as well so how did you get from acting to political influence in a radio show? >> i have said tv series babylon five it was science-fiction and the guy whose syndicated by show it was a huge science-fiction fan and contacted me about trying to put the series back on the air and was talking to me about talk radio. i said i loved it and listen to grow the time. he said did you ever think about it? i said no but then we started to talk about talk radio and he gave me a fill in slot on a saturday night for one of his post and you get to talk to america and i said i will do this and i got to the studio i was there two hours ahead of time. you are the new guy? i did not know at 12:00 you were off at 12:06 p.m. you are in. you are live. i did my first 12 minutes then i looked at the clock in front of me and i had two hours for days two hours 40 minutes left and i had said everything never wanted to say and he backed me off and said okay. you just did five days of radio you might want to slowdown and expand a little bit. i got done i was back in bed in the fetal position i was like the first but the cold from the ledger. somebody told me. i loved it. . . what they are going to talk about and what they are going to say. on my program what i try to give people is an opportunity to just have them exchange of ideas, front porch stop by lights on if you can make it today, great, if you can hang for three that's great if not bohm, i will be here tomorrow. and give people a little insight into not necessarily what is happening but why it is happening and what the ramifications of that are going to be. >> the obstacles the unit when you first started in radio, was their anything similar when you first started writing the book? >> with any publisher like simon and schuster thankfully, they have their relationships and certain things they don't want senate and in radio there are certain things they don't want said and on tv there are certain things they don't want said so you have to find a way around it and kind of just do it in a way that's not obvious. but they were very cold. they pretty much just gave me the option to write with ever wanted to write about and it was -- i have a new respect for writers because we have a lot of people, program with their books and i'm like you read a book, that's cool. then i wrote a book and i was like that's hard. because when you talk i can the next day or the next hour say you know what i said last our? i was wrong. i got this information that changes what ever but when it's on the page it's there for all time. so what i did is i have, i don't know three or 400 notes in the book and i chronicle where i took everything from. so i can't dispute the facts, can't dispute the conclusions but they are with a hour. >> de want to write another one? >> not right now. not really, no. it's an interesting process. in writing the book negative tweaked my radio show based upon my book because you slowed down a little bit and go what was the book all about, what was the show all about. for me it's trying to push the rock up the hill a little bit more every day. i'm not here to tear down or not popup. i am not a cheerleader which unfortunately we see a lot of in books and tv and radio. you just drop the football in the end zone. what we need more of in the media is coaches. somebody's going to smack you upside the head and say we just lost the game but a lot of what we have a deal logically are cheerleaders, not challenging their own. that is when the best ideas to place when people say really, you don't believe that, why? when i hear about the financial summits they are having with the wall and his administration i say let's have a meeting right now i will tell you exactly what you need to do. stop spending. stop spending. but we are going to get alan simpson and have six republicans and six democrats and they will get together and the camera will be on. look at the slur upon and is getting together to solve the problem. stop spending. simple. and people say yeah because they've had to do it. you and i have had to be left rich. a lot of people that crazy in 06 and 07 real estate, atm. i've always wanted a quad, rv, boat, so what we've done the last year is reduce spending by about 20%. people are going i had to do it, why don't they. when i look at the government signing $1.9 trillion increase in the deficit to $14.3 trillion i hear people talk about we are doing this for our children and our children's children. no, you are bankrupting the next generation and i fink we have a responsibility to make the campground nicer than the way we found it and what we are doing right now republican or democrat, and everybody is like obama is doubling the national debt, bush did the same thing from five to $10 trillion i listen to these guys going obama -- you did the same thing under compassionate conservatism which to me is redundant. conservatism by nature in my opinion is compassionate. when you throw compassion and services and it's like we can spend a lot of money. the whole thing about helping of religion and government and how do we advance the agenda. i don't want to protect government from religion. i want to protect religion from government because whoever writes the chex mix the agenda and i think people right now are just like common sense, getting back to common sense. stuff that we have to do everyday and hopefully i capture some of that in a radio show and hopefully i got it in the book. >> thank you. we appreciate it. coming up next, booktv presents "after words," an hourlong program where we invite guest hosts to interview authors. this week former education secretary william bennett discusses his new book, "a century turns: new hope, a new fear." the book provides a historical look at u.s. politics and culture at the end of 20th century and the start of a new millennium. the nationally syndicated radio talk-show host begins with the 1988 presidential election and takes the reader through 20 years of a marble events and cultural changes concluding with the election of barack obama. he discusses the turn-of-the-century with aspen institute president walter isaacson. >> host: hello. it's my pleasure to be here with bill benet, an old friend. somebody who has written one third in a trilogy of history books. there were too great volumes you did on american history that ended in 1989 and now you are doing a slightly slower volume to continue it to the present. is that how you see it as part of a trilogy? >> guest: it is part of a trilogy. the book is "a century turns" but it's the third of a series america last best hope. i was a little reluctant. you've written history books. this history is close to us so i was right about perspective, object to the but because america last best hope to volumes are in the schools available in public schools, teachers like to believe they are going to get up to the present. i see that because usually they don't make it but they like to believe they are going to get their students up to the president. >> host: america last best hope in some ways tried to in your mind right the way we teach history a little bit from i think you felt there was what you might call leftist or by this that it didn't really glorified the triumph of american exceptional loss of. is that right? >> guest: i will say this. the biggest problem i have in most of the history books out there are now as they are called social studies books is that they are boring and they put kids to sleep and this is odd because books about history, american history, historical figures, you have written a couple of them, the franklin book is a great book. david mccaul of's books sell biographies of hamilton. this is a great subject so my major argument is they were boarding but sometimes publicly tenacious usually in the left. >> give me some examples that you felt was wrong in the way we talk american history. >> i can't remember the book the most famous example is when i was the secretary of education that was in new orleans was the school and we can across a sentence in the book that they were using that talked about the puritans as englishmen who took long trips in search of new places to live. they didn't want to but the religion part in and violate the first amendment. >> other books, howard zinn said enormously successful book and it's got great scholarship. but the people's history of the american republic is a politically tenacious book. it means left and he's explicit about it. since this perspective and point of view you'd be pretty depressed about america if that was the only book you read. >> you got your doctor from the university of texas in philosophy actually. nowadays texas is engaged in a bitter struggle over the textbooks with history and had to teach six and history better. what do you think of the school board i guess state school board trying to dictate new types of standards and are six tax. >> guest: the dee dee is fine. it is larger than texas because texas sells so many textbooks. what happens there and goes around the country. many of the day's worth while some of the stuff just silly what he should do is teach the truth come teach what happens, talk about the people who mattered to american history you shouldn't be taught the liberty bell and ll and when there are importance words to the two sides to the story to tell you should tell the aborticides. there's a kind of reductionism and a lot of the eternal bostick accounts of the states that make them seem very simple-minded. i always before i enter into this debate particularly this one try to find out from the people what they actually said and its different from what is reported. this may come to a shock. but he would know this business. but i think these debates are far. the education of our children play the most important question is who gets to teach the children and what do we teach so have added. >> host: to me it's not only find its glorious when people are arguing how come woodrow wilson gets more than ronald reagan for a simple who was a better president and are doing what for wilson versus rall freakin' whose shape the republic more is great whichever side you come down on. >> guest: absolutely these are great debates and as interesting everyone invokes the founders of course. the left in folks founders, the right in folks founders. i would just like people to read the founders. read the federalist papers. they are worth reading. >> host: speaking of invoking the founders they are invoked by those of the religious sites of the argument. how do you see that side of the debate? >> guest: in what sense? >> host: the founders are saying we are a christian nation, that is in as well. >> guest: i don't think there's any question that the people who wrote these documents were riding out of the judeo-christian tradition. again if he read the federalist papers this is what the references are. it's pretty hard to understand a phrase like we hold these truths to be self-evident and all men are created equal endowed by their creator. certain inalienable rights. the key i think is to understand that although most of these men came from a certain perspective and religious background and orientation we established the first freely sensible way of dealing with these issues and a large and open society think of washington's letter, the hebrew congregation in this country we shall sit and donner will be afraid. >> host: in fact that sentence in the declaration of independence you cited there is a wonderful scene of the three great drafters of the declaration, franklin, adams and jefferson and the jefferson's first draft of that sentence had endowed with certain inalienable rights and it was adams had been in doubt by their creator with certain inalienable rights and then jefferson had to we hold these truths to be sacred and franklin wrote we hold these to be self-evident. so we are doing a careful balance there. almost a be a defeat could use the balance for the make reference to a creator but not necessarily to a christian god or any particular god of. >> guest: fair enough, but i think when i was reviewing a lot of the textbooks i notice they tried to several of them tried to expunge any reference to god, chris d-nd, the history of judeo-christian. i like edwin corwin's s.a. higher law background of american constitutional law. it's a great sentence in there. religious liberties animosities. these things were fought out in churches. >> host: they became such good travelers as you said in the whole notion. this is a great topic in a coal board. it is a great topic for discussion in the classroom as well as the supreme court. as i say and i am partial to american here and the idea of american exceptional as an is that we have pretty much a power struggles but we have pretty much worked this out about as well as any country. >> host: the founders gave to america one of the greatest gift that was unusual for the well-traveled puritan founders which was a good natured religious tolerance that even if you of the constantinople you would get to preach for philadelphia. in some ways these debates seemed to downplay this notion of tolerance and try to push a more religious view of america's founding. am i incorrect their? >> guest: i hear the charge by don't see it. i spend a lot of time in the home-schooled community and in the conservative community. i hear the claims of bigotry. i saw more bigotry myself. when i was at harvard. i saw more intolerance toward southern christian young people then i saw people in the south being intolerant of people who had no faith or other faith. it is more complicated now and i don't know if you want to get into this but it's more complicated now because of islam and because of 9/11 and frankly it is harder to support the notion of an islamic faith and islamic religion which will condemn these acts of violence when we see so few professions by islamic leaders and spokesmen. i still think it's the case americans were enormously tolerant but they are worried about this business and i think they are right to be worried about it. >> host: but the struggle we are engaged in the world today after 9/11 opened our eyes to this struggle was against the fanaticism and jihad of intolerance and islam and in favor of the notion that all people should be tolerant of different views and that is the basic divide in the world today between those who believe in pluralistic societies and those who believe in imposing their or laws. >> guest: sure. but i don't know a lot of christians for example and the are usually the object of criticism here from the left who want to impose the religion in america. in the schools and elsewhere. i do know because we can go to the looming tower in a number of great books and see this as part and parcel of wahhabi islam and the problem is it may not be the majority view of muslims but by gosh it seems to be the one with all the energy and passion. when someone in my church was a catholic shoot someone had an abortion clinic we condemn it and the church condemns it and the pope condemned it and that is absolutely right. what we have the same thing in a consistent way in islam. >> host: the struggle we are fighting against terrorism and jihadism let's call that, you in this new book talk about its starting really with 9/11 and how bush gets involved in the struggle. do you think it became partisan after 9/11 or was there a period with which there was unity on the issue. >> guest: there was unity on the issue. i don't think there is a question about the question was together. there was by the way back to this earlier when there was a worry that americans would turn against muslims and there would be terrible act of retribution. nothing like this happened or if they did they were very isolated. there is a restaurant not far from here run by a out in virginia run by a muslim and apparently two weeks after 9/11 this guy couldn't get anybody in. typical of americans remember president bush went to the national cathedral and then went to the mosque and some criticize that. this is a very american response to increase rather than condemn but then it broke apart and that was the chassis of that crisis. i think the closure on that that we are getting now is encouraging. some people are forgetting what they said earlier that there should be a consensus that would work through this one and things may be working out all right. fingers crossed its still not done. that is what the fight was about to get >> host: you have to deal with iraq in this book as well. how do you think history is going to look back on the decision to react to the 9/11 attacks by invading iraq? >> guest: great question. 64,000 of our questions. rahim crocker, our ambassador, said the other day a lot of criticism about going in there whether we should have gone, how we went in there. he said we could discuss that and the date but he said what matters most of all is how we left it and what we left. i think that will probably be the determinant of how we see what we did. and if indeed it democracy is established, one that can sustain itself i think it will be a double plus, double thumbs-up. there will be the result. and joe biden the other day, not my team, not my party but joe biden the other day said look it looks very good, it looks very promising and we can take some pride in this as long as that is inclusive of a larger group i think i could agree with that. remember, too, and i try to point this out in the book that there was a lot of unity in the decision, an awful lot of support as candidate obama kept reminding hillary clinton she was for this. john kerry was for this, jay rockefeller was for this, so people operating officer in assumptions and what they thought were the facts on the ground very much to the same position with a few exceptions. >> host: one problem i have looking back in american history and what we're doing now is not with our struggle against jihadism and even the struggles in iraq and afghanistan, it is that getting too close to nation building and occupying other territories can be problematic and i see that with reference to american history because it is in our dna, one of our forgotten amendments in some ways which is we don't like quarter of troops in homes by foreign government. that notion that we are not going to help ourselves in the world by getting too much involved in occupations overseas. do you worry about that? >> guest: i do worry about it and i was i think a fair minded in the book. i hope i am even handed. i was ill more worried about the second inaugural of george w. bush when he talked about this nation building and that our task is democracy everywhere. when i fought in fact the priority should stay where it was which was this global war against islamist terror, let's take care of that first of our task is not necessarily to establish democracy in the country but to make sure they can't launch attacks again on us. so did there is that worry. at the same time i think it is in our dna and national interest because democracies tend not to declare war against other democracies, they tend not to do that to other free countries but again i think how this comes out in the end will determine that we shall see. >> host: your book is sort of book a snd with the to george bush administrations, george bush the altar and in my mind they had the most divergent philosophies of foreign policy. george bush elder being a realist who after you inject iraq from kuwait during that war sees no reason to try to nation building iraq, no reason to go to baghdad and a very, very carefully choreographs the end of the cold war. there will be i think you quoted him saying to the press secretary there will be no dancing on the berlin wall. in other words we are not we to be triumphant and celebrate. we are go