therefore, its implementation now wow. that s president john f. kennedy speaking to nbc news in 1961 about a young staffer named good one. joining us now is pulitzer prize winning author, presidential historian, doris kearns goodwin. her book out today is called an unfinished love story, a professional history of the 1960s. doris, it s so good to see you. you have written a lot of books. this one is special for all the obvious reasons. so much we were just talking about boxes and boxes that had from his years serving under p kennedy. president kennedy. how did you approach such project differently than all of the different biographies that you have written? he saved 300 boxes that were a time capsule of the 60s. he worked with jackie kennedy, lbj, his chief be try to,
re-election. news on the domestic front was no better. carter was facing challenges from the republican right, and members of his own party meanwhile were in open rebellion. no more high inflation and no more jimmy carter. ted kennedy s decision to challenge carter for the democratic nomination in 1980 was almost unpres dncedented in american history and was arguably devastating to the carter campaign. if i d spent more time pulling the democratic party together and making it strong, i would have probably been better off when the campaign came along. carter fought up kennedy s challenge but it was a costly battle. i wrote a labor day speech to kick off his campaign against ronald reagan, who we still hoped was too far to the right to get elected. but when i watched the news that night i was blown away from the sight of reagan delivering his speech from the statue of
many of you in the room can tell others. 60 years ago president kennedy quote ad columnist in profiles in courage who had written that people don t give a damn what the average senator or congressman says. the reason they don t care is that they know what you hear in congress is 99% tripe, ignorance and demagoguery and not to be relied upon. which is perhaps a little harsh. 99% seems high [ laughter ] 85 [ laughter ] but president p kennedy also wrote that the combination of p public business and the competition for the public s attention have obscured enumerable acts of political courage. large and small performed almost
this trade deal, he pointed that out. so even a very friendly channel to him, when someone disagrees with him, you know he points it out. now, look we all are sensitive to criticism. some more than others but i m telling you, there s a pattern to this behavior. and a pattern to how he reacts when anyone even on his side questions him. whether it s elizabeth warren or liz. you know what i mean? that s what i find very telling and very revealing. i don t disagree. presidents are notoriously thin-skinned about their press coverage. this one is no different than the ones who came before them. but john kennedy kept it quiet. if he had a problem, he wined and moaned about it to his staff. ronald reagan too. famously he had many annoying sessions with his chief of staff talking about it. but not in public. and i also was going to go to reagan. and you brought up kennedy. these were two lovers of the media. these were two presidents who
nonfiction book in the country. you teachers want to order it, get the information there. also real quick, killing kennedy out october 2. if you haven t read killing lincoln because it sets up kennedy. you won t believe the two coincidences. it s amazing. a new congressional candidate was wounded in iraq. she s running in illinois. here to fill air time, monica crowley and alan colmes. celebrating the release of his new book thank the liberals for saving america. if you can t sell copies down there, you are toast, man. go to the eskimos, i know. bill: they should be screaming for you. i got to ask you you sat question i asked charles krauthammer. ted kennedy, you may not have seen this, but they did a tribute to him. i did. bill: did you see it? it s a tribute to kennedy and part of his career was going against mitt romney for senate.