WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.601 Will, Quinn and Aiello when we continue. 2 00:00:00.601 --> 00:00:02.634 George Will is credited with carving a voice 3 00:00:02.634 --> 00:00:04.634 for conservative thought in mainstream media. 4 00:00:04.634 --> 00:00:07.033 He is a syndicated columnist for The Washington Post 5 00:00:07.033 --> 00:00:09.033 and a contributing editor at Newsweek. 6 00:00:09.033 --> 00:00:11.667 He's also a regular panelist on ABC's This Week. 7 00:00:11.667 --> 00:00:13.868 He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished 8 00:00:13.868 --> 00:00:15.734 commentary in 1977. 9 00:00:15.734 --> 00:00:18.934 His new book, The Woven Figure, is the sixth compilation of his 10 00:00:18.934 --> 00:00:22.167 columns and other writings and I am pleased to have him back at 11 00:00:22.167 --> 00:00:23.167 this table. 12 00:00:23.167 --> 00:00:24.167 Welcome back. 13 00:00:24.167 --> 00:00:25.167 Thank you. 14 00:00:25.167 --> 00:00:27.167 The Woven Figure comes from what? 15 00:00:27.167 --> 00:00:29.701 From a poem by Louis McNees and the theme 16 00:00:29.701 --> 00:00:33.300 of the poem is that the woven figure can't undo itself and my 17 00:00:33.300 --> 00:00:36.300 analogy here is to the United States, which in the 1990s came 18 00:00:36.300 --> 00:00:38.300 to grips, and conservatives particularly had to come to 19 00:00:38.300 --> 00:00:43.367 grips, with the fact that there's an enormous social 20 00:00:43.367 --> 00:00:46.801 inertia in a complicated nation like ours, that it can't be 21 00:00:46.801 --> 00:00:50.033 taken apart and rewoven promiscuously and at will. 22 00:00:50.033 --> 00:00:53.367 And conservatives, as I say, have had to come to terms with 23 00:00:53.367 --> 00:00:56.934 the fact that change is more difficult than they thought. 24 00:00:56.934 --> 00:00:59.701 Conservatives usually rejoice in that fact because it means 25 00:00:59.701 --> 00:01:02.968 society is resistant-- well, it's resistant 26 00:01:02.968 --> 00:01:03.968 to ideological frenzies. 27 00:01:03.968 --> 00:01:05.968 And by definition, conservatism is 28 00:01:05.968 --> 00:01:08.567 about conserving, I assume, what's best about your tradition 29 00:01:08.567 --> 00:01:10.534 and your roots and your heritage. 30 00:01:10.534 --> 00:01:11.534 Exactly. 31 00:01:11.534 --> 00:01:13.534 Having said that, why is it-- and this was 32 00:01:13.534 --> 00:01:17.200 addressed recently in The Weekly Standard magazine. 33 00:01:17.200 --> 00:01:21.267 Why is it that conservative ideas are ascendant, but 34 00:01:21.267 --> 00:01:24.400 conservative politicians not necessarily so? 35 00:01:24.400 --> 00:01:27.534 Well, look what's happened in this country. 36 00:01:27.534 --> 00:01:31.367 I believe there are today 51 fewer Democratic members of the 37 00:01:31.367 --> 00:01:34.300 House of Representatives than there were when this 38 00:01:34.300 --> 00:01:36.567 Democratic president got elected in 1992. 39 00:01:36.567 --> 00:01:39.200 --because of 1994. 40 00:01:39.200 --> 00:01:40.200 That's right. 41 00:01:40.200 --> 00:01:43.834 There are 500 fewer Democratic state legislators 42 00:01:43.834 --> 00:01:44.834 around the country. 43 00:01:44.834 --> 00:01:47.100 There are about 11 fewer Senators than there were then. 44 00:01:47.100 --> 00:01:50.534 There are about 11 fewer governors than there were then. 45 00:01:50.534 --> 00:01:54.534 So politically, this president is like the man who walked 46 00:01:54.534 --> 00:01:56.734 across a field of snow and left no footprints. 47 00:01:56.734 --> 00:01:59.901 The country's movement to the right continues. 48 00:01:59.901 --> 00:02:02.267 Now, conservatives are depressed, you're quite right. 49 00:02:02.267 --> 00:02:04.634 They say, ``Why aren't things going''-- 50 00:02:04.634 --> 00:02:07.167 Well, they're going they're way. 51 00:02:07.167 --> 00:02:10.701 In terms of the ideas because the agenda being 52 00:02:10.701 --> 00:02:12.701 discussed is a conservative agenda. 53 00:02:12.701 --> 00:02:15.067 But I-- one of the great books of the modern 54 00:02:15.067 --> 00:02:18.334 conservative movement was titled Ideas Have Consequences. 55 00:02:18.334 --> 00:02:19.334 I'd amend that. 56 00:02:19.334 --> 00:02:22.234 Only ideas have large and lasting consequences. 57 00:02:22.234 --> 00:02:26.467 If you're winning the idea war, the rest follows or is trivial. 58 00:02:26.467 --> 00:02:29.334 So it doesn't matter who co-opts or adopts 59 00:02:29.334 --> 00:02:33.334 and wins elections as long as those ideas are what prevail. 60 00:02:33.334 --> 00:02:35.334 Well, conservatives are depressed, 61 00:02:35.334 --> 00:02:38.133 of all things, because this president is such an 62 00:02:38.133 --> 00:02:40.133 accomplished political plagiarist. 63 00:02:40.133 --> 00:02:41.133 Right. 64 00:02:41.133 --> 00:02:43.100 They ought to rejoice. 65 00:02:43.100 --> 00:02:45.100 That's the sign of a winning team. 66 00:02:45.100 --> 00:02:46.100 Yeah. 67 00:02:46.100 --> 00:02:48.100 Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. 68 00:02:48.100 --> 00:02:50.100 Well, in a sense, the test, the best test of the 69 00:02:50.100 --> 00:02:52.100 power of a leader -- and I'm thinking here of Ronald Reagan 70 00:02:52.100 --> 00:02:54.667 -- is often in a democracy the effect he has 71 00:02:54.667 --> 00:02:55.667 on the rival party. 72 00:02:55.667 --> 00:02:58.667 Look what Mrs. Thatcher, in the end, did to the Labour Party. 73 00:02:58.667 --> 00:03:01.667 --Tony Blair, among other things. 74 00:03:01.667 --> 00:03:03.767 --Tony Blair's Labour Party, which is somewhat 75 00:03:03.767 --> 00:03:06.567 to the right of where the Conservative Party was before 76 00:03:06.567 --> 00:03:07.567 Mrs. Thatcher got there. 77 00:03:07.567 --> 00:03:11.701 And the Democratic Party has moved so far in the Republican 78 00:03:11.701 --> 00:03:13.868 direction that it's inconvenient for Republicans. 79 00:03:13.868 --> 00:03:16.200 But then why does that happen? 80 00:03:16.200 --> 00:03:20.634 Why isn't Mrs. Thatcher's inheritor another Tory? 81 00:03:20.634 --> 00:03:26.267 Why isn't Ronald Reagan's inheritor another conservative? 82 00:03:26.267 --> 00:03:29.501 Well, because in the British case, 83 00:03:29.501 --> 00:03:30.767 18 years is quite enough. 84 00:03:30.767 --> 00:03:33.367 Well, but what does that say, if 18 years is 85 00:03:33.367 --> 00:03:34.367 quite enough? 86 00:03:34.367 --> 00:03:36.367 It means that a party gets slothful. 87 00:03:36.367 --> 00:03:37.701 It gets in some ways arrogant. 88 00:03:37.701 --> 00:03:38.968 It gets in other ways corrupt. 89 00:03:38.968 --> 00:03:40.968 And all that happened to the British party. 90 00:03:40.968 --> 00:03:42.968 It would happen to any party in for 18 years. 91 00:03:42.968 --> 00:03:45.367 The Republicans before Bill Clinton won had won seven of ten 92 00:03:45.367 --> 00:03:48.100 presidential elections, five of six. 93 00:03:48.100 --> 00:03:50.968 They'd had 12 years in a row under Reagan and Bush and along 94 00:03:50.968 --> 00:03:53.234 comes Bill Clinton, who is as close to a negligible president 95 00:03:53.234 --> 00:03:55.667 as conservatives could hope for. 96 00:03:55.667 --> 00:03:56.667 What's he done? 97 00:03:56.667 --> 00:03:59.267 His big achievement in the international arena has been 98 00:03:59.267 --> 00:04:01.868 free trade, GATT and NAFTA, achieved against the wishes of 99 00:04:01.868 --> 00:04:04.200 majorities in his party and both houses of Congress. 100 00:04:04.200 --> 00:04:05.200 Yeah. 101 00:04:05.200 --> 00:04:07.200 Now, what that does is advance the conservative 102 00:04:07.200 --> 00:04:09.834 agenda of diminishing the control of the state over 103 00:04:09.834 --> 00:04:10.834 economic life. 104 00:04:10.834 --> 00:04:13.334 In domestic policy, what's the big event? 105 00:04:13.334 --> 00:04:16.300 Welfare reform, the repeal of a 60-year-old entitlement, 106 00:04:16.300 --> 00:04:18.901 the largest devolution of power from Washington to the states 107 00:04:18.901 --> 00:04:19.901 since Reconstruction! 108 00:04:19.901 --> 00:04:21.968 Well, you can also argue that a president gets 109 00:04:21.968 --> 00:04:23.968 credit for what happens on his watch. 110 00:04:23.968 --> 00:04:24.968 Fine. 111 00:04:24.968 --> 00:04:26.968 And the economy is doing just fine, 112 00:04:26.968 --> 00:04:27.968 thank you very much. 113 00:04:27.968 --> 00:04:29.968 The fundamental principle for allocating praise 114 00:04:29.968 --> 00:04:32.701 or blame in American politics is the post hoc propter 115 00:04:32.701 --> 00:04:33.701 hoc fallacy. 116 00:04:33.701 --> 00:04:34.701 The what? 117 00:04:34.701 --> 00:04:36.701 The rooster crows and the sun rises, 118 00:04:36.701 --> 00:04:38.734 therefore the crowing of the rooster caused the sun to rise. 119 00:04:38.734 --> 00:04:39.767 Yes. 120 00:04:39.767 --> 00:04:40.767 All right. 121 00:04:40.767 --> 00:04:42.767 Bill Clinton's standing there. 122 00:04:42.767 --> 00:04:44.767 The economy goes-- well, he gets credit. 123 00:04:44.767 --> 00:04:45.767 Exactly. 124 00:04:45.767 --> 00:04:46.767 Fine! 125 00:04:46.767 --> 00:04:48.767 That's the way the game is played. 126 00:04:48.767 --> 00:04:50.767 (unintelligible) All right. 127 00:04:50.767 --> 00:04:52.767 So-- but it's been on there-- I mean, I think you have to give 128 00:04:52.767 --> 00:04:53.767 some credit. 129 00:04:53.767 --> 00:04:54.767 I mean, I don't want make this-- 130 00:04:54.767 --> 00:04:55.767 Sure. 131 00:04:55.767 --> 00:04:57.767 --sort of an evaluation of the Clinton 132 00:04:57.767 --> 00:04:59.767 administration, although I have a couple questions about it. 133 00:04:59.767 --> 00:05:02.334 You do have to give some credit to Bob Rubin-- 134 00:05:02.334 --> 00:05:03.334 Certainly. 135 00:05:03.334 --> 00:05:04.334 --and Alan Greenspan-- 136 00:05:04.334 --> 00:05:05.334 Certainly. 137 00:05:05.334 --> 00:05:06.334 --and all of this-- they have done something 138 00:05:06.334 --> 00:05:08.033 because if they had ignored it, it would not necessarily-- 139 00:05:08.033 --> 00:05:11.000 the stewardship has not been bad on the economic front. 140 00:05:11.000 --> 00:05:13.000 That's right. 141 00:05:13.000 --> 00:05:15.000 The political class has acquitted itself pretty well. 142 00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:17.000 But let's remember one thing. 143 00:05:17.000 --> 00:05:19.000 We are now living in the most phenomenal era of wealth 144 00:05:19.000 --> 00:05:21.000 creation in human history and let's remember it's not the 145 00:05:21.000 --> 00:05:23.000 political class that basically doing this. 146 00:05:23.000 --> 00:05:25.000 It's entrepreneurs, small businesspeople all over the 147 00:05:25.000 --> 00:05:27.801 country are driving this. 148 00:05:27.801 --> 00:05:30.133 Well, it's true, and-- but at the same time, 149 00:05:30.133 --> 00:05:34.234 one-- why doesn't that wealth creation seem to be able to-- 150 00:05:34.234 --> 00:05:37.801 and this is not any argument about redistribution of wealth. 151 00:05:37.801 --> 00:05:41.701 It is having the gift of the entrepreneurship seep down lower 152 00:05:41.701 --> 00:05:45.367 to more people who get a piece of the American dream. 153 00:05:45.367 --> 00:05:47.367 Well, you mean why isn't it doing that? 154 00:05:47.367 --> 00:05:49.367 Yeah. Exactly. 155 00:05:49.367 --> 00:05:51.367 In part because-- 156 00:05:51.367 --> 00:05:53.367 We seem to see billionaires getting richer kind 157 00:05:53.367 --> 00:05:56.334 of thing. 158 00:05:56.334 --> 00:05:58.334 Well, what you're seeing, in part, is a higher 159 00:05:58.334 --> 00:06:00.334 and higher premium placed on skills. 160 00:06:00.334 --> 00:06:01.334 Exactly. 161 00:06:01.334 --> 00:06:03.334 Education, accomplishment. 162 00:06:03.334 --> 00:06:05.334 Now, that has always-- it happened when we went from-- 163 00:06:05.334 --> 00:06:08.868 when we had the introduction in the late 18th century of steam. 164 00:06:08.868 --> 00:06:09.868 Same thing happened. 165 00:06:09.868 --> 00:06:12.534 People had to learn new skills to accomplish things with the 166 00:06:12.534 --> 00:06:14.534 new technology-- 167 00:06:14.534 --> 00:06:16.767 Because of industrialization or because of-- 168 00:06:16.767 --> 00:06:17.767 That's right. 169 00:06:17.767 --> 00:06:18.801 Right. 170 00:06:18.801 --> 00:06:20.801 And it placed a new premium on learning. 171 00:06:20.801 --> 00:06:23.267 So you had a widening of disparities that then came back 172 00:06:23.267 --> 00:06:24.267 together. 173 00:06:24.267 --> 00:06:26.267 That was the end of the 18th century. 174 00:06:26.267 --> 00:06:28.267 End of the 19th century, exactly the same thing with the coming 175 00:06:28.267 --> 00:06:29.267 of electricity. 176 00:06:29.267 --> 00:06:31.267 You're seeing it now at the end of the 20th century, a widening. 177 00:06:31.267 --> 00:06:33.267 But what this widening of income does is it's a huge incentive 178 00:06:33.267 --> 00:06:35.801 for the people being left behind to go to school, to stay in 179 00:06:35.801 --> 00:06:38.667 school, to learn, to invest in their own human capital. 180 00:06:38.667 --> 00:06:40.734 And that incentive will work. 181 00:06:40.734 --> 00:06:42.767 I want to talk a little bit about leadership. 182 00:06:42.767 --> 00:06:45.434 What was it-- you and I talked about this before we began. 183 00:06:45.434 --> 00:06:49.000 There is in The Weekly Standard again-- Bill Kristol gets a lot 184 00:06:49.000 --> 00:06:51.000 of credit on this program tonight. 185 00:06:51.000 --> 00:06:54.567 What is it about Ronald Reagan that made him -- quote -- 186 00:06:54.567 --> 00:06:55.567 a "great president''? 187 00:06:55.567 --> 00:06:57.801 Two things: clarity about what the country 188 00:06:57.801 --> 00:06:59.934 needed when he came to power. 189 00:06:59.934 --> 00:07:01.467 It needed cheering up. 190 00:07:01.467 --> 00:07:06.367 We forget just how awful the year 1979 was-- Afghanistan, 191 00:07:06.367 --> 00:07:08.367 gas lines, all the rest. 192 00:07:08.367 --> 00:07:10.467 The country with the hostages in Iran-- 193 00:07:10.467 --> 00:07:12.801 Mainly because of what OPEC had done? 194 00:07:12.801 --> 00:07:14.067 Well, perhaps. 195 00:07:14.067 --> 00:07:16.834 But for whatever reason, it seemed to be a time when the 196 00:07:16.834 --> 00:07:20.133 basics of American life weren't working anymore. 197 00:07:20.133 --> 00:07:23.133 Ronald Reagan came to power and people said, ``Oh, the smile. 198 00:07:23.133 --> 00:07:25.334 He thinks that's a philosophic statement.'' 199 00:07:25.334 --> 00:07:26.300 Yeah. 200 00:07:26.300 --> 00:07:27.300 It was. 201 00:07:27.300 --> 00:07:29.300 Or it was Dr. Strangelove. 202 00:07:29.300 --> 00:07:30.300 It was. 203 00:07:30.300 --> 00:07:32.300 Ronald Reagan understood that when Americans feel good and 204 00:07:32.300 --> 00:07:34.334 confident, they stay in school, they get married, they invest, 205 00:07:34.334 --> 00:07:35.334 they have children. 206 00:07:35.334 --> 00:07:36.834 Good things being to happen. 207 00:07:36.834 --> 00:07:40.033 So psychotherapy, if you will, for a continental nation. 208 00:07:40.033 --> 00:07:42.033 Still, it was his-- he was an inspirator. 209 00:07:42.033 --> 00:07:43.033 But second-- 210 00:07:43.033 --> 00:07:51.400 All right. 211 00:07:51.400 --> 00:07:53.400 --he understood the great challenge of the cold 212 00:07:53.400 --> 00:07:55.400 war, which was to deligitimize-- to help deligitimize the Soviet 213 00:07:55.400 --> 00:07:57.601 Union, which he did not least -- not least -- with the rhetoric 214 00:07:57.601 --> 00:07:59.968 so much reviled by his cultured despisers at the time about the 215 00:07:59.968 --> 00:08:02.167 ``evil empire'' and ``the source of evil in the modern world,'' 216 00:08:02.167 --> 00:08:04.167 which of course the Soviet Union was. 217 00:08:04.167 --> 00:08:06.167 The gulag and all that. 218 00:08:06.167 --> 00:08:07.167 All that. 219 00:08:07.167 --> 00:08:10.033 Did he understand it that way or was he 220 00:08:10.033 --> 00:08:12.801 simply operating out of instinct? 221 00:08:12.801 --> 00:08:16.868 Not that you give any value to one or the other, or more value, 222 00:08:16.868 --> 00:08:22.000 but was it just instinct to him, that it was his instinct 223 00:08:22.000 --> 00:08:27.000 and his judgment that the Soviet Union was an ``evil empire,'' 224 00:08:27.000 --> 00:08:29.000 rather than the notion, as you expressed it? 225 00:08:29.000 --> 00:08:30.000 You know the man. 226 00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:32.033 You've had him at your house for dinner. 227 00:08:32.033 --> 00:08:33.033 Tell me. 228 00:08:33.033 --> 00:08:35.033 I think he understood it. 229 00:08:35.033 --> 00:08:37.033 He had read Whittaker Chambers's Witness. 230 00:08:37.033 --> 00:08:39.033 He had read some of the classics of anti-Communist literature. 231 00:08:39.033 --> 00:08:43.601 Ronald Reagan could quote a long passage from memory 232 00:08:43.601 --> 00:08:45.868 of Whittaker Chambers looking at his daughter's ear and having 233 00:08:45.868 --> 00:08:50.234 an epiphany, seeing that fine infant's ear and saying, 234 00:08:50.234 --> 00:08:53.901 ``There's got to be something more than materialism to life to 235 00:08:53.901 --> 00:08:58.801 produce this wonderful thing.'' 236 00:08:58.801 --> 00:09:02.834 Reagan took seriously the literature of anti-Communism. 237 00:09:02.834 --> 00:09:04.067 And therefore incorporated into 238 00:09:04.067 --> 00:09:05.067 his own political-- 239 00:09:05.067 --> 00:09:06.067 That's right. 240 00:09:06.067 --> 00:09:07.067 --philosophy-- 241 00:09:07.067 --> 00:09:09.067 But-- 242 00:09:09.067 --> 00:09:12.133 -and his transition from Democrat to Republican. 243 00:09:12.133 --> 00:09:14.133 There is the other side of Reagan 244 00:09:14.133 --> 00:09:16.133 you're talking about, which was the instinctive politician. 245 00:09:16.133 --> 00:09:20.467 Franklin Roosevelt instinctively knew that he had to 246 00:09:20.467 --> 00:09:21.467 inspirit the country-- 247 00:09:21.467 --> 00:09:22.467 Right. 248 00:09:22.467 --> 00:09:24.467 --in his first inaugural address about fear, 249 00:09:24.467 --> 00:09:25.467 about fearing-- 250 00:09:25.467 --> 00:09:26.467 Yeah. 251 00:09:26.467 --> 00:09:27.467 --things. 252 00:09:27.467 --> 00:09:29.033 He didn't have a theory. 253 00:09:29.033 --> 00:09:31.767 He never read Keynes's General Theory of Employment, 254 00:09:31.767 --> 00:09:32.767 Interest and Money. 255 00:09:32.767 --> 00:09:34.767 He said, ``Let's try something.'' 256 00:09:34.767 --> 00:09:35.767 Right. 257 00:09:35.767 --> 00:09:37.767 ``See what happens. 258 00:09:37.767 --> 00:09:39.767 If it doesn't work, we'll try something else.'' 259 00:09:39.767 --> 00:09:41.767 ``We got to get this country moving.'' 260 00:09:41.767 --> 00:09:42.767 Precisely. 261 00:09:42.767 --> 00:09:43.767 Yeah. 262 00:09:43.767 --> 00:09:45.767 Where do you place Reagan, then? 263 00:09:45.767 --> 00:09:47.767 In the hierarchy of presidents? 264 00:09:47.767 --> 00:09:48.767 Yeah. 265 00:09:48.767 --> 00:09:50.767 Somerset Maugham was asked once to assess 266 00:09:50.767 --> 00:09:52.767 himself as a novelist and he says, ``I'm at the front rank 267 00:09:52.767 --> 00:09:53.767 of the second rank.'' 268 00:09:53.767 --> 00:09:54.767 Yeah. 269 00:09:54.767 --> 00:09:55.767 And I think Reagan's at the front rank, 270 00:09:55.767 --> 00:09:57.767 the very front rank of the second rank, which isn't bad because 271 00:09:57.767 --> 00:09:59.767 the front rank consists largely of-- 272 00:09:59.767 --> 00:10:00.767 Washington and Lincoln. 273 00:10:00.767 --> 00:10:02.767 --presidents like Washington, Lincoln-- 274 00:10:02.767 --> 00:10:03.767 Lincoln, Roosevelt-- 275 00:10:03.767 --> 00:10:05.067 --Roosevelt, who were drawn to 276 00:10:05.067 --> 00:10:06.767 greatness by huge crises-- the founding, 277 00:10:06.767 --> 00:10:07.767 civil war, world war. 278 00:10:07.767 --> 00:10:10.634 Reagan had no crisis comparable to that, but within the-- 279 00:10:10.634 --> 00:10:12.667 Oh, the end of the cold war. 280 00:10:12.667 --> 00:10:14.667 The end of the cold war and, as I say, 281 00:10:14.667 --> 00:10:15.667 the dispiriting nature-- 282 00:10:15.667 --> 00:10:16.667 Right. 283 00:10:16.667 --> 00:10:18.667 --of American experience in the '70s. 284 00:10:18.667 --> 00:10:20.667 Then are you perhaps too harsh on Clinton 285 00:10:20.667 --> 00:10:22.667 because he hasn't had either of those? 286 00:10:22.667 --> 00:10:24.667 I'm not really harsh on Clinton. 287 00:10:24.667 --> 00:10:26.667 You give him-- you just said to me-- 288 00:10:26.667 --> 00:10:27.667 He's negligible. 289 00:10:27.667 --> 00:10:28.667 Negligible! 290 00:10:28.667 --> 00:10:29.667 That's harsh! 291 00:10:29.667 --> 00:10:31.667 Let me phrase it another way. 292 00:10:31.667 --> 00:10:33.667 He's the least consequential president in Washington since 293 00:10:33.667 --> 00:10:38.701 Coolidge, who was -- Coolidge was -- inconsequential by choice 294 00:10:38.701 --> 00:10:39.701 and conviction. 295 00:10:39.701 --> 00:10:42.601 But what Bill Clinton is suffering from is largely 296 00:10:42.601 --> 00:10:44.701 nothing he could do anything about and that is the 297 00:10:44.701 --> 00:10:47.267 miniaturization and the marginalization of the 298 00:10:47.267 --> 00:10:50.734 presidency itself, which is shrinking back-- at the end of 299 00:10:50.734 --> 00:10:54.567 the cold war and the end of the national security preoccupation 300 00:10:54.567 --> 00:10:58.367 is being drawn back to Constitutional proportions. 301 00:10:58.367 --> 00:11:01.334 The Constitutional norm through American history is 302 00:11:01.334 --> 00:11:04.367 Congressional supremacy, if you look at the sweep 303 00:11:04.367 --> 00:11:05.367 of our history. 304 00:11:05.367 --> 00:11:07.968 Congress is Article 1 of the Constitution. 305 00:11:07.968 --> 00:11:09.934 It is the first branch of government. 306 00:11:09.934 --> 00:11:12.667 It sits symbolically where the four quadrants 307 00:11:12.667 --> 00:11:13.667 of the federal city meet. 308 00:11:13.667 --> 00:11:15.667 And that's just fine with you. 309 00:11:15.667 --> 00:11:16.667 Perfectly fine. 310 00:11:16.667 --> 00:11:18.701 You know, I mean, I prefer-- 311 00:11:18.701 --> 00:11:20.701 It is-- it is the-- 312 00:11:20.701 --> 00:11:21.701 I prefer strong presidential leadership. 313 00:11:21.701 --> 00:11:23.701 Well, that-- that watery Caesarism of yours 314 00:11:23.701 --> 00:11:24.767 must stop. 315 00:11:24.767 --> 00:11:27.100 Well, but you happened to like Lincoln, 316 00:11:27.100 --> 00:11:28.100 didn't you? 317 00:11:28.100 --> 00:11:29.100 Well, yes, but I-- 318 00:11:29.100 --> 00:11:30.100 The vote would say 319 00:11:30.100 --> 00:11:32.100 there are nine-- there are nine no's and one yes 320 00:11:32.100 --> 00:11:33.100 and we vote yes. 321 00:11:33.100 --> 00:11:35.100 That's right, but the price of getting Lincolns, 322 00:11:35.100 --> 00:11:37.100 if it is carnage for four years, is too high. 323 00:11:37.100 --> 00:11:39.968 I'd prefer to have tranquility and Congressional supremacy. 324 00:11:39.968 --> 00:11:41.968 Well, maybe if we'd gotten Lincoln four years 325 00:11:41.968 --> 00:11:43.968 earlier, we wouldn't have had the carnage. 326 00:11:43.968 --> 00:11:44.968 Could be. 327 00:11:44.968 --> 00:11:46.968 But you couldn't have got Lincoln four years earlier. 328 00:11:46.968 --> 00:11:47.968 That's true. 329 00:11:47.968 --> 00:11:49.968 Crises tend to draw-- 330 00:11:49.968 --> 00:11:50.968 Crises tend to draw what? 331 00:11:50.968 --> 00:11:53.000 I mean-- 332 00:11:53.000 --> 00:11:54.000 Well, in a lucky country, they draw leaders. 333 00:11:54.000 --> 00:11:55.000 Doesn't always happen. 334 00:11:55.000 --> 00:11:57.000 France had crises in this century and didn't draw them. 335 00:11:57.000 --> 00:11:58.968 Speak to that issue for me, the notion of 336 00:11:58.968 --> 00:11:59.968 leadership, public leadership. 337 00:11:59.968 --> 00:12:02.601 I mean, there-- and whether we are attracting-- I mean, we've 338 00:12:02.601 --> 00:12:06.334 watched what's happened to-- in 1994 there was the much-heralded 339 00:12:06.334 --> 00:12:11.067 arrival to the speakership and the most talked about of-- 340 00:12:11.067 --> 00:12:12.067 Newt Gingrich. 341 00:12:12.067 --> 00:12:13.067 Well, Newt Gingrich-- 342 00:12:13.067 --> 00:12:14.067 I mean, clearly, Newt Gingrich 343 00:12:14.067 --> 00:12:16.067 is a different figure today. 344 00:12:16.067 --> 00:12:17.067 That's right. 345 00:12:17.067 --> 00:12:19.133 Newt Gingrich's period of great leadership was before 1994. 346 00:12:19.133 --> 00:12:21.133 It was bringing about the transformation-- 347 00:12:21.133 --> 00:12:23.133 Right. Right. 348 00:12:23.133 --> 00:12:25.133 --of the House of Representatives. 349 00:12:25.133 --> 00:12:27.167 The revolution itself. 350 00:12:27.167 --> 00:12:29.167 Leadership in a democracy is, some people have 351 00:12:29.167 --> 00:12:31.167 said, the ability to inflict pain and get away with it. 352 00:12:31.167 --> 00:12:33.167 I don't need to lead my children to McDonald's. 353 00:12:33.167 --> 00:12:34.434 They want to go. 354 00:12:34.434 --> 00:12:35.434 It's to get people to do-- 355 00:12:35.434 --> 00:12:36.434 That's right! 356 00:12:36.434 --> 00:12:38.434 --what they don't want to do, to accept, we hope, 357 00:12:38.434 --> 00:12:40.601 short-term pain for long-term gain. 358 00:12:40.601 --> 00:12:43.234 But basically, it is to move people in a direction they're 359 00:12:43.234 --> 00:12:47.601 not inclined by the natural momentum of things to go. 360 00:12:47.601 --> 00:12:50.133 Right now there's lots of leadership in this country. 361 00:12:50.133 --> 00:12:52.133 It just doesn't happen to be in Washington, 362 00:12:52.133 --> 00:12:53.133 but it's Washington's myopia-- 363 00:12:53.133 --> 00:12:54.133 Well-- 364 00:12:54.133 --> 00:12:56.133 --to think if it isn't there, it isn't happening. 365 00:12:56.133 --> 00:12:58.133 Stephen Goldsmith, mayor of Indianapolis-- 366 00:12:58.133 --> 00:13:00.167 Was just here on this program a week ago. 367 00:13:00.167 --> 00:13:02.167 --Rendell, mayor of Philadelphia, Governor 368 00:13:02.167 --> 00:13:06.267 Thompson of Wisconsin-- both parties at the state level and 369 00:13:06.267 --> 00:13:09.267 at the local level are producing tremendous leaders. 370 00:13:09.267 --> 00:13:11.801 The only thing they're really doing, in the 371 00:13:11.801 --> 00:13:15.133 end, is this sort of mass movement to privatization, 372 00:13:15.133 --> 00:13:16.133 isn't it? 373 00:13:16.133 --> 00:13:18.133 No, that's not all, but it's part of it. 374 00:13:18.133 --> 00:13:20.133 It's the major portion of it. 375 00:13:20.133 --> 00:13:22.133 I mean, if you look at Goldsmith and read his book-- 376 00:13:22.133 --> 00:13:23.133 But this is-- 377 00:13:23.133 --> 00:13:24.133 --he's mainly changing the 378 00:13:24.133 --> 00:13:26.133 notion of how we go about this thing of governance. 379 00:13:26.133 --> 00:13:27.133 That's right. 380 00:13:27.133 --> 00:13:29.133 But it is a major course correction at the end of the 381 00:13:29.133 --> 00:13:32.067 ``century of the state,'' as the state gets put back on a leash. 382 00:13:32.067 --> 00:13:34.167 Did the liberal-- and part of what 383 00:13:34.167 --> 00:13:35.167 you're writing here about. 384 00:13:35.167 --> 00:13:37.801 Did the liberal welfare state fall of its own weight? 385 00:13:37.801 --> 00:13:39.801 It hasn't fallen! 386 00:13:39.801 --> 00:13:42.501 Liberal welfare state's alive and perfectly well! 387 00:13:42.501 --> 00:13:44.467 Well, you just told me the revolution 388 00:13:44.467 --> 00:13:45.467 had worked and, in fact-- 389 00:13:45.467 --> 00:13:46.467 No! 390 00:13:46.467 --> 00:13:48.467 --that the struggle now with conservatives, 391 00:13:48.467 --> 00:13:50.467 who are all about dismantling the liberal welfare state-- 392 00:13:50.467 --> 00:13:51.467 No. 393 00:13:51.467 --> 00:13:52.467 Wrong? 394 00:13:52.467 --> 00:13:53.467 Wrong. 395 00:13:53.467 --> 00:13:55.467 What are they about? 396 00:13:55.467 --> 00:13:57.467 That was-- that's Gingrichian rhetoric. 397 00:13:57.467 --> 00:13:58.467 All right. 398 00:13:58.467 --> 00:14:01.467 And I'm not responsible for that, Lord knows. 399 00:14:01.467 --> 00:14:02.467 Okay. 400 00:14:02.467 --> 00:14:04.467 Look, the American people 401 00:14:04.467 --> 00:14:06.501 are quite determined-- 402 00:14:06.501 --> 00:14:08.501 So much I don't know 403 00:14:08.501 --> 00:14:09.501 --are quite determined to have a welfare state. 404 00:14:09.501 --> 00:14:11.501 Do you fear at all the future of America? 405 00:14:11.501 --> 00:14:13.534 Well, there are obvious grounds 406 00:14:13.534 --> 00:14:14.534 for serious anxieties. 407 00:14:14.534 --> 00:14:16.534 And where is it? 408 00:14:16.534 --> 00:14:18.534 It is in the coarsening of American culture, 409 00:14:18.534 --> 00:14:20.534 in the loss of self-control-- 410 00:14:20.534 --> 00:14:21.534 And which you blame-- 411 00:14:21.534 --> 00:14:22.534 --self-government-- 412 00:14:22.534 --> 00:14:24.534 --in part on the nature of-- of the-- statism. 413 00:14:24.534 --> 00:14:27.133 There is, in fact, the possibility that the 414 00:14:27.133 --> 00:14:29.133 welfare state has been having what are called ``feedback 415 00:14:29.133 --> 00:14:33.801 effects.'' The phrase comes from a very funny but quite serious 416 00:14:33.801 --> 00:14:37.767 article written in the 1970s, mid-'70s, by a University of 417 00:14:37.767 --> 00:14:38.868 Chicago economist. 418 00:14:38.868 --> 00:14:43.834 At that point, Detroit was putting seatbelts in automobiles 419 00:14:43.834 --> 00:14:46.767 and he did a study about Americans who were deciding not 420 00:14:46.767 --> 00:14:47.767 to use them. 421 00:14:47.767 --> 00:14:48.767 Right. 422 00:14:48.767 --> 00:14:50.868 And he came to the conclusion that drivers who 423 00:14:50.868 --> 00:14:56.267 used their seatbelts suffered fewer injuries, but caused more. 424 00:14:56.267 --> 00:14:59.200 They caused more because, feeling secure, 425 00:14:59.200 --> 00:15:00.801 they drove more recklessly. 426 00:15:00.801 --> 00:15:04.501 It is arguable, and this is one of the thoughts behind the 427 00:15:04.501 --> 00:15:09.167 Welfare reform, that by removing some of the risks of risky 428 00:15:09.167 --> 00:15:12.501 behavior, we're encouraging risky behavior. 429 00:15:12.501 --> 00:15:15.200 And that really is at the heart-- 430 00:15:15.200 --> 00:15:16.200 I see. I see. 431 00:15:16.200 --> 00:15:18.501 Charlie, I think there's a profoundly searching 432 00:15:18.501 --> 00:15:20.501 debate under way in this country. 433 00:15:20.501 --> 00:15:22.501 People say politics is dull now, nothing happening. 434 00:15:22.501 --> 00:15:26.100 Not true-- a profound reexamination of the 1930s 435 00:15:26.100 --> 00:15:28.901 paradigm about social policy. 436 00:15:28.901 --> 00:15:32.300 The social policies put in place in this country between the '30s 437 00:15:32.300 --> 00:15:34.934 and the '60s were shaped by men and women who themselves were 438 00:15:34.934 --> 00:15:39.000 shaped by the searing experience of material deprivation and 439 00:15:39.000 --> 00:15:42.701 unemployment in the 1930s and the premise of social policy has 440 00:15:42.701 --> 00:15:46.534 been what poor people lack are material goods and services 441 00:15:46.534 --> 00:15:48.534 government knows how to deliver. 442 00:15:48.534 --> 00:15:52.234 What is now being entertained is a bleaker but more accurate 443 00:15:52.234 --> 00:15:56.367 view that the problem of intractable poverty is not a problem of 444 00:15:56.367 --> 00:16:00.968 material scarcities, but a scarcity of inner resources, the 445 00:16:00.968 --> 00:16:05.434 habits, mores, dispositions, values necessary for a 446 00:16:05.434 --> 00:16:08.767 successful life in an urban society, that we have not a 447 00:16:08.767 --> 00:16:11.701 materially based poverty, but a behaviorally based poverty. 448 00:16:11.701 --> 00:16:12.701 Wait. 449 00:16:12.701 --> 00:16:13.701 Then poverty produces the paucity-- 450 00:16:13.701 --> 00:16:14.701 No. 451 00:16:14.701 --> 00:16:16.834 --of the values or the paucity of values-- 452 00:16:16.834 --> 00:16:18.834 Produces-- 453 00:16:18.834 --> 00:16:19.834 --produces poverty? 454 00:16:19.834 --> 00:16:21.834 Not only produces it but is responsible for the 455 00:16:21.834 --> 00:16:23.834 intergenerational transmission of it. 456 00:16:23.834 --> 00:16:25.834 Now, that means it's much more difficult-- 457 00:16:25.834 --> 00:16:27.634 And where does the absence of these 458 00:16:27.634 --> 00:16:28.634 values come from? 459 00:16:28.634 --> 00:16:29.968 We don't know. 460 00:16:29.968 --> 00:16:32.367 One theory behind the Welfare reform was that the welfare 461 00:16:32.367 --> 00:16:34.667 state was having those feedback effects. 462 00:16:34.667 --> 00:16:35.667 Right. 463 00:16:35.667 --> 00:16:37.667 It was producing dependency. 464 00:16:37.667 --> 00:16:40.033 It was communicating a matter of societal indifference to what 465 00:16:40.033 --> 00:16:42.567 used to be stigmatized until recently as ``bourgeois values.'' 466 00:16:42.567 --> 00:16:44.968 Turns out we rather like bourgeois values-- 467 00:16:44.968 --> 00:16:45.968 thrift, industriousness-- 468 00:16:45.968 --> 00:16:46.968 But where do you-- 469 00:16:46.968 --> 00:16:48.000 --self-control-- 470 00:16:48.000 --> 00:16:49.367 --in the end, 471 00:16:49.367 --> 00:16:51.367 come down on that argument, with respect to-- that this feedback 472 00:16:51.367 --> 00:16:52.367 effect and how-- 473 00:16:52.367 --> 00:16:53.367 I think it's largely-- 474 00:16:53.367 --> 00:16:54.367 How strong is that bond? 475 00:16:54.367 --> 00:16:56.367 I think it's largely right. 476 00:16:56.367 --> 00:16:57.367 You do? 477 00:16:57.367 --> 00:16:59.367 I do, that we have had that feedback effect-- 478 00:16:59.367 --> 00:17:01.367 That we created-- we have by the nature of-- 479 00:17:01.367 --> 00:17:02.367 That we-- 480 00:17:02.367 --> 00:17:03.367 --our governance 481 00:17:03.367 --> 00:17:05.367 created a dependency that has eroded those values in 482 00:17:05.367 --> 00:17:08.868 individuals-- 483 00:17:08.868 --> 00:17:10.868 This-- 484 00:17:10.868 --> 00:17:14.667 --that would have-- that led them, in a sense, 485 00:17:14.667 --> 00:17:16.667 to engage in-- in all kinds of behavior and conduct-- 486 00:17:16.667 --> 00:17:18.234 Sure. 487 00:17:18.234 --> 00:17:20.234 --and it's generational. 488 00:17:20.234 --> 00:17:21.234 Yes. 489 00:17:21.234 --> 00:17:23.234 The pedigree of this idea does not run back to Newt Gingrich. 490 00:17:23.234 --> 00:17:25.534 It runs back to De Toqueville. 491 00:17:25.534 --> 00:17:29.934 He visited this country second quarter of the 19th century 492 00:17:29.934 --> 00:17:34.601 and warned of a peculiar kind of soft and ennervating despotism 493 00:17:34.601 --> 00:17:39.200 from a state practicing an improvident compassion, 494 00:17:39.200 --> 00:17:40.300 if you will. 495 00:17:40.300 --> 00:17:41.300 And I think we've experienced-- 496 00:17:41.300 --> 00:17:42.300 He also warned that race-- 497 00:17:42.300 --> 00:17:43.300 --some of that. 498 00:17:43.300 --> 00:17:44.300 --was our-- 499 00:17:44.300 --> 00:17:46.300 Sure. 500 00:17:46.300 --> 00:17:48.334 But we've experienced some of what he warned against. 501 00:17:48.334 --> 00:17:49.334 Yeah. 502 00:17:49.334 --> 00:17:51.767 You-- do you see-- then what-- what changes it, 503 00:17:51.767 --> 00:17:52.767 the wrenching away from-- 504 00:17:52.767 --> 00:17:53.767 The first-- 505 00:17:53.767 --> 00:17:54.968 --government or-- 506 00:17:54.968 --> 00:17:56.868 The first thing that changes it 507 00:17:56.868 --> 00:17:59.501 is getting the question right and that's what we've been doing 508 00:17:59.501 --> 00:18:00.501 in the argument about Welfare. 509 00:18:00.501 --> 00:18:05.834 Is the '30s paradigm right or is the new paradigm right, 510 00:18:05.834 --> 00:18:07.267 that it is behaviorally based poverty? 511 00:18:07.267 --> 00:18:10.167 You see-- Charlie, something happened in the late '60s 512 00:18:10.167 --> 00:18:11.367 and early '70s. 513 00:18:11.367 --> 00:18:15.234 Two lines on a graph crossed that weren't supposed to cross: 514 00:18:15.234 --> 00:18:20.467 downward trajectory of unemployment, rising trajectory 515 00:18:20.467 --> 00:18:21.901 of Welfare dependency. 516 00:18:21.901 --> 00:18:25.133 That wasn't supposed to happen and it was-- we've been trying 517 00:18:25.133 --> 00:18:29.801 for 30 years to explain that and maybe we now have. 518 00:18:29.801 --> 00:18:33.567 But where do we have to go to break the 519 00:18:33.567 --> 00:18:34.834 generational transfer? 520 00:18:34.834 --> 00:18:35.834 It's happening now. 521 00:18:35.834 --> 00:18:36.834 We have to go back-- 522 00:18:36.834 --> 00:18:38.834 You're saying first we have to have the idea-- 523 00:18:38.834 --> 00:18:40.834 That's right. 524 00:18:40.834 --> 00:18:42.834 --the debate, to understand. 525 00:18:42.834 --> 00:18:44.834 Then we have to turn the states into what 526 00:18:44.834 --> 00:18:46.834 they're now becoming under Welfare reform, 527 00:18:46.834 --> 00:18:48.834 which is "laboratories of liberty,'' to use Brandeis's phrase. 528 00:18:48.834 --> 00:18:49.834 We have to have 50 experiments. 529 00:18:49.834 --> 00:18:51.834 And we're going to solve it at the city hall level, 530 00:18:51.834 --> 00:18:52.834 not in Congress. 531 00:18:52.834 --> 00:18:54.868 I argue that all the time, that the great 532 00:18:54.868 --> 00:18:56.868 experimentation in government is taking place 533 00:18:56.868 --> 00:18:57.868 at the state government-- 534 00:18:57.868 --> 00:18:58.868 Absolutely. 535 00:18:58.868 --> 00:19:00.834 --more than anywhere else. 536 00:19:00.834 --> 00:19:01.834 Sure. 537 00:19:01.834 --> 00:19:03.834 But the people we just cited happen not to be 538 00:19:03.834 --> 00:19:05.834 governors, but in the case of Indianapolis and New York, 539 00:19:05.834 --> 00:19:06.834 mayors. 540 00:19:06.834 --> 00:19:08.834 Tommy Thompson, another governor, Engler, 541 00:19:08.834 --> 00:19:10.834 a governor-- 542 00:19:10.834 --> 00:19:11.834 Yeah. Riordan, a governor. 543 00:19:11.834 --> 00:19:12.834 Sure. 544 00:19:12.834 --> 00:19:13.834 No, Riordan is a mayor-- 545 00:19:13.834 --> 00:19:14.834 A mayor. 546 00:19:14.834 --> 00:19:16.834 --and-- 547 00:19:16.834 --> 00:19:17.834 But Wilson with his-- his Welfare reforms. 548 00:19:17.834 --> 00:19:19.834 It's happening all over, both parties. 549 00:19:19.834 --> 00:19:21.834 Two-oh-nine you're in favor of, huh? 550 00:19:21.834 --> 00:19:22.834 Absolutely. 551 00:19:22.834 --> 00:19:25.100 The end of the process of Balkanizing America for the 552 00:19:25.100 --> 00:19:28.501 purpose of buttressing and administering a racial spoils 553 00:19:28.501 --> 00:19:29.501 system. It is time to say-- 554 00:19:29.501 --> 00:19:32.534 I find that a little bit 555 00:19:32.534 --> 00:19:36.434 harsh, ``the purpose of a racial spoils system.'' 556 00:19:36.434 --> 00:19:38.968 I mean, there are too many people, John Hope Franklin recently 557 00:19:38.968 --> 00:19:41.934 on this broadcast, who-- you know, who I think can make powerful 558 00:19:41.934 --> 00:19:49.367 testimony to-- that what benefited minorities was not 559 00:19:49.367 --> 00:19:50.434 a spoils system. 560 00:19:50.434 --> 00:19:54.200 I think it is-- one of the problems 561 00:19:54.200 --> 00:19:58.100 of the racial spoils system is that it stigmatizes the real 562 00:19:58.100 --> 00:20:01.501 achievements of the vast majority of African-American men 563 00:20:01.501 --> 00:20:04.033 and women who -- A -- have made it in this country -- vast 564 00:20:04.033 --> 00:20:08.033 majority are doing just fine and they're doing just fine not 565 00:20:08.033 --> 00:20:10.200 because they're wards of the state, but because they're 566 00:20:10.200 --> 00:20:13.501 functioning, free men and women. 567 00:20:13.501 --> 00:20:15.534 That's an easier argument to make, I think, 568 00:20:15.534 --> 00:20:18.367 in a sense, they're doing just fine because they have found, 569 00:20:18.367 --> 00:20:19.367 you know, all-- they have found those-- 570 00:20:19.367 --> 00:20:20.367 Because-- 571 00:20:20.367 --> 00:20:22.367 --qualities that enabled them to-- 572 00:20:22.367 --> 00:20:24.367 They're socially-- 573 00:20:24.367 --> 00:20:25.367 --participate in American-- 574 00:20:25.367 --> 00:20:26.767 --competent Americans, sure. 575 00:20:26.767 --> 00:20:31.267 The future. 576 00:20:31.267 --> 00:20:33.234 Campaign reform. 577 00:20:33.234 --> 00:20:34.234 Is it going to happen? 578 00:20:34.234 --> 00:20:36.267 I certainly hope not. 579 00:20:36.267 --> 00:20:37.267 Because you-- 580 00:20:37.267 --> 00:20:38.267 Every-- 581 00:20:38.267 --> 00:20:39.267 --think that-- because you don't-- 582 00:20:39.267 --> 00:20:40.267 well, you tell me. 583 00:20:40.267 --> 00:20:43.834 Every possible reform that's being debated 584 00:20:43.834 --> 00:20:46.501 is an elaboration of the government attempt to ration the 585 00:20:46.501 --> 00:20:50.834 permissible amount and govern the content of political speech. 586 00:20:50.834 --> 00:20:53.067 The Supreme Court got it right. 587 00:20:53.067 --> 00:20:56.601 It didn't say money is speech, it said you cannot separate 588 00:20:56.601 --> 00:21:00.167 speech from the ability to fund it and disseminate it. 589 00:21:00.167 --> 00:21:01.167 Let me give you an analogy. 590 00:21:01.167 --> 00:21:04.234 Suppose someone said-- suppose Congress (unintelligible) said, 591 00:21:04.234 --> 00:21:07.234 ``Of course we have a Constitutional right to travel. 592 00:21:07.234 --> 00:21:09.267 We're not going to interfere with that. 593 00:21:09.267 --> 00:21:12.100 We're just going to cap at $1,000 the amount you can spend 594 00:21:12.100 --> 00:21:15.033 on travel in a year.'' You'd say, ``Well, good Lord, that 595 00:21:15.033 --> 00:21:16.367 vitiates the right!'' 596 00:21:16.367 --> 00:21:18.234 And you'd be correct. 597 00:21:18.234 --> 00:21:21.367 Same is true with these attempts to say you can only spend this 598 00:21:21.367 --> 00:21:24.334 much or give this much to disseminate your ideas. 599 00:21:24.334 --> 00:21:25.834 Look what's happened. 600 00:21:25.834 --> 00:21:27.968 They said, ``Well, we're just going to regulate hard money,'' 601 00:21:27.968 --> 00:21:30.334 the money given to particular candidates for particular 602 00:21:30.334 --> 00:21:31.334 campaigns. 603 00:21:31.334 --> 00:21:34.400 Then they said, ``That's not working because the incorrigible 604 00:21:34.400 --> 00:21:37.601 American public finds other ways to butt in on the conversation. 605 00:21:37.601 --> 00:21:42.334 They're going to fund soft money, with issue ads and 606 00:21:42.334 --> 00:21:43.434 party-building activities. 607 00:21:43.434 --> 00:21:44.434 We have to regulate that. 608 00:21:44.434 --> 00:21:46.567 But then that won't suffice, either. 609 00:21:46.567 --> 00:21:50.734 We have to limit express advocacy by interest groups.'' 610 00:21:50.734 --> 00:21:52.734 So when it comes to an examination of what the 611 00:21:52.734 --> 00:21:57.434 Clinton administration did to get reelected, you simply say-- 612 00:21:57.434 --> 00:21:59.434 I'm delighted with what-- 613 00:21:59.434 --> 00:22:00.434 --if they played by-- 614 00:22:00.434 --> 00:22:01.434 Yeah. Look-- 615 00:22:01.434 --> 00:22:03.400 --as-- as they have said, 616 00:22:03.400 --> 00:22:05.834 ``Look, you may not like the rules, but we played by the rules 617 00:22:05.834 --> 00:22:07.100 and we got reelected, thank you very much. 618 00:22:07.100 --> 00:22:08.100 Don't bother us anymore.'' 619 00:22:08.100 --> 00:22:09.100 With an asterisk 620 00:22:09.100 --> 00:22:11.133 (unintelligible) they really should leave the gun runners 621 00:22:11.133 --> 00:22:13.400 and the drug dealers outside the White House gates. 622 00:22:13.400 --> 00:22:15.701 That's not asking too much, to have a little taste. 623 00:22:15.701 --> 00:22:17.701 Oh, that's minor. 624 00:22:17.701 --> 00:22:18.701 That's minor. 625 00:22:18.701 --> 00:22:20.701 No, it's not minor, but-- 626 00:22:20.701 --> 00:22:21.701 No, it is minor! 627 00:22:21.701 --> 00:22:23.701 They should-- they should-- 628 00:22:23.701 --> 00:22:24.701 Come on. 629 00:22:24.701 --> 00:22:26.701 I mean, now-- you're talking about two separate occasions. 630 00:22:26.701 --> 00:22:28.701 But with-- With regard-- 631 00:22:28.701 --> 00:22:30.701 That's not the core of the issue. 632 00:22:30.701 --> 00:22:32.701 I believe that one of the best things 633 00:22:32.701 --> 00:22:34.701 President Clinton has done is deregulate by his behavior 634 00:22:34.701 --> 00:22:35.701 our political system. 635 00:22:35.701 --> 00:22:37.701 That is, he has demonstrated that the laws we have are like 636 00:22:37.701 --> 00:22:39.701 cobwebs trying to lasso a locomotive 637 00:22:39.701 --> 00:22:40.701 and it isn't going to work. 638 00:22:40.701 --> 00:22:42.901 The American people are going to participate in politics. 639 00:22:42.901 --> 00:22:45.267 Someone said that if, in fact-- I don't know 640 00:22:45.267 --> 00:22:48.334 who said this, but if, in fact, President Nixon had been 641 00:22:48.334 --> 00:22:53.234 surrounded by the kind of advice that President Clinton has 642 00:22:53.234 --> 00:22:55.267 received, he would still be in office. 643 00:22:55.267 --> 00:23:00.367 He was surrounded by those kind of people. 644 00:23:00.367 --> 00:23:02.367 Oh, you do make a moral equivalency between 645 00:23:02.367 --> 00:23:03.367 those who advised-- 646 00:23:03.367 --> 00:23:04.367 I this case-- 647 00:23:04.367 --> 00:23:06.367 --Nixon and those who advise Clinton? 648 00:23:06.367 --> 00:23:08.367 Oh, I think they're very similar. 649 00:23:08.367 --> 00:23:09.367 Really? 650 00:23:09.367 --> 00:23:10.367 Yeah. 651 00:23:10.367 --> 00:23:11.367 Do you really? 652 00:23:11.367 --> 00:23:12.367 Who's to be the next president? 653 00:23:12.367 --> 00:23:14.334 And if you had to sort of play that game-- 654 00:23:14.334 --> 00:23:16.334 I think a Republican will probably win 655 00:23:16.334 --> 00:23:18.334 because it's a conservative era and will be for a while longer. 656 00:23:18.334 --> 00:23:20.634 And if Gore gets the nomination, he can't-- 657 00:23:20.634 --> 00:23:22.667 He can't-- 658 00:23:22.667 --> 00:23:23.667 --sing the songs or dance the dance, huh? 659 00:23:23.667 --> 00:23:25.667 Well, he can, but he was not a great candidate 660 00:23:25.667 --> 00:23:26.667 in 1988. 661 00:23:26.667 --> 00:23:28.667 He crashed and burned on the runway. 662 00:23:28.667 --> 00:23:29.667 Yeah. 663 00:23:29.667 --> 00:23:31.667 And we'll see, but I don't think 664 00:23:31.667 --> 00:23:32.801 he's a frightening figure. 665 00:23:32.801 --> 00:23:33.801 You do not-- 666 00:23:33.801 --> 00:23:34.801 Do not. 667 00:23:34.801 --> 00:23:36.801 --think he's a frightening figure. 668 00:23:36.801 --> 00:23:38.067 No. 669 00:23:38.067 --> 00:23:40.267 You once said-- you once taught at Harvard, yes? 670 00:23:40.267 --> 00:23:41.267 You taught-- 671 00:23:41.267 --> 00:23:42.267 I taught a course at-- 672 00:23:42.267 --> 00:23:43.267 Course at Harvard. 673 00:23:43.267 --> 00:23:45.267 And you used to say to those-- 674 00:23:45.267 --> 00:23:46.267 With Harvey Mansfield and Michael Sandel. 675 00:23:46.267 --> 00:23:48.234 Okay, the three of you. 676 00:23:48.234 --> 00:23:49.234 Yeah. 677 00:23:49.234 --> 00:23:50.234 Michael Sandel? 678 00:23:50.234 --> 00:23:51.234 Yeah. 679 00:23:51.234 --> 00:23:53.968 And you used to say to them, ``Read the 680 00:23:53.968 --> 00:23:55.501 newspaper and every great debate today has been somewhere 681 00:23:55.501 --> 00:23:57.501 in our history over the last 100 years debated before''-- 682 00:23:57.501 --> 00:23:58.501 Absolutely. 683 00:23:58.501 --> 00:24:00.501 --in terms of the essential debates about 684 00:24:00.501 --> 00:24:03.701 where we are as a society and where we ought to go, 685 00:24:03.701 --> 00:24:04.701 as you were pointing out today-- 686 00:24:04.701 --> 00:24:06.100 Yeah. 687 00:24:06.100 --> 00:24:08.100 --about the debates about understanding-- 688 00:24:08.100 --> 00:24:10.100 And the great recurring argument of American 689 00:24:10.100 --> 00:24:12.234 history is what kind of government do we want? 690 00:24:12.234 --> 00:24:15.701 How much are we willing to pay for it in conscripted wealth, 691 00:24:15.701 --> 00:24:16.701 in circumscribed freedom? 692 00:24:16.701 --> 00:24:20.334 And what does it do to our souls? 693 00:24:20.334 --> 00:24:23.801 When Hamilton argued with Jefferson about whether we 694 00:24:23.801 --> 00:24:26.501 wanted an industrial, entrepreneurial society or a 695 00:24:26.501 --> 00:24:29.567 rural yeoman society, they were arguing about 696 00:24:29.567 --> 00:24:30.667 the soul of the nation. 697 00:24:30.667 --> 00:24:33.534 When Andrew Jackson argued about the bank of the United States, 698 00:24:33.534 --> 00:24:35.300 it wasn't about economics. 699 00:24:35.300 --> 00:24:39.267 That was a moral argument sublimated in economic vocabulary. 700 00:24:39.267 --> 00:24:41.767 When we argue about abolitionism, immigration, 701 00:24:41.767 --> 00:24:45.033 Prohibition, desegregation, it's always the soul of the country 702 00:24:45.033 --> 00:24:47.033 we're talking about, which is as it should be. 703 00:24:47.033 --> 00:24:49.634 I just read what John Adams said about Jackson. 704 00:24:49.634 --> 00:24:50.634 It was just amazing. 705 00:24:50.634 --> 00:24:55.634 Your favorite Founding Father is whom? 706 00:24:55.634 --> 00:25:00.567 Well, the indispensable man is Washington, 707 00:25:00.567 --> 00:25:04.701 but my favorite of that lot is Madison, a subtle-- and not a 708 00:25:04.701 --> 00:25:07.634 successful president, not a charismatic figure, Lord knows, 709 00:25:07.634 --> 00:25:12.133 small, wizened little man, but the most thoughtful man. 710 00:25:12.133 --> 00:25:15.501 His contributions to the Federalist Papers are the most 711 00:25:15.501 --> 00:25:21.000 luminous single bit of American public philosophy. 712 00:25:21.000 --> 00:25:24.667 The Woven Figure: Conservativism 713 00:25:24.667 --> 00:25:26.667 and America's Fabric, the issues we have been talking 714 00:25:26.667 --> 00:25:28.667 about-- George F. Will. 715 00:25:28.667 --> 00:25:29.667 As always, thank you. 716 00:25:29.667 --> 00:25:30.667 Thank you. 717 00:25:30.667 --> 00:25:30.901 A pleasure.