politics, but wonky fun with a conversation about alternative history. what if jfk had lived? what if bill and hillary clinton had not gotten married? what if antonin scalia had not died in 2016? we created a special series on my podcast to discuss that, we re calling it alternative history. you can listen to the first episode, what if bill clinton had resigned amid the monica lewinsky scandal in 1998? jeff greenfield has written books on scenarios like this. he s a five-time emmy-winning network journalist and now a columnist for politico. he joins me now. jeff, military planners war-game scenarios all the time and in some ways alternative histories i guess are the way journalists and historians sort of war-game things. but you ve written some alternative history. and as a historian and political analyst, why do you do it?