Focus 580; Politics: Observations and Arguments, 1966-2004

In this hour we will be talking with Hendrik Hertzberg. He is a staff writer and editor at The New Yorker and has been there at the magazine since 1992 in fact. Before that he was also a staff writer in the early 70s he's been a reporter for Newsweek magazine. He was the chief speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter and also editor at The New Republic and has written a lot about American politics over the last 40 years. Right now he's got a new book out that is a collection of some of his writings going back to the mid 60s and includes everything from Vietnam on the one and to 9/11 on the other and a lot of stuff in between most of it is about politics but also some of it is about American culture popular and otherwise. The title of the book is politics observations and arguments. 1066 to 2000 and four minutes. By the Penguin Press it's out there in the bookstore Now if you're interested in looking at it. And of course as we talk in this part of focus 580 questions comments are certainly welcome he'd like to talk with our guest. The number here in Champagne Urbana 3 3

3 9 4 5 5. We do also have a toll free line and that one's good anywhere that you can hear us. And that is eight hundred to 2 2 9 4 5 5 so if you're listening around Illinois Indiana it would be a long distance call or you might be happening to you happen to be listening over the internet as long as you're in the United States. You can use that toll free line again. It's a LOCAL 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Mr. Hertzberg Hello. Hello. Thanks very much for talking with us today. Oh delighted to do it and we appreciate it. I hope you'll forgive such a such a sweeping question just to start out with but you know given the fact that you have been writing about politics for a long time and there are there are pieces in this book about a number of presidents Mr. Carter Mr. Reagan the two Messrs Bush Mr. Clinton and so forth. Is it possible to say something about how politics in America has

changed over the last few decades in or in what what important ways it's changed. Wow that's a tall order. Yeah it probably is possible to say a few things about it. I think it's gotten harder. I think it's gotten more demanding of politicians and of citizens. It's gotten meaner. We've had a polarization that's built gradually. I guess the really kind of kicked into high gear. About 25 years ago and that was something that political scientists said all was hope for they wanted coherent political parties that presented starkly contrasting views but now that we've got it we're not sure that it's such a wonderful thing to have gotten. And then to the NAF of changes that have been introduced by the change in the media.

So it's it. It's probably easier to list the continuity than the changes have been there because there are fewer of them. It certainly seems that they're the kind of conversations that we have and maybe again this goes back to changes in the media conversations we have about politics and political issues are superficial too. To say the least and that we spend far too much time talking about the wrong things. But you know it's so different then than it's ever been and I guess that's what I and you know and the quote I'm not totally convinced that that's particularly different from from the past it's just more it's more that it's much much more amplified and the kind of conversations that people used to have in coffee shops or on over backyard fences. A lot of them now are on the radio and done up there in our face in a way that they weren't so when we were having give ourselves and having them

rarely Now if you want to you could listen to that kind of ignorant jabber all day long. But whether it is more ignorant jabber than now that there was an earth it's just more of at the front of the microphone. You know I tend to think it's more the latter than the former. One of the essays you're writing about. Now maybe our preoccupation with the issue of character. I'm not sure that it's a get in there. It's all very deep but that you know we're told that character matters and we are given all the stuff about candidates and particularly those things that the campaigns think will play well. And but then at the end of the day I find myself realizing asking well what exactly do we know about them I guess I think about your comment that if Franklin Roosevelt was running for office today all of his staffers would wear a little gold wheelchair pins and hinting tails that that they would we would we would fixate on

that and that somehow would become you know the fact that he was disabled but he managed to overcome that we would that would be emblematic of his character and. And yet you wonder well what exactly does something like that mean. You know like there you go I mean and maybe it would be emblematic of his character. I mean it certainly does. It's certainly interesting that he overcame. He was struck in adulthood by the by polio had put in a wheelchair as a grown up. I mean he had already run for vice he'd already been a nominee Democratic nominee for vice president. When he caught polio and went into the wheelchair. But. This whole this whole tsunami. Speculation about a candidate's character is not exactly new but the quality of it and the amount of it is new. Part of it is comes from the fact that because we have television and radio we're exposed to the

candidates in an intimate way that we weren't certainly in the 19th century and increasingly it was the quality of television gets better we feel we know these people better and better in the 19th century before television before radio you everything you know about a presidential candidate lets you happen to be one of the few thousand people who'd actually met the person was from the print from word of mouth from drawings Perhaps if that's the only way you know what the person looked like. You have no idea what the person's voice sounded sounded like you have no intimate knowledge. You have to rely on the person's public record. Now we're in such a we're in a kind of misleadingly intimate terms with our political candidates we think that we know them a lot better than we do. And you know what you consider your own friends and or acquaintances and how

sometimes they will surprise you. We don't know them. We and and looking for secrets looking for some kind of secret key to their character is I think a fool's game. And that's what this that's what all the family and sex stuff is about. Trying it's a kind of vulgar Freud and that's where we are trying to find a key to a candidate's a public man a public man or woman's character that isn't there somehow or we imagine is unfair on their public record. I think it is there on their public record. Our guest in this hour focus 580 had recurs Burke He's a staff writer and editor at The New Yorker magazine also has worked for Newsweek and for the New Republic was a speechwriter for Jimmy Carter he has a book out now that collects some of his writing. Some of it from the New Yorker but also other places that goes back to the mid 60s politics observations and arguments in 1986 through 2004 published by the Penguin Press.

In bookstores now the questions here are welcome. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. When I was reading the piece one of the early pieces the book that you wrote about Vietnam. What right away one of the things I started thinking about and knew that I want to ask you about was the the role that Vietnam is playing in this year's presidential campaign. And I wonder what I wonder what you think about them. Well I think that inevitably for politicians of the generation that came of age between 0 8 1963 and 18 70. It's going to be an important question because every young man in that era. Faced faced some sort of a choice regarding that war now less and less and less one happened to be

have some physical disability some obvious physical disability that made one ineligible for service. Then it was a matter of choice what you did. Not entirely a matter of choice but I think that it. I think that it makes sense to look at what what people did what what young men did in those days as a as a clue to what sort of person they are and were. We certainly did that. We went over Bill Clinton's record with a fine tooth comb. And I think it's a little too simple to say well Bill Clinton was a draft dodger. Bill Clinton grappled with the question of the Vietnam War in a serious way. And if things that fall that a bit different I think he would have ended up in the service. In any event he was serious enough about it to have been involved in the

anti-war movement. I think that if you weren't involved either in either the military or the anti-war movement then presumptively would could say that you weren't serious. And that's true. That's true of say Dick Cheney and it's certainly not true of John Kerry I mean John Kerry was very seriously involved in both fighting the war and protesting the war and that's why I think he passes those tests set by the Vietnam War with flying colors. But we could but we could certainly argue over how relevant that is to what kind of president he would be down. There's certainly there it's there's some controversy surrounding his wrist record now. He obviously the he was decorated and a lot of people consider him a hero including men who served with him and they've been willing to stand up in public and say so. Now there are also some others who question

whether or not the account he gave of what happened was correct and did he deserve those medals and. And it seem at least in part to be. Motivated by the fact that he when he came back he turned against the war. It's kind of hard to sort the problem isn't the part as I said of Ireland. I think entirely 100 percent by that. And you know let's not mince words this is a truly disgusting smear campaign that's being conducted. It makes the Willie Horton commercial look like child's play. It is grotesque and disgusting and. I mean it just makes the sputter with with rage. The fact that it can now be described it cannot be said that there's something controversial about John Kerry's service in Vietnam is testimony to the success of the smear campaign. And there's nothing controversial about it there's no controversy here there's a smear

campaign that will succeed probably has succeeded in making people who don't pay particularly close attention think that oh you know that most I get I heard there was something funny about Kerry's Vietnam thing to some wrong with it I heard some wrong with it. That's the purpose of this is to muddy it up a bit and to tarnish it and to it's pure dirty politics nothing more nothing less. And you think that that's actually worked. Yes. I think that it is working and I've you know I think that it's that again it's designed to to influence a rather narrow segment of the electorate that isn't the doesn't pay particularly close attention. That doesn't that doesn't make draw much of a distinction between what it sees on the news broadcaster and nominal news broadcast and what is seen as a commercial or a paid advertisement.

And. It's that syncs superficially about such things and I think I think that it's that this campaign is successful and that in muddying up Kerry and you know it. And that's what it's designed to do. We have a caller to bring into the conversation. Someone listening in Urbana So let's do that line number one. Hello hello. Yes I think we want to thank you for denouncing the. The Kerry smear and would like to point out that this has been investigated several times by leading newspapers over what the last 20 years and been found to be completely false and bogus. That's right. And it's just it's just a hell of a note. You know if these are if these veterans so. The ones from the war allegedly from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth

out said we're actually interested in truth then they might be examining the military records of both presidential candidates. After all that's the choice we have the choice we have is not between John Kerry who was a 100 percent total unmitigated hero and John Kerry who was only a 95 percent hero our choice is between John Kerry and George W. Bush. Am I right in saying people that are perpetrating this are the same people who did the bogus survey in North Carolina during the primary there a few years back where they inquired if a person would still support Senator McClain if it were known that he had fathered a black child. Which of course he hadn't. No he's adopted an Indian child and. I do. I would not stake my life on this but I am fairly I have read that said that yes the

financing of this is comes from the same source. And of course. John McCain has denounced these ads as dishonest and dishonorable and called on Bush to to do likewise which he has not done it in here you mean that the new people continue to present this as a question when it has been thoroughly repudiated it. They're just playing into the hands of the worst element of the smear groups. Well when when you have the sort of when you have this sort of big y politics it's put it puts the news media on the spot in a way that's very uncomfortable for for them because it takes quite a leap to write a new story that to them to to report what a politician has said and then to point out that what that politician has said is not true. It kind of goes against the conventions of

news reporting which are you don't say that you know you don't say directly that something is a lie. You you go and find somebody on the other side and quote that person is saying it's a lie. Some reporters have been little by little trying to. Trying to do this and pointing out what a statement is made. I have to I have to say that generally the statement you have made on the Bush side not the Kerry side but pointing out when such a statement is simply false. Well there are a couple of websites devoted to the two Columbia Journalism Review and a you know I have a campaign Watch website that actually tracks the truth of the truth of what is being said on the campaign trail. All the questions comments certainly are welcome. The number here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 we do also have a toll free line good anywhere that you can hear us and that

is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. As I mentioned a couple of times you spent some time working as a speechwriter for President Carter and there's a piece what I think is actually one of the longer pieces in the book that you wrote about Mr. Carter And I guess one of the things I'm. Interested in and I think about him and what he has done since he's been president and what other former presidents have done. Do we is there is there something interesting something significant we can learn by looking at what presidents do in their retirement. Well there is. It can shed light on what their presidency. It can't change that the can't really change. One final judgment about the presidency just being a great ex-president does not somehow turn you retrospectively into a great having been a great president. You can look at it. You deserve a president who uses his ex-presidency creatively as Jimmy Carter has done

deserves credit for that. There are a few other ex presidents that have used their ex-president in a creative way. Certainly John Quincy Adams did Herbert Hoover did none of wave Howard Taft who became chief justice of the Supreme Court did. Carter is probably the best of them all. But that doesn't mean he's a vet. He was the best president of them all. When you can look at a record of an ex-president and it can tell you it can help you interpret his record as president and separate the wheat from the chaff. Figure out which qualities he seemed to show as president were inherent qualities and which were which were either wrong perceptions or qualities that had only emerged to good advantage under the pressure of the presidency. But the fact that somebody is a good ex-president doesn't confer any particular

merit retrospectively on his presidency. Let's talk with someone else. Caller in Chicago the line number for a toll free line. Oh yes I have a question on another topic but first regarding the swift boat I believe the president has called for abolishing all these outside groups who make these type of ads and I guess that would include you know on the other side too. So that's that's that is. That's a procedural thing. He needs to denounce the specifics. He needs to denounce the substance of this. They have not. Not the general not not all hands including the ones that are that are promoting on his own behalf but it I think it does work both ways and you know they make Michael Moore a celebrity at the Democratic convention Well you know they're responsible too for that type of. They didn't make Michael Moore a celebrity it didn't work I believe he was one of his areas he couldn't prevent him from showing up.

Well he read no official role in the convention and he any more than he's no more part of the. He was sitting next to President Carter I mean he had a good high good good a good seating position anyway but I mean I mean he treated celebrity by Democrats I guess it works both ways in other words. I mean but you know I had a question actually on another point that you were to do with George Soros who's financing a lot of the anti-Bush material going around today and I've heard that it's true or not but perhaps you would know that he's heavily involved in the overseas abortion industry and I've heard that he had a string of abortion clinics in in Eastern Europe is that correct or if you heard the same thing. No I haven't I think that's false. His his money. I mean he's a billion comes from arbitrage. He he's only ever been far as I know in one business and that's the business of investment and. Basically currency speculation. Right I know he's an investment banker and investment I heard that this was one of the investments

I wasn't sure if that was correct or not I don't want to you know so I don't think so. From his his involvement in Eastern Europe is very much to the point though because he did as much as maybe any individual human being apart from maybe the Pope to to bring down communism in Eastern Europe I mean the Solidarity in Poland was much of its financing came from George Soros funded Think of a lot of the civic civic groups in Eastern Europe who were taken from George Soros and his money helped cushion the shock of the change when the Soviet empire collapsed. Now he says he is a hero of anti communism. He's involved in the currency speculation area. Is it true that he was involved in the devaluation of the British pound. Is that what is the connection. What what what what arbitrageurs do is to try to figure out which way a currency is going

up or down and then they kind of bet against that currency or bet in favor of a currency they think is going up. Some people blame Soros for for the decline of the British pound. Others think that well it was the market what done it and George Soros is just the guy who was smart enough to figure out which way the market was going. I understand. Thanks for your permission. Want us go back here to someone in the local champagne county line one good morning. Are you following the case of the mama Nati nor the computer whiz in Pakistan. I am absolutely frustrated the way it's being presented because the story that you can read in the British press is that. The guy was a mole he had been turned and he was actually communicating with al Qaeda on the very day that his cover was blown. I heard Michael Isikoff sing with a Pakistani. According the New York Times you know supposedly blue is covered but I but my understanding is that was

after it was read his name was revealed in background by the highest levels of the ministration and it was used to justify the heightening of the alert. And it seems to me that. It's the extreme example of I don't like to call it a war on terrorism but the but it going after al-Qaida suffering because of war anyway. Maybe you can elucidated what you found out if you're following that so I have not been following that case it sounds interesting and I'm sure that they're being followed. And our magazine at the New Yorker. I hope so because it seems to be to say a guy from Time can say that the Pakistanis revealed it when it's pretty clear it was revealed in the aftermath. The announcement and the British and Pakistani intelligence services of those supposedly absolutely furious and now they're plotting the round up of these guys that went to court this morning in England but they actually you know

were prematurely had had their eye on them up early because they were they had an operation going on and I thought OK well thank you you're welcome. All right well let's go on to another caller this is champagnes Lie number two. Hello. Hi First of all you really let the caller two callers ago go by talk about funding this a Soros person funding abortion clinics and being a currency speculator these are assured that that will what a sham that guy was just a shill for the Republican Party there's no question about it. Abortion rights there we were talking about that we're talking about basically Jews that's the code word for money changer for financial speculator needn't call him on it I think you should have. No you're right. You're right of course he was just he was reading off Republican talking points. Exactly so and you know and it really it riles me because these are because of Soros because Soros Soros did more to bring down communism than it than any of these

Republican talking point Carol a friendly a friendly jab and don't let people like that slide by you know he was talking about right off the Republican talking points and you should let him go on that but set it well. I think I tried to tried to answer the substance of what he was facing. You were very gentle so I wanted to talk a little bit about probably better. I want to talk a little bit about profiteering with the Iraqi war one of the things that I've read recently is every every so often the military industrial complex needs a war to what they call it blooding the weapons weapons systems and we haven't had a blooding since the early 90s. The the first Gulf War was a good chance to blood some of the weapons systems that were developed in the 70s and 80s after the Vietnam era and after the Gulf War one there was a huge acceleration of research and development and so on and that there was a lot of there's some

talk I don't know about a lot. There is some talk that that this war is primarily driven by the military industrial complex that needs to blood the new generation of weapons systems during some of the early days of the of the war. Go for two there was the big the big military weapons Expo that happen to be I think it was united America united African Emirates or somewhere right in that neighborhood. But basically a hundred or a couple hundred miles away from from the action in Iraq and they were showcasing the war for the weapons for the next generation that were going to be based a lot on how well weapons performed here in Iraq. Any comment about that in the connections of the Bush administration has to to the industrial military complex. And I'll just listen off one sure. No I think that that's barking up very much barking up the wrong tree. I don't think that this war or you know the war in Iraq or the war on terror

are caused by a military industrial con complex but wants to try out its new toys that maybe they may take advantage of a conflict to do that which is only natural. But but the uniformed military has not been particularly enthusiastic I mean the high command of the uniformed military has not been particularly enthusiastic about the Iraq war. And I think the basic urges behind the Iraq war did not did not come from that kind of source. They're not economic. They're ideological and political. And I think it's a. It's really it's it's it's just it's it might be comforting to think that all our troubles that if we could just kind of damp down the military industrial complex then we'd never have any more wars that there really were conflict for the revolution were to worry about. But I think that that's so mistaking the effect for the cause.

Other questions comments are welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. And again let me introduce our guest which I will Hendrik Hertzberg. He's Staff writer and editor at The New Yorker magazine has been there since 1902 he was also a staff writer there in the early 70s. He's been a reporter for Newsweek. He was editor at The New Republic and also spent some time as a speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter. And there's now a book out this collection of some of his writing going back to the mid 60s by politics and other aspects of American life. The title of the book is politics observations and arguments. 1066 to 2004 the Penguin Press is the publisher. And it's in the books. Are now on the way to war the Bush administration gave a number of justifications including weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. And now that seems to have fallen away and what we're left with is liberation. And the administration continues to the president continues to say what even knowing what he knows

now he would do it over again. And often when people question the war the response from the right is well you know would you rather have Saddam Hussein there and aren't the people of Iraq better off and it it may take some time to answer a question like that but I guess I wonder whether if eventually we get some point at some point where we could say yes the people of Iraq are better off. Does that mean that the war was right. Would that mean that the war had. Been right not necessarily. I mean I I think the people of Iraq probably are better off. Baby definitely are better off and I hope that they will be better off. I hope that Iraq will not descend into a kind of anarchy that would put them in a worse shape than they were under Saddam Hussein I think. I doubt that that will happen but that doesn't mean that the war was worth the cost. The resources that went into this war were not

available for other for other uses. We we've neglected we've neglected the war on al-Qaida. We did not finish the job in Afghanistan. There is a great deal of good that we could do around the world with the kind of blood and money that we've expended in Iraq it's the fact that the Iraqis are better off does not mean that another set of people or even the Iraqis themselves might might be. Might be better off had we expended our efforts in a different way. We've also damaged our credibility. We the next time we cry wolf about the weapons of mass destruction we're going to we're going to be met with doubt both at home and abroad. I mean if the government well the government's word is not its bond. And that is

the tremendous cost of this war. We have to. It's important to our national security that when the government says there is a mortal danger coming from a certain source that it be believed and that it be that it be true. And so being convicted of kind of carelessness with facts that was demonstrated in the run up to the Iraq war is just incredibly damaging to our national security. You were one of those people who after the terrorist attacks of Stepin September 11th reacted to the way it was being talked about all the war metaphors. And I think were you one of those people who said no this this is the wrong way to think about this and to talk about it with. This is not Pearl Harbor. What we have here is a criminal action of spectacular proportions but that and that we ought to think about it that way and respond to it that way.

There are things wrong with every every metaphor in it. And then the the war metaphor as a trap it kind of conditions us to to a certain kind of action. The reason I suggest the crime metaphor is a better one for this is that these are stateless outlaws that conducted this. This horrible atrocity. And they operate they they they may find refuge in rogue states and they might make get assistance from rogue states. But this isn't the kind of war that you could win the way we usually think of as wars being won with a vast army defeating another vast army. The people who actually perpetrate the deeds of September 11th and future September 11th are not armies operated by states. They are rather small groups of people who may

have who may have a large political support who may be heroes to millions of people the way Dylan's or was a hero to millions of people. The way Willie Sutton was a hero to millions of people. But they don't represent the kind of enemies that the word war suggests to us we're up against. I mean the problem with the crime metaphor is that it makes it may make it seem less urgent may make the Holte have seem less urgent than it should seem because the task is as urgent as the task of war. So some really some mixture of these two metaphors is what is what is what we ought to be focusing on and I notice that President Bush himself said the other day that the war on terror was the wrong was the wrong description that he gave a very long description which has been made fun of but actually was pretty accurate. Something to the effect of war on militants Islam and terrorism that they

sometimes work with road States to try to get weapons of mass destruction into the wrong hands something like that. It was a bit long for every day use. But but more accurate than the simple war on terror metaphor which I think clearly has let us off the book Blind alley. Iraq being blind just when we have some of the people who would like to get in here to the program. Back to the phones. We have a caller up next in Savoy. Mine one. Yes the previous caller made a point of pointing out that the caller were asking questions about George Soros was nothing more than a Republican shell. And after explaining why he thought it was that was the case he then I went on to talk as if he was reading from Democratic campaign points talking points. So I wonder if that person was not just a Democratic shill. And you know how does or what is the level of duty of care that a guest on a radio station

has to try to figure who's who when when it's a very political politically charged season. Well you're right to about that and I think I think actually you know my instinct is to deal with the substance of what people say right rather than to try and figure out whether they are reading off of a list of talking points from one party or the other hand. After all these talking points do get they do become part of the dialogue. And they need to be discussed and answered on their own substance and not simply just missed because they happen to be in the service of one party or the other. Now I hope I don't sound like or be accuse of a Republican shell because I'm not. I think the story. The career of George Soros and all of his financial dealings cannot be clearly summarized and in even probably a one hour show. But the one comment that

I do have is that I think if the future of our fire that this country's election process is going to be in increasing amounts influenced by billionaires from foreign nations or quads I state slash private slash public corporations from around the world. Then we're in for a lot of trouble because the political motivations behind these individuals or organizations or companies will you know can be directly in opposite to the security and the well-being of the United States. Well George Soros is an American citizen as is his on his shorts maker and defended a number of other American citizens. Your you bring up the. The question of undue influence exercised

by billionaires and that's surely a legitimate question. And we have George Soros. We have Richard Scaife. We have the Rockefellers we have we've got lots and lots of. We have Bill Gates. There are lots of people who commute. There are people who cumulate lots of money and use it in various ways. And that deserves to be. In fact it's important for that to be public in and examined where. Where we can see it. Good point. And I appreciate that response. And then this one last final point was with respect to the way that. Our nation may or may not have exposed a certain level type of informant or informative source on the movements of al Qaeda in a political season scene. You know if if the source had not been revealed or the reasons why we were going

to such an alert had not been explained as fully as they were then there would always be some that would be accusing the administration of raising the alert for purely political purposes rather than based upon information on the ground. And then if you start revealing too much information about those sources then yes other other allies and perhaps we do compromise our position but I just think it's I don't think it's a good thing that the whole issue has to be played as a political ploy by anybody. Yeah I agree with you and I think I think that that we we should be discussing the wisdom of the overall policies. Let me get to what's useful in deciding who ought to be the next president is not the tiny details of spycraft that this represents I mean of course if it's if somebody if somebody were revealing were blowing on a secret

operation in order for some momentary political gain that would be worth knowing about. But the real issue is is what overall policies and approaches are what a President Kerry take in these if he was a President Bush would take it that's what we that's a useful thing to to be focusing on. Right. Thank you. I think for the CO. Well just real quick to to go to the presidential contest that's going on right now. It seems like that for some time now we have been told there have been substantial numbers of voters who said that they were there either a dead benefit as Democrats or Republicans or were red and blue people or Kerry supporters were supporters or whatever and that those things haven't changed and are not likely to change and so we're led to believe that the outcome of this election could be decided by a very small number of people who haven't really made up their minds. If that's true what do you think. What do you think it will be that will get those people to go either one way or another in a way. What do you think are the most

important issues for the undecided voters. Well there are there are of course two sets of people who could decide a close election there are the undecided voters who haven't made up their minds. And then there are the sort of de-motivated voters who who if they did vote it's clear which way they would vote but they don't feel like bothering to vote. In other words that the UN the UN mobilized parts of each party's base and. Both parties seem to be actually stressing more going for the undecided voter the center the voter in the center. Rather than. But they're also doing a lot to motivate their bases. So they're they're doing they're following both strategies at once but that but their most of their public talk most of their rhetoric is aimed at the undecided voter and most of their crowd organizing work is aimed at the base voter.

So they're doing both at once in that the Republican convention that's coming up they're putting their most moderate face on display. Obviously they they think that the at the kind of hard right Tom DeLay approach is a loser when it comes to the undecided voters so they're putting people like George Pataki and Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rudy Giuliani up as their public face just as the Democrats stressed military credentials they had former generals up there. They they did not stress their anti-war pacifist side at all. I thinking that if that's a loser when it comes to one of the undecided voters so both parties are are making up a rhetorical play for the center where the undecided voters are believed to be.

That's interesting in that it seems that so often people when you talk about what what the strategy is the party should be as there's this criticism that their parties. And I think particularly you hear this about the Democratic Party is it's not it's not being true to its nature it's trying to be something other than that that what it is and that if they really want to be successful it seems that they ought to appeal even more strongly to their base. But that's not what they're doing in fact maybe that's not the way that you win elections. It's an end it's an unending debate. But I think that if you're a. Need to understand that a lot of that kind of political position he goes on is just absolutely necessary given the kind of political arrangements that we have it's a winner take all zero sum game here and and you've got to somehow put together more votes of the other guy and quite a lot more votes as we now know just getting a few more votes for the other guy isn't enough. You've got to

put it pretty beyond stealing distance and. Sometimes that requires building a bigger tent and letting some people into it that you might not be comfortable with. Let me just ask you about one of the thing and I got some callers I want to try to get in a couple of a couple of people more but just because that in the book you have some pieces about proportional representation that's just one of these ideas that from time to time as is discussed and a lot of people feel that would make a big difference in American politics difficult to achieve because I expect that the Republicans demagogue. As would resist such a thing but an idea nonetheless that in a quiet but continuing way people can keep talking about how do you think that would change things. Well I think actually Illinois is one of the few places in the United States where something along these lines is actually been tried I mean to move the Illinois legislature used to have cumulative voting another way which is a form. It's

one of the many forms of proportional representation where essentially you have a three member legislative district. And generally unless one party got an overwhelming you know 90 or 80 percent majority generally that would mean that one party would get to and the other party would get one in each of the three member districts and that that had a lot of positive effect. It meant there was a lot more bipartisanship. It meant that people it is meant higher voter turnout because when you went went in to vote even if you were in a district that was overwhelmingly Republican or overwhelmingly Democrat and you were the other party you still had a shot at some representation. So you didn't give up majority rule but you still had you had representation of political minorities. The cumulative voting record of the details of how it works in a lot of Illinois people already know how it had worked. But it's

an illustration of the fact that a lot of different things could be tried out on the state level without changing the federal Constitution. And they should be there's no reason why every single state government should be a mindless Xerox of the federal government you know with a House a Senate and a governor all separately elected all from single member districts. Try it try some other things. I mean the whole the world is full of interesting ways to organize democratic governments. Europe has got probably 15 or 20 different ways of doing it in Europe alone they're all variations on proportional representation that that end up give you different outcomes you can engineer it any way you like. But we ought to be we ought to be experimenting with these things on the state level. Let's talk with another caller here Chicago. Number four you know I've long appreciated your writing and boastfully New Republic and The New Yorker. Thank you for the years

it was one of the reasons I call their virtue for you. Two points I want to get to. Well the first one is that it seems to me that if one were to read Robert Caro's three you can all humans of his list to see LBJ biography. One would get to understand how the Republican Party operates that is. Johnson. Is the guy who made these to the brown brothers. Who controlled Brown and Root. Multimillionaires. And they in turn made him the politic political leader that he eventually became. But by his support by their support of him and of their gathering a clique of reactionary industrialists in Texas to

back him all to make through to two to the presidency. Any case plus illustrates how elections were stollen in Texas and how they gained control of Texas and after Johnson had his civil rights bills and the fact that they became the clar of the Republican Party in Texas and there and there's a bunch of gangsters basically who go back to the president. And and control of government in the United States not brown and group but a part of Halliburton and their method of operation is essentially the same now as it was in Texas. The stealing of funds and that sort of thing corruption through and through. Your and your other point really the point is to question about the article. That seem more harsh. Well swords and this January this is January article regarding the

the Abu Ghraib prison. No this one see the see about the bunch that died essentially wanted to go to sent to war and then decided the setting up of by the war depart by the War Department. I'm going to have to jump in here on the call I'm really have to apologize we're just at the end of the time we were just going to have to stop I don't know if there's any last sort of thought that you'd like to offer before we go there's an awful lot in the book and we'll have one. One could talk about and I would certainly encourage people to go out and look at the book we said because there's a lot of good pieces in there. Well I would certainly second that. Maybe you would just have to have to leave it at that again I hope that the last caller will forgive me for having to do that I'm just really sorry. Sometimes you come to the end and you simply have to stop. Then of course I guess Hendrik Hertzberg a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1992 he's also written

for Newsweek The New Republic. The book is politics observations and arguments 966 2004 the Penguin Press again Mr. Ebert thanks very much. Thank you so much a string I really appreciate it.