Focus 580; The Best of Times: America in the Clinton Years

America in the Clinton years we may be nostalgic for them now if only for the sense of peace and prosperity that represents in our memories is easy to feel now that those years are over past done and that we have entered a new era of insecurity. Much went right during the Clinton years but much clearly went wrong as well. During this hour of focus 580 we will chronicle some of the key events of the eight years that ended so recently and look to see if like tea leaves they might tell us something about the road ahead. Our guest is veteran commentator and historian Haynes Johnson as reporter editor and columnist for The Washington Star and The Washington Post. He has witnessed and written about the great domestic and international events of the past four decades. In 1966 Angel Haynes Johnson won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished national reporting of the civil rights struggle in Selma Alabama. This marked the first time that a father and son both received Pulitzer Prizes for reporting his father Malcolm Johnson wanted 1049 for his New York son series crime on the waterfront which formed the basis for the Academy Award winning film on the waterfront. Haynes Johnson is the

author of numerous books including the bestsellers sleepwalking through history America in the Reagan years and the Bay of Pigs. He was on the original panel of PBS is Washington Week in Review and was a weekly commentary. For NBC s Today show and is now a regular commentator on The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer. He also teaches at the University of Maryland where he holds the Knight Chair in Journalism. And during this hour focus 580 will talk with Haynes Johnson about his latest book The best of times America in the Clinton years published on October 1st by Harcourt as we talk with Haynes Johnson you are welcome to join our conversation. Questions and comments on the topic are welcome from you all you have to do is call us the number around Champaign-Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. That's three three three W I L L. If you match the letters with the numbers we also have a toll free line. Anywhere you hear us around Illinois Indiana via the Internet anywhere in the U.S. use it will pay for the call. That number is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Again around Champaign-Urbana 3 3 3. Well toll free anywhere

else 800 1:58 W while. JOHNSON Good morning good morning. Thank you for that very flattering introduction I appreciate it. Well we're talking about the book. Well you certainly have done a lot of great work so we're glad to have you with us. Thank you. I think no matter what we thought about Bill Clinton and about America in the Clinton years we're kind of reassessing and looking at those years quite a bit differently than we did just a short time ago. Well certainly I hope so because what I get of this book five years of effort of study of travel of energy use looking at the period. Well the belief that we were passing through a consequential period. I'm like give me our history and that whatever however it ended it was bound to affect us into the future. And I'd be lessons to be learned from it or lessons that one would have anticipated. Tragically as it turns out now but it had the the essence of it was that we had the greatest opportunity in all of American history to

deal with long term problems affecting the society and the world. We were we emerged onto the stage of history in the 90s the Cold War was over. We were the only surviving superpower. Number one too much parents may be getting but nonetheless we didn't face the sort of cold war terrorism that we had a good part of the Soviet Union was gone. All the isms of history in the 20th century had faded away. Communism socialism fascism Naziism all of that is gone. And here we were in the biggest setting often the biggest boom ever in American history ever in the history of the world with the greatest transfer of world at a time. Population that was energetic talented resourceful witnessing the biggest scientific medical technological logical revolution ever in history. All of these great things we had in our past and we could do anything we wanted to deal with long term problems but we didn't do it. We didn't pay attention. We allowed ourselves to be diverted by scandal by

entertainment by the fragmentation of the media culture by the sensationalism of the news and by our own inattention. Our belief somehow that we were impregnable that we whatever the forces outside the world didn't really matter to protect US government was irrelevant who was in the White House was irrelevant. It didn't really affect people's lives he could just cash in on the moment. Right the rocket on up to the past. Great success stories and they were great success stories but it ended that was illusory and we lived in mists and the world is not secure. As I say the closing pages of the book face more challenges that we didn't need and we squandered the opportunity. That's a tragedy. I didn't realize I was setting out to do this that I was would be writing a tragedy of our times but I did. It's very interesting. Well you know. F of American technology over the past decade has been just amazing. But by the same token I think people don't feel that it's impacted their lives in positive ways like maybe we had hoped.

Well I don't want to be a lot of I mean certainly the technological triumphs of our society were marvelous they do affect our lives they will continue to affect our lives. But it wasn't the new sort of defining thing that was changing history forever as people believe it wasn't. We didn't have a quote new economy. I was going to make all that had gone before it seemed that relevant itself and we didn't really pale the forces of history we did. There was a belief that with with the Internet and the new linked world we would forge the new economy and we'd repeal the market forces. They only went up much like the 1920s and ever went down. That was it wasn't a speculative bubble it was just something new and transforming that was the first great and lasting allusion of the bubble just kept floating up and that bubble burst before I ended the story. And the second one the one that was really tragic was the larger belief that we had repealed history itself that we were on the cusp of an age in which all of the old problems of the world.

Threats of wars and so forth were fading into the past and United States was and its system was impregnable and everything was going our way and that of course is the greatest myth of all. You write that despite their blessings during this period Americans increasingly felt something was wrong with their society. You know I kept in traveling around the country with all of the good things we had. We weren't united and there was a sort of distaste for the scandal culture at the same time we enjoyed it and we focused on O.J. Simpson and Monica Lewinsky and even up until September 11th it was all shunned all the time. He It's amazing to look back on that tab much time we spent lobbying ourselves to be trivialized diverted from the essence of the times and there was also a great sense of overall corruption in our life and destructiveness that the pall of attack culture are.

Fix was vicious pernicious variant and we were attacking each other were attacking public officials and the idea of government of public service and so forth and Americans felt that I have reacted to it and we want to get it all united as a country. We were all living independently of each other. This is an interesting observation because I think that for a long time many people have complained about this and said you know this is this is the problem we're not united we're so you know like in Nam or with or bombarded by scandal and the way the media treats politics you know as a war. Yeah but we seem to be powerless to really do anything about it. Well that was that was the whole problem I looked back up on the period and. It's frustrating and it's really kind of enraging because we allowed ourselves to be diverted even though we were disgusted by it we enjoyed it. I'm I'm generalizing for sure everybody didn't but the audiences were huge and the media was culpable it fed the new audience created new Talking Heads shouting at each

other every night ideological food fights with nothing much to say that stir comment and debate and divisiveness and we attacked our leaders the attack people would the public service it was a very difficult and I don't know how many people I know who said they would never serve again under the climate of the Wadi the standards that change with the values of public life versus versus private allies was a sundress eroded. So all of this took place at the same time we were going through this Great Bull this great success. This wonderful new age and it was a period of time I think we're going to look back on already are looking back on it and saying Yeah there were some good things. You might go to study for it. But also we didn't pay attention and we paid the price for it now. Your book covers a lot of different topics. Obviously the rise of technology computers and the Internet the Internet economy on subsequent to dot.com boozed

biotechnology the O.J. Simpson trial media regulation the Clinton Lewinsky scandal whole bunch of other things. And in some ways I mean it was written obviously before September 11th. But in many ways it's sort of in capsules all the events that essentially seems to me ended on September 11th. You know if not before but that was certainly defining a defining point of ending of this era. Yes it did. Jack can I have a number the book is America. And it goes through that been our tiff through the election of 2000 which I call the fiasco because it was a fiasco happened. I didn't know what that would be the climactic final exclamation point at the end of an era much but I suspect it will be like the stock market crash of 1929 that led to the Great Depression and World War 2. But because I think the speculative bubble had already burst by the time I finished and we were the economy was slipping very badly and that here was over it. But the last two pages of the book I talk about the challenges facing the future of the

Americans and I specifically address the threat of fundamentalist terrorism and groups zealously divided fundamentalist world the Islamic world and I name the Taliban possessed of weapons of mass terror and suggesting that the our future in this new millennium world is going to be less secure even than the long cold war period of the last century and that because these groups possess these and there's Al. Senator determined that that term and to destroy us and we faced a fundamental cry at a crisis really building. It was all there. And I wrote that seven months ago before the World Trade Center. I don't say that with any pride of foresight because we should have been aware that we face these days it was part of the inattention of the period that we didn't pay attention to it even though we had warning after warning after warning that there were problems building outside our borders as well as with them that we didn't pay attention to because we were lowered by the success and the roar of the good

times and the feeling that we had to have repealed history. That's the tragedy. We're talking this morning with Haynes Johnson he is a veteran journalist and commentator author of many books when we're discussing his latest The best of times America. In the Clinton years published by Harcourt we have one caller waiting and would welcome others if you'd like to join us the number around Champaign-Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Toll free anywhere else 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 we have a listener on a cell phone when we include them in our conversation. Sure on line number one. Good morning good morning. Yes I just have a question for your guest. I would be very curious to learn about his feelings regarding our lack of leadership during the Clinton administration year by studying a well I would conceive of being an enabler of a cold or without leadership to help us focus on anything except

you know illicit behavior. And the first president to be impeached since Andrew Johnson did that not and predisposed us to a series of apathy in this country. Thank you. Well certainly there is no question what you've talked about the scandal culture as I called it the attack culture which culminated in the impeachment of the president which should not have happened by the way the country had a right a legal way ahead of Washington prosecutors and so forth and they didn't. These people never supported Clinton's M.R. ality on his actions of his personal character. But they had it right about the country shouldn't be dragged through that kind. The process attack took up years of time and diverted us from paying attention and out of a ship and in fact the Congress and the Coven the president were so tied up with scandal hunt for year after year long before the impeachment process that nothing was being done no attention was being paid basically to the main questions facing the society they could

being asked bills that they were so ravenous in the period of the essence of the assault culture and it was of the tragedy was that Bill Clinton for all of his successes had many failures is his own failures of personality and character and he gave his enemies the weapons to help destroy him. But the country was destroyed and the country was diverted. The country was taken apart and now as a consequence we also as bad as the people we stop paying attention to to government to Washington to. We stopped voting voting increasingly less and there was a great disgust about the cumulative about the whole political culture and I think rightly so. And if there's a lesson from this it's that we should value never never to allow ourselves to turn on each other and destroy each other with them because we need to have a unity of purpose not a false debate. We need to have heavy debates on issues but not this destruction of character well-financed and

filled with hate that we went to in the in the period of the 90s. You write quite a bit in the book about this particular episode the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. Anderson some great original. Porting on that. But you know and and I certainly you know I think that Bill Clinton deserves his fair share of blame the way he handled it was was poor to say the least. Yes but I think that is also true. You know at the time most Americans were seeing enough yet don't want need to hear more about this we need to attend to business and and Congress was unable to hear that message. That's exactly right. Do you know if that's the point I was trying to make and try to make in the book that that no one there was no not not a matter of praising Bill Clinton's character Ayers is feckless his betrayal of his wife and family is lying to the country and all that all that was and people condemned it very much but they saw the larger point very clearly. We shouldn't be destroying ourselves with these attacks that went in themselves not that. Significant

to the performance of the public life and that in fact we allowed ourselves to go into this pit. And I think that was a great loss to the country and it helped to set a tone where we turned away from focusing on and dealing with it as you said to Congress. And particularly I'm say the Republican Party in the sense that a wing of the Republican Party was whole so determined to get Clinton they went to any grand rounds of the prosecution and so forth and when you look back on the history of it I think it's as I say in the book it no want to merge is looking good. Bill Clinton certainly not the people who are arrayed against him not the prosecutors who spend 60 million dollars didn't get a single indictment for a year after year after year found nothing criminal or culpable in all that process but dragged the country through this scandal culture not the attack people who are joined by the media a lot of media who have spending a great deal of money to raise these questions that we were just scandal ridden. That's what we can't afford to let ourselves

do again I I really passionately believe that. I hope it doesn't happen in Mr. Bush's watch I think. Of course the world has changed so maybe maybe we're free of that curse. I want to include another caller but just to point out real fine points on this. Remember on the morning that Monica Lewinsky was testifying before a federal grand jury. There was you know President Clinton announced missile strikes cruise missiles and other attacks on two sites affiliated with Osama bin Laden. That's right one Sudan and one in Afghanistan. And we later found out that you know these targets at least the one in the Sudan was not what you know the administration claimed at the time. But it seems that we are at the beginning of this conflict that now we are so caught up in what we did not have the attention or the willpower to really understand what was happening and to deal with it appropriately.

That's right and that's a very good point because the attack on a lot of those. Sanctuary suppose of here we believe that we fired missiles and so forth the anomaly that we now know it was not known at the time when the sign executive orders authorizing the intelligence age to get better not go to get to it to eliminate it and try to hunt him down and but the whole backdrop of the period. My point is the larger period the scandal culture of the peace movement business the preoccupation with the Monica and all that business of the impeachment it went to completely stop the government of the United States and the country itself. Stop paying attention to foreigners we it was a failure. He had a responsibility to sound the bell even louder than he did. But they we're all caught up in that period of time and that now we didn't really focus on it at all as at Hadley at least as we should have and we're paying the price were No. Certainly yes we are paying the price for it now that is exactly the point. What I was trying to make in the epilogue that when I talked about the Taliban in Afghanistan and the fundamental elements

and people possessed of weapons of mass terror had been determined to use them in the fundamentalist strife between fundamentalist Islamic culture part of it not all of it and and western civilization. That's what we're into right now with several calls to talk with let's go on and include them in a conversation we'll go next to a listener in Charleston and one number four. Good morning on focus 580. Yes thank you. First point which the elder declared the end of history. He was quoting some Harvard professor I think recently but um and he leaves office. And then Mr. Johnson saying suppose that good times came along then we had Bush the Younger come along and elected you know in this fiasco you just talked about and what you hear has a cavalier attitude

toward the rest of the world even Western Europeans. And on top of this he has left Israel to do whatever it wanted to do without any comment and he takes a vacation. And if I were an Arab living in abject poverty and think of my hope. And then the events of September 11th evitable. There's absolutely no other course could could have been taken when we have hopeless people right in this in this nation who live in abject poverty and these cavalier attitudes of this latest so-called president and having no thought about the future as if the future was now due to Bush the elder and now we have this triumphalism over communism. Powell asked what that treaty could not can not possibly answer the questions and pressing questions of this world when we have 6 million people and

99 percent of them have this tenuous hold on reality and upon daily on their daily lives and pin the obvious. Contradictions of capitalist society that that hast exploited everything that is possible out of this planet and out of the human species. Wrong I was to think that then we are a part of the last terrorism I think these things are just becoming. Well I know you say stay out of conversations have talked for days I guess but let me say you quoted George Bush the first and the end of history as one of our Harvard professor it was a Francis Fukuyama wrote a famous book called The End of History his thesis was that we were that all the prophets the past problems of history were gone and that the American image system was the most transcendent and we really wouldn't face the kind of clashes that we were writing the world previously.

Of course that was great to Lucian. As we now know you talk about the population of the world and 5 billion people live in greater poverty 1 billion live in creative material prosperity that's that Western world we've got to learn to educate ourselves to the forces of the world around us. We've got to do a much better job at covering reporting on paying attention to the sources of discontent in the world. It means everything's changing as far as the president goes we can talk about this all day. I do think that if you're too hard on him I was not a supporter of Mr. Bush. I was worried about him. But I think that he is he is showing a larger maturity since the events of the September 11th he's changed his policies almost dramatically about the need for American to have global alliances about cooperation with the states that we can't do it alone

that that we need to have nation building all of things that we that were not the lessons that he and his father had as a matter of fact coming out of a Cold War period so I think. That will have to wait and see. I think he's doing at the moment. It's been a huge Elbel reeducation project that you have seen as an age he looks up and he's got the support of the country of the country united that's a different question than how we should Sal and I said before to make not to learn from the past and start acting and thinking and performing differently as a society. That's our challenge. You know just a quick follow up then we'll continue with some more callers on that I think it was clear that prior to September 11th the United States was withdrawing and largely from a lot of international agreements the you know that obviously the Kyoto Protocol everything from the biological weapons protocol to you know the International Criminal Court of wide. Broady of agreement had been hammered out over years in

decades in some cases and then suddenly we find that we need the rest of the world I guess my question is for you. Does this really truly represent a change of attitude not only on the part of the administration but perhaps Congress in realizing that we have to go along. We have to be without it. That's really you posed it really important. What are we learning and how we die how are we acting differently and we now see on the part of the administration and the American public too that the need for all these things we were going unilaterally alone America Rex we could do all we wanted we didn't need these treaties we didn't need these alliances including the global warming treaties as you said. And then at the panel. Bioterrorism and so forth. We didn't need to. We thought we were pregnant bull and invulnerable to it and we could go it alone. That's better. I think that is a profound change. And I think it's a lasting change because the condition we now face as everyone from the president on down he's saying repeatedly this is this is a

different kind of struggle that we have than anything we've ever faced before it could go on for decades. And we're going to need the cooperation of all of the world. It's going to be involving our policies. It's going to be involved in our policies in the Middle East and all that. All these questions and at home so I I think there's a permanent change in attitudes because it's been forced upon us. One of the one of the changes I must say is is a recognition now that the demonization of government of public servants which went on for two generations attacking those who serve the government as being noble and corrupt and so forth. We now see a wellspring of reason why they exist with the government are they are nurses. They are hospital workers. They are firemen they are policemen they are public schoolteachers. They're people that we allowed in the public health service to a trophy because they weren't funded who were trying to find out the sources of anthrax. We need to have a public commitment to work in partnership with the private sector to build a better America. That's our challenge and I think the country understands it. Now in a way that we didn't before.

Far from being irrelevant we need the best minds to deal with these very very complex and challenging questions. Past our midpoint in a conversation this morning with Haynes Johnson a veteran commentator and journalist we're talking about his latest book The best of times America in the Clinton years in a variety of issues that it relates to the president on and we have several callers waiting would welcome others the number around Champaign-Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free elsewhere. 800 2 2 2 1 4 5 5. Let's talk with our next caller in Belgium on line number 1. Good morning. Yes. I think the problem with your gestures is going on about to be described in another situation in that the media itself is extremely responsible for all these feelings because we can take two examples that I can just point out just very simple examples. A couple of years ago there was an enormous hurricane that hit

Honduras and Central America killed thousands and thousands of people. The only thing the media want to talk about was John Glenn going in the space where he's 70 years old. He recently to use another example. We've had this horrible example in in in New York in September and anthrax and all and that's all that we hear on the news period in the middle of Europe. There's a horrid accident in the middle of a tunnel that kills hundreds of people they don't even mention it. We are so self-centered in America and our journalists are just if it's not American we're not going to talk about it. It's just horrible the way we have made ourselves so narrow minded in our views that if it if it's not about our problems they don't exist. You know it's funny. I hope if you read the book you'll see I'm very savage about this because I know something about it when the more you know about some of the love you respect that want to be better the more critical you are I certainly am very savage in the way in which not

many have the means. Again media allowed itself to be perverted by some of the techniques of the scandal leery of the scandal hot and that's certainly true but I think you draw to two groups fought to create a indictment and condemnation I mean where did you learn the information about these train wrecks and the crosses and so figured you know what I had to learn about it. You know Martin from the media nor from the BBC I didn't learn about from American media that's well know but it was reported in this country I read it here too I mean that's just it you are just doing the same thing you're accusing the media get to and I think we ought to back again to step back a minute I want to see it with trust I agree with you that we have done a by and large a poor job of covering the world covering events around ourselves and not on a Borders Americans are self-absorbed but we do cover events and some of the best reporting in journalism history is going on right now. It's principle. It's been superb and since the September 11 now

before that it was good but today you cannot tell me if you read the New York Times every day the Washington Post last week and all the rest or even the network knows you're getting a portrait of the world that is complex and that is that is better and that you have information. It's at summation and the society is part of the most difficult challenge for any set as it is to be informed. There is an enormous amount of information there available to you if you want it. I think it should be better I think we should value not to have the set the sensation culture and so forth. But I don't have it as bad as a lot of indictment as you do. Yeah well you certainly do have an indictment of especially the entertainment values and media in the book. I just wanted to you know reflect on this point a little bit because I think it's a really key issue in that is the responsibility of citizens to go out and get the information that they feel they need to be informed. I was on a panel at Eastern Illinois University recently of several people in the media newspapers television in Mikey's Public Radio and I was at the

students at Eastern Illinois University about 200 kids I asked kids myself now but you know how many people get their news from television every almost everybody raised their hand when people read newspapers maybe about a dozen out of 200 raise their hand how many people. Listen to for example National Public Radio which of course I'm very attuned to and like to people in the entire room. So you know this this tells us people are you know not necessarily getting the diversity of sources that they need to understand the world. That's exactly right and I think that you what you your larger point here is what is easy is to cast the blame is blame enough to go around the media is culpable all the politicians a couple culpable and it was a failure of all kinds of delusions and transplants as they describe. But at the very end the final culpability rests also with the people they have a responsibility of our system is to work to be informed. And it's hard work there's a lot of information if you do you do realize that you can get a plan from Asian you can pay

attention you can vote you could make a difference and I think that's what we can afford. Again let us just step through the sort of the time and focus in history. That's a tragedy and that that we are paying for it now. And you're right the information is there if you want it now should be better sure. But citizens can't complain about not being in Florida they don't even try to be inform. We our lungs are full so let's go and talk with more callers who are next to a listener in Savoy on line number two. Good morning you're in focus 580 yes I'm enjoying following Haynes Johnson quite a bit I haven't read the current book I'm looking forward to it. On that topic Clinton's administration I've recently read one by Peter Edelman has been a marionette Allman and he had left the Clinton administration early when the poverty situation was being mishandled. Yes in his and I'm wondering how familiar you are with his ideas and whether you agree.

Well Peter supremacy a personally good friend of mine I've known him since he was a young man who worked for Robert Kennedy. I hang out with and I have known him and his wife very well and admire Peter I think he's a very thoughtful and a man of great integrity and so forth. So everybody with him I see him when I'm in Washington now talking to you from Chicago but covering the country. But he he reflected a strong disagreement with Clinton over the policies that led to the cheating the homeless and the welfare and so forth. And he had a very strong view. So it's not the trades that Clinton had let him down. I think that's a fair criticism. Well because the caller's question will go on and talk next with someone in Clifton on one number three. Good morning you're on focus on the water Mr. JOHNSON. Good morning and I'm glad you written a commentary on the clip. Clinton years. But I would not. I had no use for Bill Clinton but I

think there's enough blame to go around in American ones that I've noticed has been happening for years and years and years is the apathy and the permissiveness that's going on in America there's that the church is becoming so liberal now and I'm just just upset about a bunch of things and I'm terribly terribly upset that we got the wake up call on September the 11th. But on this I go back to Tom Brokaw and his what was it the greatest generation. I do this generation Yes and I was a World War Two veteran and I don't want to put myself up on a pedestal but I. It was a great generation because we did come together the country came together with the people we're we're doing with the rationing and supporting the troops. And but the thing I want to go back to is our unpreparedness

for World War 2. We were not ready. And Roosevelt wanted us to get into an ivory tower until Clinton came along I rated him worst president in my lifetime until Bill Clinton come along and the greatest president was it was Harry S. Truman. And the reason the Harry S. Truman he said it the way it was and he says go and dropped atomic bombs because get to the get the slaughter over we were killing people the rate of a million people a month. People need to realize this. We need to get the war over I know is a terrible weapon but. We need and we need a winner. We need to get it done when we're gonna win it. We already lost too many American lives and too many people already been killed. But I just I just hope that this time September the 11th that we are weak and that we stay awake and we remain patriotic. I don't mean that we gotta join together and all be as one we can have a diversity of ideas we can argue debate things and that's fine.

But let's think about what is best for this country. Let's think about what it's going to be best for my kids. What's going to be best for my grandkids and what's going to be best for my great my great grandkids when I say my and I mean all of the grandkids and all of the great grand kids in this country. Let us let us be involved with other countries. But we don't you need a United Nations. Thank you sir are you ready to settle out there and I think that your larger point about the need to to be united but it also doesn't mean you stop debating fiercely and all the issues we should but probably we shouldn't destroy ourselves and we shouldn't just point to Europe. We're going to have a little more respectful of those who disagree with us. That way you forge a new united society which you need and you can't turn your back on the events and the country. That's what we did and I hope that I really hope the lessons of this terrible

situation right now come home to us. I'm starting to hear signs of a new kind of debate about America's role in the world. Yes not just you know the fact that maybe we've neglected things and now we need you know international partners to deal with the war on terrorism but our responsibility not just as you know sort of the corporate sector reaching out in global wise in the economy but morally around the world that that we have perhaps not engaged on on the huge level of humanity with a lot of the countries that we've had relations with. Well I don't see that the real hope for the future this is sound like a truism but I I believe it's could be true is to educate ourselves so we we understand other cultures really understand that we ought to teach languages in our schools our elementary schools right down to the grade school level so we don't we don't we want to bring back history of the clash which is what Sadly I gotta tell you is not not being taught the

idea of civics as an old fashioned notion just a very complex society we have our governmental system was made to be difficult to work because we feared tyrants and kings and emperors. We've got to understand the process we have and then to realize what it takes to have a society united. And if you educate people to understand say. Islamic fundamentalism is of all shades just not just the town a bad thing. There only one segment of it. There's a whole different range of attitudes and beliefs and not understand that to get to disagreements with eyes and the reason America is so often painted. Indeed jealousy tortoise and all that's part of it actually. But the way you deal with that is to learn other cultures and you begin to ameliorate the differences. That's what we've got to do it said I read this and not because it's the noble thing to do. It's in our self-interest to do so. We have a couple callers waiting in just about two minutes left with Haynes Johnson and we're talking about his book the best of times America in the Clinton years in a variety of other things and we'll go next to a

listener in Chicago on line number four. Good morning you're on focus 580. Yes I talk to you the last time you appeared on mile and I thought if I would have you at the time. And I guess I still do although I feel rather sad about the position that you've taken with respect to W.. Sure this has been the parents of a revolution and his thought with regard to foreign policy but but it's bound to fail because his domestic policy is to. The same as it was before Alito it's. That's covered up with lots of pretty words and I got to help the poor and all that sort of stuff which is all to obvious as far as he's concerned. Basically his policy the same as the same corporate tightest the sentry's economy and that which you can't see corporate ties here you go abroad and and the industrialized this economy so that we decide this country

ends up as a as a banana republic. Basically it's you're saying to you. The economy was slipping before the 9/11 and that was all that they did. The product of what happened Oregon a rough industry leaving this country. Employment was going up very rapidly and 9/11 and we have increased supply. The trend I think you points clear. If all we have all we do is learn the lessons of the facts we face abroad that will be enough we've got to deal with the domestic concerns of the country which are real and are divisive and they need to be attended to. I don't know how Mr. Bush is going to handle that I have not been a supporter of his most domestic policies and I still am not. I don't know whether he's going to go through a process of of changing his his policies towards domestic concerns that we need to have an energy policy that's independent

of not just drilling in the Arctic which will solve anything but we we need to put our best minds. We have Manhattan Project have our best scientists and technologists to devise a make. It's an independently secure foreign oil sources for it's just that should have been done 20 years ago. We need a lot of things to deal with the changing workforce of the displacement of workers in this country there are all kinds of questions that arise arise out of this so we'll see. Not I think that there has been a churchman a fundamental change in the way he and the administration have changed their views about the American role in the world will see about what happens America's role at home. They go together you can't separate them. And that's part of our challenge. Real quickly it seems to many people that Washington's response to the economic woes we're experiencing is since you know since the George W. Bush presidency has been tax cuts and again you know we're in this economic stimulus package.

The main thing that is being discussed at least on the Republican side is again more tax cuts. You know I think. That's I think that's a debate we've got to have it starting now. And you see echoes of it already out of the Congress. It's critically important whether we we mobilize the country and we take care of our need at home when they have a public works program which we did the Great Depression or that we have we have new jobs creation programs. We need something to put workers who are talented who are thrown off not out to any cause of their own but they're out by the tens and tens of thousands now and that's a primary loss if we just let them slip through the cracks. We can't afford that. So so if that's true there's a fundamental difference operating here that we should have a debate on that. I hope it's a debate that Sibel we don't destroy each other don't call each other ignoble unpatriotic Americans would disagree. Very good. We'll couple calls left and we'll try to get them both in the remaining time next. Listener in her band The online number one.

Good morning. I'm very much enjoying your talk and look forward to reading your book. I just would like to take issue with one thing that you said and that is that we are engaged in a war with the fundamentalist Islam between the West and fundamentalist Islam and I think that's a misunderstanding I think the real contest is between progressive and secular. Or the Islamic people and the fundamentalists. Yes but rather just let me just say that I agree with you. And what I wrote in the book it is exactly that point I made the point that Islamic secular scholars and I mean the majority of a lot of people did not agree with the Taliban say for instance when they destroyed those body onset statues and they handed out at the Buddha statues. And I did not agree with the zealotry of sort of attack. Western Civilization I'm talking about Reese mall part of the

Islamic world not the whole world. Unfortunately I think that part is growing and that George Bush may win the battles he is fighting but I think he is either already lost the war or may very well lose it very shortly. Secularists and the progressives have lost their voice. They seem to be winning over the last few years. Even Iran seemed to be becoming more liberal. I think that's been reversed and I think we may be in for a hellish time. Well it will see a set of measures and we are apprehensions but we will be watching. We just have about three four months left who will move quickly on to our next listener in Munster on line number two. Good morning. Hi how are you. I'm enjoying this conversation. I was I thought that after September 11th that the media would do a much better job in reporting things. And one of the things I was concerned about was I didn't hear much about Syria getting a

seat on the Security Council. And I was wondering what do you think how do you think the media can do a better job and also do you ever think that the consortium that was looking over the votes from the Florida election. Do you think they'll ever release the information. And my last thing is how can I get a signed copy of your book. Well the last question I'll be happy to autograph it you said it to me he said to me at my home or my office in Washington I'm in Washington and the telephone book. I'll be glad to send you an autographed copy if you'll mail it to me I'll mail it back to you and sign it to you. OK thank you very very delighted to do so. As far as your other questions about the media I think it's been a bunch better overall coverage. I said since September 11th I mean I think they reported first I'd just cite the WHY WON'T New York Times when I just read this morning my hotel room is superb every day. They have a whole section that is as clean of advertising and a great loss of money filled with all kinds of

details that sophisticated reporting and other papers are doing the same. Yes there's I worry about the cable networks. They focus on the shadow of the sensational the same kind of techniques they used in O.J. dramatic graphics and so forth but I think the coverage is better. We will have to watch and see and I hope that it continues to be but I don't I don't have any guarantees. We have just about two minutes left in the many things many things that we're not going to be able to get to that is covered in the book and many things that we could top branch off from that but I want to ask you to talk about one of the points. You make especially toward the end of the book. One of the lost opportunities during the Clinton age was reform of our political system. Yes and I'm I'm just wondering what you think in this time of the new terrorism crisis have we once again lost an opportunity to address political reform or will this relate to that in some way despite recent graduates that question because the previous caller's question about the you know we

haven't released the studies of the election have been a consortium of the fart up debacle because we're afraid it might jeopardize the unity of the country I think that's a mistake I think we're big we're parents we're we're mature people we can take the truth always and we can learn from it and if we don't reform the system that gets rid of the money and the politics and the corruption of money it really is a corruption. John McCain and company are correct about that. We've got to have that at the very least the lessons of the last election that it's a scandal that the most technologically advanced society in history can't or is unwilling to provide machines that can accurately cab's tabulate the votes. It's completely and accurately just as an example that's not a big deal. But we've got to do one thing that we've got to reform the way we we vote that we've got to have the. Get rid of the money and politics and then I think we ought to have a whole way of encouraging voting. I believe there ought to be a national holiday called on

Election Day. Make it one make a vote on Saturday and Sunday and excited about the letters on a Monday and we'll call it democracy day. I mean let's let's let's be proud of ourselves and let's be true to what we are as a people. Well that's a great note to end it on. And we're at the end of our time so let me suggest for folks if you like to read more. It's a really very well-written book. The best of times America in the Clinton years recently published by Harcourt and the author has been our guest. Haynes Johnson to you Mr. Johnson thanks so much for spending time with us I've enjoyed it. I wish we had more time with your callers they were great. All right take care. Thank you bye.