers: heartbren? >> yes, of course. all of thosehings. >> moyer what did you do? >> well, i was m. i mean, i told mwife. i didn't telhardly anybody el. but i wrote bill a letr. i qued william blake in it. i said, "i was angryith my friend. i told my ath, my wrath did end." so said, "what you did was ntemptible." but then, you kn, then i had to fure out what do i do and how do i relate tohis man? and that took a while. itook effort on both our parts. but, you know, the other linof poetry more portant than that blake-- that was just ger. robert frostaid, "we love the things we ve for what they e." and to do that you have tonow what they are. you have to really knowhat they are d both of us had mistaken noons of the other one. i mean, i thought, ", here's the peect father." the,ike, perfect writerly fath. and he thought, here'sy heir, here's anoth me, you know. well, we were both wro. so tn, having discovered we re wrong, then we have to figure out, ok, who is this other person really? anhow do i connect with him? and i think we were able to that. >>oyers: the book is "right time, righplace: coming of age th william f. buckley jr." richd brookhiser, thanks for coming bacto the journal. thank you. >> it's "firing line" wh wiiam f. buckley. moyers: watching the cbs evening ne on afghanistan this week, i thought foa moment that i might bwatching my grandson playing one of the video war gamethat are so popular these days. >> an americ military convoy traveling nortest... >> moyers: reporting on th tacks that killed eight americans, cbs turd to animation to dict what no journalists were around witness. is is about as close to real war as most ofs ever get, safely removed from thblood, the mangled bodies, the reams and shouts. october, as you know, s the blooest month for our troops in all eight years of the wa and beyond the human los the united states has spenmore than $223 billion ere. in 2010, we wille spending roughly $65 billion ery year. $65 billioa year. the president is just about ready to send re troops. maybe 44,000, that's theumber geral mcchrystal wants, brinng the total to over 100 ousand. when iead speculation last weekend that t actual number needed might be 600,000, winced. i can still see lyndonohnson's face when he ask his generals how ny years and how many troops it would take to wiin vietnam. one of theanswered, "ten years and onmillion." he was right on the ti and wrg on the number. two and a half million amerin soiers would serve in vietnam, d we still lost. whatever the tal for afghanistan, everydditional thousand tros will cost us about a billion dolls a year. at a time when forecsures are rising, benefits for the unempled are running out, cities are firing achers, closing braries and cutting essential maintenancand services that sou you hear is the ripping of our social fabric which makes evenore perplexing an editorial in "the wasngton post" lasteek. you'll remember the "post"as a cheerleader for the invasi of iraq, often soundi like a megaphone for the bush-chey propaganda machine now it's cling for escalating the r in afghanistan. in a time of historic dget deficits, the per said, afghanistan has to take iority over universal hlth care for americs. fixing afghanistanit seems, is "a necessity"; fixing amica's social contract is not but listen to what an afan villager rectly told a correspondent for th "economist:" "we neesecurity. but the americs are just making trouble for us. they cannot bring pee, not if they stay for years." listen, o, to andrew bacevich, the longime professional soldier, graduate of west pot, veteran of vieam, and now a respted scholar of military and reign affairs, who was on this program a yeaago. recently told "the christia science monitor," "theotion that fixg afghanistan will somehow ive a stake through the heart of jihadm is wrong. if we give generalcchrystal everythi he wants, the jihadist threat will still ist." this from a warrior who lostis own soldier son in ira and who doesn't need animated grapcs to know what t rest of us nevesee. so here's a suggestion. in week or so, when the esident announces he is escalang the war, let's not hide the reality behin eloquence or animation no more soarinrhetoric, please. no more video games. our governing class wants mo war, let's not allow them to fight it with youngen and women o sign up because they don't ve jobs here at home, or can't affo college or health care for the families. les share the sacrifice. spread the suffering. let'bring back the draft. yes, bring back the draf for as lonas it takes our politicians anpundits to "fix" afghanistan their satisfaction. bring back the draftand then watch em dive for cover on capitol hill, in the wering holes and think tanks the beltway, and in the qut little offices where editoriawriters sp clever phrases justifying her people's sacrifice. let's insi our governing class show the coura to make this lo and dirty war our war, or e guts to end it. >> mers: that's it for this week. log on our website at pbs.org and clk on "bill moyers journa" you'll find a web clusive conversation with the polical analyst glenn greenwd of salon.co there's also more from enomist james galbraith anthe journal'complete coverage of e financial meltdown and baout. that's all at pbs.or i'm bill moyers, and i'll se you next week. captioning sponsored b blic affairs television captioned media cess group at wgbh acce.wgbh.org the world is changing. anhow we use energy today cannot be how 'll use it tomorrow. there is no one lution. it's notimply more oil, more renewabl, or being more efficient. it's a of it. our way of life dends on developing alforms of energy. and to use ss of it. it's time to put our fferences aside. will you be part of the solution? 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