and i've tried three companies, is get other people's telephone numbers. if the telephone company does not have it in their listing, the number you are trying to call does not exist. one was a newspaper. another was a very large company. i knew the addresses, i knew they had wed pages, i knew they had many telephones. every time when you talk to the machine, machine has been unable to help the because machines that talks are not there to help you. they're there to save money by the people who install them and you get through to a human being, there is a certain election that things are looking up. i will get some help. hell, no. that is not listed. i asked yesterday because i was walking in the street and i needed to call somebody and i had no option. i said do you have a computer. she said it's not in the computer. i said if you go tone number in seconds. we are not allowed to do that. i think it's about time the telephone company got into the times we live in and found the telephone numbers. they make money out of giving them to you and you finishing the telephone call. this is treating customers disgustedly. customers are badly treated by many large institutions. somebody asked me why people are so angry. they are angry for political reasons and personal reasons. banks have ripped them off on everything, every transaction is a money-making opportunity to the banks. telephone companies are -- people who provide cable service for the tv and, in my case, i have a dish for the internet. that is a real horror. customer service is in another land. the native language is not english. but they won't tell you where you can go in america. it so happens that sometimes their head office is not far from where you live. no, you must deal with a faraway country in south asia where somebody pretend to help you. it is disgusting. no wonder we are mad. and for the telephone companies, give a straightforward computers to your people so they can help your customers and you will make more money. promise. we will be right back with a barry interesting program today. i have been able to snare one of my favorite authors, one of the most interesting people writing in america today, robert merry. he will meet him in a few seconds. >> "white house chronicle" is produced in collaboration with howard university television. and now, your program host, nationally syndicated columnist, llewellyn king and co-host, linda gasparello. >> hello again, and thank you for coming along. i would like to think the sponsors of this program, arizona public service and other holding company, pinnacle west. very progressive electric utility out in the west with mixed generation and their big in solar. soon it will have the largest solar installation in the world. they also have a nuclear power plant and a very aggressive program to save energy. we are so happy to be working with them. i promise you one of the great american authors and contemporary historians, journalists and businessmen, robert merry. welcome to the program. if i could run to -- if i could run through your background -- you were a reporter for the "wall street journal." you or the president of cq, the information company. you have written several books, one on the war in the balkans. "a sense of empire." i thought that had the best explanation for how the balkan war originated at any i had read. a very compelling and well done book called a country of lost designed about president james polk. >> our 11th president and our greatest, most people think, our greatest one-term president. >> i would like to mention because i am a journalist that your book, "guardians of the american century" is a wonderful introduction to the history of american journalism and the role of journalists at one time in governance. i think it should be must reading for all those swearing to a life of poverty and excitement called journalism. >> thank you. >> joining me in the questioning will be linda gasparello of this program. you have written these wonderful books, have a distinguished business career, a career in journalism. what are you right now? >> i appreciate the question. i'm writing a relatively brief book on the presidency as an institution. how do we rank, rate, ss success or failure of our president? my view is that there are two ways to do it -- there is history's judgment which is usually expressed in the polls of historians, which we have been doing intermittently since 1948. the other, which i think is short shrift, as the contemporary judgment of the electorate. the president works for the people, so what did people think the time? i'm trying to put those things together into an analysis of how the presidency works. >> have you come up with any surprises? often when people do research, they find what they thought they believe is now they end up leaving because they found out something else. has that happened to you? >> i thought i knew about this, but it turns out i know quite little about how the presidency emerged at the constitutional convention. our founding fathers were brilliant but there were struggling with something they did not understand -- how and where to reside executive power. there were major differences in opinion from alexander hamilton, who want an elected president elected for life, to roger sherman of connecticut who wanted the president to be purely an agency of the legislature. all power resided with the legislature. they struggled with this for months. it was almost like they were not going to be able to figure it out because they knew they had to have an independent presidency that could counter the power of the legislature, but how do you do that? >> there were at the time parliaments. they did not have the full power of parliament today. where they deliberately trying to keep away from that model? were they pushing off saturday ignore it? >> there were moving toward that model, or the president was to be elected by the congress. but they were not satisfied with that because they did not think that satisfied the separation of powers principle they wanted to institute. it was not until grover morris of pennsylvania said something when he was struggling with this -- he believed in and independent presidency. the question is how do you do it? he said the president is not the king. the president is the prime minister. the people are the king. all the sudden, people began to realize at the constitutional convention that sovereignty resided with the people. their experience in the west, through all the countries that have royalty, was that the sovereignty resided with the royalty. roger sherman wanted sovereignty to reside with the legislature. but morris said it resides with the people and that was a totally new concept. then the concept of the presidency as a product of the people emerged. that is how we got the third branch of government. >> i'm curious about what you learned about polling and the people elect presidents. is the polling to powerful in the election process? is it pushing people to elect in a certain way? >> i don't think so. my thesis is that there is in fact a collective judgment. sometimes even a collective wisdom in the electorate. it is not that voters are smart. many of them are abjectly stupid. when you put that together, it's like the stock market. when i was covering politics, which i did for the "wall street journal" for years, choosing politicians and traveling with my colleagues, there was a strong tone of cynicism that this whole thing was a manipulation and people were being manipulated. i never bought it. i never think presidential elections are referendums on the incumbent or incumbent party in that the voters sifted out and can determine whether that performance deserves reelection not. if it does, it almost doesn't matter who issues what gaffe in a debate, it doesn't matter who says what, it doesn't matter who the challenger is, he gets elected. if the answer is adverse, that party is tossed out. >> so the poling doesn't have that much influence on the way somebody votes? >> i don't think so. it has a lot of influence on the discussion of the journalists. but voters tend to filter things out and get to the fundamental question of performance, which is often ignored by the journalist. >> i think it has a lot of influence in the parties, where they're going to put their resources, if so and so it's like they can win the, the tendency for the party to get behind at 1 is greater. >> congressional elections, you are absolutely right. where they put their resources, depending on where they have a shot, is a very significant element of our congressional races unfold every two years. but we are talking about the presidency, i don't tend to think that has as much impact as a lot of people think. >> you have told me that you like politicians. you enjoy working with them. they are your favorite people in some ways. are they in history also? do you say i really like these people? >> when you go back and study some of these other eras', like people era of the 1840's, politicians were much more powerful figures in those days. they had much more -- the blood was coursing through their veins at a faster pace than they were exciting and interesting and sometimes outrageous. we have a modulated brand of politics today. even in our time, we have seen that in washington. we have seen it to manage with the decline of some of the giants. >> i would like to hear your view on this -- it seems to me we give them such a scrutiny, in the media primarily, we ensure we just get middle grade people. we don't get the larger than life because of people who are larger than life tend to have had a drink, fallen in love, and made a dollar, all of which can be looked at in a very bad light. >> that's right. >> it suppressed by scrutiny and we don't get to see them develop. >> and once they get in, they're scared to death, so there modulated so they don't say the wrong thing to get called up for apologize with their wife sitting next to them. who wants that? >> from the abject person -- >> i need to do a station identification. you are listening, and this is primarily for our listeners, you are listening to "white house chronicle" with myself, llewellyn king, linda gasparello and our guest, robert merry, our wonderful guess who is telling us things about politicians now and then as he works on his next book about presidency. you can see this program and those that preceded it at whchronicle.com, and read some of my essays at that internet destination. what don't you like about politicians? >> i do not like politicians who are always finessing. but that is part of the game. the movie "charlie wilson's war" he was a guy who just let fall. he was who he was and he was not going to finesse that or project himself as something other than what he was. people fell in love with him when they began to realize there was such a personality in congress for many years. those guys are fewer and far between. >> when i started covering congress about 40 years ago, there were more characters, and they didn't care. they would not open a muffled of bourbon if they felt like having a drink. one very famous one about 11:00 a.m. and most of them about 6:00 p.m. they didn't care. they were trying to lose weight or have special hairdos'. that largely had to do -- is has had a lot to do with television. i think cokie roberts say -- said if you look at the gallery, you look down at these slim people a full head of hair and she wonders what happens to the people of the -- of her father's generation, looking like the rest of society, not like something out of a magazine. totally for going appearance, we're losing something in brainpower, are we? >> not necessarily. >> i don't know if you gentleman get the sense of this, but politicians, especially congressman, used to take more time with legislation, working on legislation, they didn't have to raise as much money. money has been a big problem for congress. the fact they are only here for a couple of days, it does not allow them to take big project on. i have often mentioned pat moynihan and how he's to stand up and say why don't i do some work on medicare or medicaid right now? i will take that job and take a look at it. politicians today don't have time to do that. we are losing, i think, that dedicated person who would take on the extra projects, work very hard on legislation instead of on raising money for campaigns. i think that's one of the saddest things i've seen. >> another thing that is a powerful factor here that maybe does not get as much attention as it deserves is redistricting. these gerrymandered districts that are safe have produced politicians who don't really have to deal with the opposition. they refuse to deal with the opposition and get more and more nasty and rigid in their views. you go back to the time of nicholas longworth, who was speaker of the house. he was a republican. the democratic majority leader was john gardner. as speaker, longworth had a car pick him up and driver. he would drive across town, go pick up his good friend, john gardner, and give him a ride every day and give him a ride back. at the end of day, they would open up the board of education -- a lot of bourbon and scotch, bring in the young members of congress and people thought at the board of education because they're going to teach these kids. it was just the opposite. they were learning from the kids what was going on in the congress and their districts. that is all gone today and that is unfortunate. >> your self-made portfolio is not confined to american politics. you have written built -- you have written brilliantly about global issues. where do you see america up in the globe today? >> america's challenge in a way it has not been for many, many decades. the question is how do we protect ourselves through that challenge? the greatest challenge we face is economic. i believe we are not out of the woods in terms of the economic crisis that began in 2008. i do not think we have cleared the true value in terms of the overvalued assets we have in the american economy. until that happens, we're going to be percolating at a very dangerous situation. if we do end up in another double dip recession and difficulties in currencies and other things, that's going to have some impact in terms of our standing in the world. as we saw this past week with obama in asia. >> in "sands of empire" you were very critical of the bush administration and unilateralism and called for a reset in the way we dealt with foreign policy and foreign affairs. i wonder what you thought about the reset going on right now? >> and i wrote that book because i was against the war in iraq. i was trying to figure out and explore what are the ideas driving american foreign policy at the time. it was various strains of american exceptional some, the idea that we could impose our principles and views of the world upon other cultures. i happen to believe these cultures are very powerfully oriented and they are not going to respond to that. well we have seen in the world since i wrote that confirmed my thesis somewhat. but everyone who writes a book says that five years later. >> my book is now completely irrelevant. >> i have to say i don't feel that sentiment is driving the obama administration to the same extent it was driving the bush administration. but it is still a significant element of our strategy in afghanistan. i think as long as it is, we are going to be having difficulty. >> do we have to come to terms with a realistic position in the world with china and india the way the british had to come to terms after the second world war that they were no longer a mighty imperial power and would not be again? >> another analogy i would toss in there and then we can talk about it all together, is the analogy of britain and germany in the great arms race, the great naval arms race that began in 1891 on through world war one. britain was not going to accept germany's rise that was threatening their empire to the extent they thought it was. that is always a possibility. i think this country ought to be looking at asia and china and india and ways to avoid that. but it may not be possible. we don't know where this is going. we know there will be a competition of power in the world in the next 20 or 25 years and it's going to be very different from anything we have seen since 1945. >> does this frighten you? >> yes and no. these kinds of developments lead to instability and instability can lead to very problematic secondary developments. on the other hand, sometimes leaders managed to work their way through these difficulties in ways that lead to a new world order, that's a hackneyed phrase, but there has not been a real new world order since the end of the cold war. but there is going to be. and it's possible it can emerge peacefully. is it likely? maybe not. >> i have often wondered about the nuclear arsenals and the possibility of an accidental that the nation and what that would do to the world. as you probably know, during the cold war, we were very keen to keep the soviets apprised of the safety systems on our weapons. the five failsafe switches. we gave all but immediately to the soviets so there would not be. now we look at the world with pakistan, possibly iran soon to have a weapon, north korea -- you just wonder when they're going to let one of these off by accident. we have always been in our nuclear program safety of assessed. one cannot imagine that being the case in north korea. or for that matter in pakistan. what happens if we have another nuclear detonation in the world? it has been a longtime since japan and the end of the second world war. does that frighten us to the table or does it bring on new arms race? >> this is an area i find most frightening. i don't know what we can do about it. i believe iran is going to get a nuclear weapon and i don't think there's anything the united states can do to prevent it. deterrence is going to have to be the policy we will pursue. how's that going to work and how effectively can be applied to iran? how effectively can be applied to pakistan if there is a real dislocation there? those are questions that are hovering over the world in very, very problematic: dangerous ways. >> what made me bobrry -- what made bob merry? with substantial business career, what are the things a major go into journalism and take these paths? >> one of the real form -- one of the real formative experiences with i grew up in a small town in washington state, on puget sound near tacoma. it was a little fishing village and now it's a tourist destination. it was a backwater place, but my father, when i was in the third grade, began a program at the university of virginia. this was in 1956. we packed up the 41 chevy and drove across the country and i encountered something i had never seen before which was this grand repository of american history -- statues, battlefields, monticello, the university of virginia, thomas jefferson and robert e. lee. we were only there a year and then back to washington. i decided at that time that i was the only fourth grader in america who is going around saying he wanted to be a historian when he grew up. but my dad, instead of going into academic life, became a newspaperman in to, and became the managing editor. subsequently to that, i spent time in the newsroom and fell in love with journalism. ultimately, i wanted to combine journalism and history and sometimes not -- somehow i've managed to do that. >> that is very fortunate. what are your interests outside of journalism and history? the collect butterflies or climb mountains or cook? >> my wife and i have a place in montana and we go there to ski which we love to do. we go in the off-season to hike into the mountains. we like to bicycle and the miles and miles, sometimes as many as 75 miles a day, bicycling in the northwest. >> not those mountains. >> i was on assignment in seattle and we see these bike paths going up hills like this and you have to be an olympic athlete to ride a bicycle there. and there they are. >> going down with all those pine needles and -- i just can't even imagine. >> i don't ride bikes in seattle, but i read them and the islands of puget sound. >> i know that you spent some time in army intelligence in germany. i'm wondering how you see the future of nato coming off the made a summit? is this an alliance that something we will recognize in the future? is it going to fall apart? >> nato has no purpose. it may have a purpose for the europeans, but has no purpose in terms of what is today and the sooner we recognize that and recognize europe is moving in its own way, the better off we'll be. >> i think you are right. it's become a sentimental attachment to something that's no longer needed. when i started to get non contiguous members and said basically it's all right to be a committee of the willing, it seems to me -- >> [inaudible] thank you for coming on this program. it can be seen on the internet at whchronicle.com, as can all those that have preceded it, plus my small essays. we hope to see you next week. we think our sponsor, arizona public service, for making this broadcast possible. until next time, all the very best to you. cheers. >> "white house chronicle" is produced in collaboration with whut -- howard university television. from washington d.c., this has been "white house chronicle" a weekly analysis of the news with a sense of humor. featuring llewellyn king linda gasparello, and guests. this program abc on pbs stations and cable access channels. to view the program on line