Evening Exchange; Mary McGrory and Jack Anderson

I meet some classic muckrakers Washington Post columnist Mary McGrory and Jack Anderson next evening exchange. Good evening and welcome to evening exchange. I'm Kojo Nnamdi. Yesterday evening exchange then the discussion of the t shirts that have the guns on them and the bullets on the back came up. I said words to the effect that the Ben Ali who was manufacturing and selling these T-shirts is I think the son of Ben Ali the owner of Ben's Chili Bowl. I should have known better. Ben Ali has been doing business in this town for 40 years at Ben's Chili Bowl and he has a reputation for honesty integrity and community support.

He and his wife who have been married for more than 35 years of raise their son Ben Jr. and his son to follow the same principles that they value and carry with them. And I should have known better than to think that Ben Ali or any relative of Ben Ali would be involved in anything as bizarre as these T-shirts that are now making the rounds. I spoke with Ben Ali earlier today and he could have been very upset and impolite. Instead he was his usual polite friendly and forgiving so that is the way it is. But I would like to now publicly apologize to Ben and Virginia and their sons Ben Jr. and design because they are certainly not the Ben Ali who was involved in this bizarre T-shirt business. And to assure you that on behalf of even the exchange and challenge 32 We will not be airing that segment again.

However we do want to discuss these bizarre T-shirts that have been making the rounds. Even though the Ben Ali who was involved with it has said that he will no longer be manufacturing and selling these sorts Surtsey is said he wants to make a positive contribution to this community and he has apparently been convinced that that is not it so we are encouraging you to call in in this segment with your own views about this T-shirt controversy there have been several developments. The T-shirts became a subject of a commentary on CBS Radio in which the commentator urged people all over the country to call collect for the manufacture of these T-shirts to fax some notes to indicate their outrage over what he is doing and this apparently began to happen. This Ben Ali began to receive threats and the like as a result of these bizarre T-shirts that he's been manufacturing He has several contracts with the District of Columbia government of all kinds of private contractors because he makes a wide variety of

T-shirts but the ones that attract the attention were the ones you know them you see on the front of the t shirt a 9 millimeter on the back of the T-shirt. You see an Uzi and it says well if this doesn't get you then this will. And there were a lot of people objecting to these T-shirts I have been somewhat surprised by some of the responses. It is my understanding that then principals or teacher sent young people in the D.C. Public Schools home from school because they were wearing these t shirts. These officials were later confronted on some occasions by irate parents who said How dare you send my child home for wearing such a t shirt. I also heard remarks to the effect that this is. It's just the media's fault. It's not such a big deal after all the media is making it a big deal well shoot the messenger because you have to ask the question if this is not a big deal if young children wearing T-shirts carrying guns and indicating that these guns will be used are not a big deal then what is

a big deal. What does that say about what is happening in our culture in general and in our communities in particular. As I said I want to take your phone calls and the segment on that issue so let us get right to it. Thank you for waiting call you're on the air go ahead. I just wanted to say that I'm a chicken is that we are coming our children I look at these teacher three occasions and it is just a second nature and there are a whole generation of young like and who are doing it. It died with a gunshot and that we are getting more and more numb I like the whole cycle of violence continues. Now we are operating it like I think well with it into our popular culture and that's my major one of each you know on the line for a second caller because I would like you to share your other concerns you said we are numbing our children do you think that we've gotten to the point where we are already numb and we're passing that numbness on to our children. I think it's a certain level of numbness that would have for me television

shows very much I mean there night I turned television off because every show after another is something I did something violent is happening or out happened you have been somebody about to be killed or somebody is being tall. I think as as a society we are becoming more and more like you watching on television is completely different you get numb about it on corners. What would you say if you were a parent and you saw a child of yours wearing such a T-shirt. It wouldn't be anything to say it wouldn't happen. Dad would be gone off the charts but you would have been gone. That's true. Thank you very much for your call. We're discussing the issue of the bizarre bizarre T-shirts that have been making the rounds on some of our young people. The manufacturer and seller of those T-shirts one Ben Ali we have to reiterate no way associated with the owner of Ben's Chili Bowl not him but he has been manufacturing and selling these shirts and he now says that he would not do this any longer.

But the fact of the matter is that I suspect that once there was money to be made in this venture that somebody someplace will continue to do it and we are likely to const to you to see these T-shirts show up someplace unless there is some significant community outrage that is consistent. They will begin to creep into the culture and under the backs of our young people again so let's go back to the telephone and let's have your question or comment Caller go ahead. Yes I'm I'm recognize you sort of. If we're talking about a mentality that's where I'm sent to you sir that I think that's the message. I don't know what you did and I seen it. You received it and I think it's time if we use of practice on the surface it is going to happen sometimes and not an advocate of a computer to do and I think there's a message in this and I have a threesome. I don't want to give the public to see what the issue was. And if it's needed

I'm not affected you should just spend time we give the right image. If you want to get up I'm going to be some. Do you have to pass a bill. Thank you very much. Thank you very much caller and as we said earlier Mr. Adie says he wants to make a positive contribution to this community. See how he does that. As you all know there is a virtual explosion in T-shirts that say something. Everybody's got a few everybody's wearing them but none of them seems to have affected people in the way that these particular T-shirts have people take one look at these T-shirts and it is not merely outrage. It is shop that anybody would make a t shirt like this in the first place shock that somebody would allow a child to wear it and shocked that the child would want to wear this T-shirt back to the telephone call. Callers are on their Caller go ahead. Well I mean I think this church is like a couple years back remember the Run Joe run T-shirts that everybody had upset about and I think there's another trick. Right now call like the ghetto bastards assumption like that maybe you know monetary. I think

it's like the mentality and like some of our backyard entrepreneurs sell a product to us. It's like something just a moment if you see a rather mediocre summer rap stars like eight by King supposes a time or two CNN video. I think sometimes that we have to address why these people don't people want to quit their image that they should want to ask and make money off it at the same time. Well it's interesting because yes I have seen some of the rap stars in their gangsta poses and on the post as you see them in gangsta poses but I think that what is happening here is that people have as force call a point about have become numbed in the sudden respect of violence and expect to see it on rap stars when it translates itself into what we see our children wearing then I think people get a little more concerned. But you're right we do have to talk. About the connection between what our young people watch on these video shows all of the time and what they want to wear what they want to look like and what they want to do.

Indeed one such show that we had an evening Exchange to discuss that issue may have been our most pop in the show of the last season back in the telephone caller you're on the air go ahead. Right ahead. I witchery yeah would be you know. Oh I think you can look to the kids wanting the features because they have gotten some of the messages from the video that you you know you're going to get some of those messages a not so subliminal at all. Well in terms of saying you know what I learned and what they are or I'm not thinking that. Subliminal they're not outright saying you know let's go shoot. I mean some of them are yes they are. But I still think that the moment you is thinking you ok ok. So on the video it's on a post your wire not beyond my back and that

that is your mom. She wrote back saying Oh brother of our lee. You were positive in this show and come out with something else and you know promoting this other means. I have the T-shirt. Something you need to make a statement. Teen Parents you everyone thank you very much caller we did invite Mr. Early the one who was making these T-shirts to appear on exchange but he declined. Obviously if he is sincere. Obviously if he does want to make a positive contribution to this community there for Raiatea of ways in which he can do it since he is already in the business of making T-shirts but we will see with time how he demonstrates his responsibilities as a citizen in this community and what is the nature of the positive contribution that he will make That's all the time we have in this segment. I have to take a short break later in our show. We will meet columnist Jack

Anderson. But up next a talk with Washington Post columnist Mary McGrory. Stay with us. Whoa. Welcome back. For us news junkies few mornings go by when we don't have to stumble out the front

door or rub the sleep from our eyes and scan the front page of the morning paper. Once you've agonized over the gloom of the front page it is refreshing in the lightning to go to the next page and read the words of our first guest Mary McGrory. This is my glory. Is a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist who's been with The Washington Post since 1991. Before that we read her columns in The Washington Star and she's been writing them since 1960. Welcome to the extent. Thank you very much. Well it seems that after about 40 tries the Congress today finally managed to overturn a veto by President Bush the one having to do with the cable industry. And I am excited and anxious to know if this is something that you will be writing about and even if it isn't what is you're thinking about. It's not been a good year for George Bush. Well it's his first veto override so I don't think it's in the catastrophe department do you. Hello. I guess any time you lose is bad and I guess it was

simply that people wanted regulation of the cable industry and that the people on the Hill the members didn't feel either that it was with bucking their constituency either because they agreed with them because they thought that maybe George Bush might have a show at lease White House. That is my thinking. Do you really think it is an indication that what we are seeing is a president losing the toehold he still has in the front door of the White House and the Congress beginning to recognize that. Well I don't really know. I don't know. We don't know if it has a deeper significance. At this point I just have my deep significance approach with me I can't figure that one out. What interests me about your writings is how much it differs from much of what we see on television we're being told nowadays that the agenda

for how the candidates are covered and how Washington is covered in general is no longer being led by our major newspapers it's being led by those those constant news analysis talk shows that we see on television in particular. It is my understanding the McLaughlin Group which is now the apparently the most highly rated show even though that depends on how you look at it in this town inside Washington might be higher rated but I just want to know how do you feel about this develop. Well I felt badly about it ever since I first noticed it which was about 20 years ago when I went to a press conference in California and they. Had all the cameras lined up in front and all the chairs for the report as in back and that turned out to be the wave of the future. It started with a fuss and protest this weekend but the other thing if you go to the Hill when they have hearing so used to be in the good old days they would be the press table would go the length of the room going down and we would sit on either

side of the witness the witness was right in the middle and we could look at him from either him or hear from either side. We could see the whites of their eyes. Now we sit in back of them. We see the backs of their heads in that doesn't do any good to complain. We just we just know that. What effect do you think this has on the American people as a whole. If we see not only most of our information it would appear but most of our leadership on issues from television commentators rather than the more detailed version we can get out of newspapers and magazines. Naturally I think it's a perfectly terrible development and I wish we could arrest and reverse it and all that but I don't know what to do. Do you have any ideas. I have no idea what to do I happen to make my own living in television and some of the ideas are not likely to come from someone such as me. But you never the rest are highly regarded as one of the opinion

makers in Washington does that put you in a sometimes uncomfortable position. I don't take myself that seriously because they don't think other people do. For the principal reason being that I'm not on television and therefore I'm not a person of great consequence. So I just put it out make it read it if they want to and they don't have to. So I have a sort of relaxed relationship with them. So you're not you don't have the kinds of pressure and I do like when you say I really don't know because most of our television pundits feel that they can never afford to say I really don't know. You have to consider that they might know everything. But they might indeed know everything. You did a column on how the Strategic Defense Initiative is still being funded in the billions of dollars despite the fact that the Cold War is over. Again it's the kind of thing you don't see on television it's the kind of thing I don't think most of the American people

understand. Could you please explain to our viewers what happened in that situation. Well as you know the the administration is very much in favor of Star Wars and there was a coterie of senators particularly senators who are very much in favor of it. They look at it not so much as it as a stay at defense of our country from enemy missiles as a kind of jobs program. And they just refused to go up and say the Cold War was over. We have to make some of the things we've got to start all over again. That is complicated that is expensive. So when the administration asked for I think it was four point three billion exactly right. Senator Sasser and Senator Bumpers both highly regarded. Long time members introduced a billion dollar cut

in it passed tentatively tentatively in the technical way that is with explaining and then running back to the full floor for a vote and lost. Well there's no really good explanation of why. I mean the Russians certainly have not been very menacing lately they were on their backs and Saddam Hussein is otherwise occupied. I don't know where the threat is coming from but anyway the threat may have been to the sovereignty of certain powerful senators who like to run these affairs. I'm thinking of the chairman of the services committee is to Sam Nunn of Georgia and his Senator John Warner of Virginia. They like to run these things. And I think that this. Bit of a friend to Ray from Sasser in Memphis. I don't know maybe that's just too petty but no one else has given me

any other good reason. Well apparently they buttonholed several senators who had voted for it including Senator Nancy Kassebaum and forced them to turn their votes around because when you are as powerful a Sam Nunn as you are able to punish these people in other ways what kinds of ways is a powerful committee chairman able to use as leverage or punishment of senators who don't go along with him because as you note this was all about who's going to be in charge whether Sam Nunn was going to let some other senators lead him on this issue and he wasn't about to let that happen. So we're stuck with a three point something billion dollar bill for Star Wars when there is no Cold War. What is it that Sam Nunn is able to do. Well he decides what bills the Services Committee will consider if you have a base you have to be on his good side because that basic just go

slipping right over the horizon if you're not careful. I don't mean he said big necessarily but it just stands to reason that he's going to be nice to people who are nice to him and then if you have an amendment you want to get on the floor it may turn out that this simply isn't any time for you to bring this amendment and you will find that maybe you have three votes for it because people again do not wish to oppose the Jim that is indeed remarkable. It is one of the things about how Washington works that the rest of the country is often unaware of and is finds it very difficult. It seems we find it very difficult to change the way Washington works. Let's go to the telephone thank you for waiting caller it is now your turn you're on the air. Yes hello. Yes yes I've been waiting. Are you all trying to speak. I want but I would like you know not say Oh yeah I'm a 17 year old thing you don't think I asked and

I would like to have some place a proper T-shirt. Thanks a lot I want to watch tempos on five because I'm trying to get on the last thing. OK go like a man like a providence flavor say it he said you have to support his family. And if people stop concentrating on the money for his own people because that's what it's basically all about want to be forced on people. You got to let that dollar bill the spot you got to get that I may get that green bank out of my arm because that is what children are people. If people concentrate that think that mommy not being here they want to have a lot of problems they have in mind just like we got to we got to all come to you know some type of way. We got to give more jobs health care college opportunity you know program from aid if you will put a proven jail. We must have programs in jail I mean I feel that a private detective commits a crime. I feel that OK I do have your point and it is well taken. Allow me to try to put it in a broader context because we do obviously want young people to have experiences

and entrepreneurship. Don't get us wrong. But you will remember Miss McGrory that the 70s were called the Me Decade and the 80s were called the decade and as our caller implies there is a notion here that anything is acceptable once you can make money doing it. Do you think that 12 years of Republican administrations in the White House have had anything to do. Something like that Charles. Yes I do. I think that there's been much too little emphasis on social programs on helping each other. And just a great deal of common sense. But these weapons that we don't know what to do with and we don't have any money left for libraries and clocks and schools and books teaches all those good things going by the book. And it was because at least partly because the whole emphasis was on military

spending on being strong and now here we are with the bills. We do have to pay them. One of the columns you did recently was on Henry Kissinger and his testimony in Congress on the issue. Yes. And when I think of Henry Kissinger It reminds me of the revolving door that Washington has become. Nobody ever really leaves. And Henry Kissinger is an academic who makes more money than any academic I have ever known. Do you think that also underlies the kind of money machine that Washington has become. Yes. Obviously these lobbyists you know the paid the size of the national debt. And these consultants I mean I think about you know Congressman a son of the who gets defeated it seems ever leaves Washington they never go back to Pocatello. But speaking of the Vietnam War era I'm now discovering a new

personality. The country is to use an Admiral James Stockdale and he is Ross Perot's running mate of his vice presidential candidate. He was just stuck in there as a stock stopgap last spring when Perot was considering running. But as we know events have overtaken Perot So now Stockdale is there. It's a very interesting and very erudite. Exalted idea of public service and sacrifice and ideals. He was in the Hanoi Hilton for seven and a half years and he was a senior American officer there which meant that he was well or less in charge of all of them. I think you'll be interesting in the debates. You think he adds credibility to the candidates on again off again. Well kind of and I think only if only the top of the ticket can do that. Never the less you find Admiral Stockdale interesting.

Yes I do and I think he's probably very admirable when I'm reading his book right now which is why I mentioned and we are discussing the P O W M My issue here on the evening extends tomorrow night. Really. Yes we are. The other thing is that you notice that they getting silly on the debates which is their privilege. Oh yeah the small awning For instance we read that Dan Quayle wanted to use as a prop.. Albert Gore was a book on the environment. Yes and this is why has appeared on this show to discuss the book for an entire hour right before. Before becoming a vice presidents of NGOs people said Certainly you can use a book if we can bring Tadros as it should. So that's where it's I think that washed out. Well you also have written about about George Bush using Bill Clinton's attendance at Oxford on a Rhodes Scholar as somehow some indication that something was wrong. What is this anti-intellectual ism that's becoming so popular.

Well it's what I call downward mobility. It's very un-American. Every almost every American citizen except at first citizen is very anxious to do better than his or her for a bit. But he for some reason rather wants to do worse. At least that's because you have to consider he's knocking Oxford. He went to Yale which is not exactly a trade school and he has a 5 beta kappa degree so he know something but he seems to want to hype that in you so that Dan Quayle was whining that Albert Gore had been to expensive private schools where as poor he had gone to a public school so did I and I'm extremely proud of it. And if you could you go to a good public school I went to a magnet school before they would magnet schools. It's called Girls School. It was perfectly awful it was like the marine corps of education. You know you couldn't breathe. We just had to memorize

everything at 4 I was homework every night and all that. But then when you got through you you were ready. I keep reminding people about my own high school experience I hated it it was so much work but when you got through you were really well prepared which you had to do. Exactly. Back to the telephone it's your turn call you're on the air go ahead please. Caller are you there. Hello I cannot hear that caller. If you do happen to be there at all. Let's go to another telephone call caller you're on the air go ahead please. We seem to be having some trouble with our telephone call you this morning. Back to the president's induction the editing of Ross Perot into the race what is in your view brought Mr. Probus I guess pride I don't know I haven't talked to anybody close to him and I certainly haven't talked to him but I think that he did not expect surprisingly that he would be called a quitter for getting out. So you know I think what was so wounding about his exit

the first one anyway was the fact that he had talked about the deficit in the need to to get some order in our fiscal house in people said yes that's right. And he said it's going to be very HUD and he said yes. They said OK we know that said you're going to have sacrifice and they said Right we know that's the only way we'll get through this. And then he said but you're not strong enough and brave enough to do this. You don't have the stomach for it so I'm I'm getting out and I think they were really deeply insulted. I do find this one of the enduring ironies of this is that it was Ross Perot. And in shorthand let's call him a coke. That's what people have been saying. And he is nonetheless the cuckoo was talking about the right thing. He is talking about the deficit. None of the others will have so far. Well let's go back to the telephone caller as you're on the air go ahead please. Yeah it's not going to get us going on a screen. You don't know their history.

But if you have a California man named Panek would be able to go back to Yugoslavia and become the president and a defense minister which is what we have an American businessman who's been in and out of the door with Kissinger Associates. But on a single paragraph now being a secretary of state. And here's one of his business and oh oh oh. We seem to have lost that just seem to be making a point about a connection between a burger and some kind of business and you must I hope call back that we do have another caller on the light. Caller It's your turn you on the air go ahead please. Hello Caller are you there. It's nice to talk to you and Mary McGrory how wonderful of you to have her on how wonderful of her to agree to join us. Oh boy. I come from a grandfather who was a staunch Democrat. But Roosevelt had wanted him to pack the Supreme Court. I have a Republican father

deceased and I'm supposed to be a conservative. I read Roy and I wrote all of the islands and agree with her. Thank you very much. I wonder whether she feels the shift. They can't be saved in this election. Know what the outcome will be. You can't predict who's going to win thank you by knowing you. Now I know that. I appreciate your confidence. It is however misplaced. I have no idea what's going to happen. I gather that that Clinton is well ahead and I don't know how President Bush recoups nothing he's tried so fast seems to work. A friend of mine and a colleague named Thomas Edsel in The Washington Post wrote the best analysis of the dilemma of the vote of that I have seen so far. He said that it was a crisis of trust in both men. One man Bush the electorate felt had not taken

responsibility for public matters that had gone badly wrong in his administration that he seemed to walk away from the deficit in the recession and all the others on the other hand they felt that. Clinton had been deficient in accountability and responsibility in personal matters like his draft status his marriage and so forth so that they they really didn't trust either one and was sort of flopping about trying to find a clue. I think that's the best analysis I've seen and that's about all the time we have in this segment. We'd like to thank Mary McGrory very much for joining us. As you know is an institution and quickly becoming a legend in Washington even though she doesn't take herself that seriously. A lot of other people do. When we come back we'll have a talk with another institution in this town. Columnist Jack Anderson stay with us.

I am. Welcome back when you look up the word muckraker in the dictionary you'll get a definition that

includes phrases like ferreting out the truth investigative edge and writing wrong. Our next guest is considered all of the above. Jack Anderson gets the job done. Former President Nixon was so irritated by the work of Jack Anderson that he put him on his enemies list. Twenty years later he's still catching flak for knowing too much. Welcome to you next to enlist. It's a pleasure to have you. Well I listen to that with grateful embarrassment Thank you. You have been a thorn in the side of the Washington establishment ever since you replaced Drew Pearson in 1969 with probably even while you worked for Drew Pearson you were a thorn in the side of the Washington establishment. What motivates you to do this work. Oh I think I just read the Constitution. Of the Constitution that's our function. Those of us like you and me in the media our profession is the only one that's mentioned in the Constitution according to the Constitution we're supposed to be the public watchdog we have been we we've we've had our martyrs

or heroes we've had our prostitutes we've had our moments of glory in our moments of shame in other words we haven't always been infallible. We have been vigorous at times probably somnolent more often. Do you miss the heady days of Watergate. Oh no I don't think so I. The story that I always think is my best is the one I working on I hope I can always keep that. Do you know when we had the writer of the book adventures in Portland Portland out here about how pork barrel projects work in Congress. I said finally here somebody else writing about the stuff Jack Anderson has been writing about for all of these years and we just heard Mary McGrory in our first segment talk about how this thing works. You're the chairman of a committee somebody wants to take away some money for the B-2 bomber or SDI and you intervened and said you don't want to lose some projects in your own home district.

You better stay away from. I mean that's the way it works in the King of Pork of course is Bobby Byrd. He happens to be chairman of the right committees chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. He's become a billion dollar industry in West Virginia. In fact he brings more money into the state than any other industry including the tourist industry. That is simply amazing Were he not to do that could he stand office. All I I rather expect he's got a pretty solid organization and he's got the people who are doing a pretty well on. But I think that he feels that he is serving his constituents it's a poor state. I think he feels they're deserving. The problem with any pork barrel project is that we benefit a very few people at the expense of the many and you got to question the ethics and the morality of that. We have to change that. Is there any way to change that. Well we're certainly not getting very far as you say in writing all these years in what you just down as it is as issues an indictment of me. Obviously I'm not

accomplishing anything but. Yeah we're making a little progress but but not by the bureaucracy never wants to cut the spending. They always want to increase the revenue because if they don't increase the revenue their own pay in their own promotions and their own prospects are jeopardized. So there isn't much that the bureaucrats can do in their swivel chairs except to administer and to regulate and to study. How they love to study. Oh my. I mean last year they studied for example 19 million dollars to study the how can I put this delicately. The gas emissions from the north end of southbound columns. Yes yes that was an actual study. I mean what in the well. There's been no beneficial gas emissions or gallons. And yet we thought we saying one thousand million dollars and that you could use it at Howard University to better purpose because he certainly could. Let's take a telephone call. Caller Thank you for waiting around there go ahead please.

The status and they put the main breaker on you that's the problem but you should take heart you know my at for example from a Mike Marcus you've got a big oh he's written a book with the name. Yeah you know what I'm into I'm proud of that name Mike Mike Mike you've got to be great. You know I was addressing a question from the mic right on. You're going to go but you would be just as part of what I'm talking about. Out of panic who was a California businessman now being the number one man if you can stop it. Number two man I'd say I'm going to have to get over that I'm I think you can target it makes you number one on the right. OK. Got monsoonal burger the secretary of state now has some of that paper you know important. You're probably going to America from Yugoslavia but you think that might be some kind of conflict of interest. Yeah I do think it's a conflict of interest and I think that the conflict is even worse and you described Eagleburger and Brant Scowcroft the national security adviser to the

president were both right and Baal right and left Bowers of a fellow named Henry Kissinger and Kant and Henry Kissinger has become enormously wealthy going through that revolving door between business and diplomacy and you never know quite he comes out sometimes as a diplomat Sometimes he comes out as a businessman. I mean this guy Henry Kissinger is just astounding. I mean he he was probably more responsible than any other individual for getting most favored nation trade treatment for China. And you call him as I did and try to find out whether you got paid by anybody only know that if you invested. Long enough you find out that he was paid by a Hong Kong bank that was owned by communist China. So was he not was he. Yet technically he wasn't paid by China as paid by a bank. But you know what's the difference. Same thing in Iran in Iraq. He advised the Iraqi government there his is

his firm did and you know I tried to find out why they were doing that. I found out that Alan Stoga his right hand man was in Baghdad visiting with the with Saddam Hussein before the invasion of Kuwait. And yeah I want to try to find out. And I I ask questions they refused to talk to me they said put your questions in writing I did and they give me answers that don't mean make any sense. It is well now we find out. I finally found out that he was paid by a bank. Again it was a bank that paid him it wasn't Iraq but the bank was partly owned by Iraq and handled all Iraq's business whom this guy Jerry. Well you know you've been revealing the stuff people know. Kissinger Associates people who know of the myriad of consultancies that he's involved in. Why is that in television. Recognizing this obvious conflict of interest as soon as there is any kind of international export that is looked at. Henry Kissinger was

on television explaining what's going on why do why does that keep happening in Washington. Well he's a favorite of the establishment He's a darling of the media. You know I was always a pariah. I always asked the questions he didn't want to answer so he won't go on any of my shows. Because I'm going to ask him the wrong questions he wants to be asked statesman like questions so he can pose as a statesman and look the man is brilliant. He gives good answers and. And do you think it's dangerous for journalists in Washington to get too friendly with the leaders of the political establishment. I've always made it a practice not to go to these soirees because you do get too close they lift you up on the Olympian eye you breathe the rarefied air out there. I mean I had three fourths of the reporters on Capitol Hill and they you know they go down the halls pumping hands and slapping backs you can't tell them from the congressman and those who cover the State

Department first thing you know they're wearing tweed jackets and puffing up like you know they they begin to adopt the views the attitudes of the people they write about. I think that's again and I was interesting I heard George George Will on a talk show recently talking about his new book and somebody asked him a question about it. And he said you know before it went to publishing I sent it to have two of my best friends in Washington read it and then he rattled off the name of two U.S. senators and you're beginning to see every week this guy has to discuss what's going on in the Senate. His best friends happen to be U.S. senator. What's going on. Anyway let's get back to the telephone it's your turn called You're on the air go ahead please. Good evening gentlemen. I understand that President Bush you know he's fresh from that you know kind of you know recently I'm now $3000 and got a two million dollar gas exploration and I don't want to walk away from it and I haven't seen a whole lot of media play on that if any particular reason for that.

Well one reason might be the president says don't mess with my family it gets me very upset. But I don't know. Well I like the president. So how do you do it I'll dig a little deeper than maybe some others of mine. I try to pretend that we break stories. The reason I haven't done it is because I didn't get the scoop I didn't get it exclusively but maybe there's more to it that I ought to be reading the maybe we had to go into a little deeper than others have. Yes he is a young man who seems to have benefited greatly from exactly who his father is and his father of course happens to be the president of the United States Have you any regrets after the years you've been doing this book raking in Washington. Well you always have regrets. I wrote a story about a couple of congressmen who were guilty and I got convicted and who committed suicide it was a capital offense that always haunts me. You know I didn't know in advance that they were going to do that and it does it is troubling.

Now I've made a couple of mistakes and you see investigative reporting is high risk journalism. We were the first on the scene. We just see the tip of the iceberg and nobody wants to show you the rest. So you have a terrible time getting a view of the whole ice. And you may by just reporting what you see. You may give an incorrect picture of what really lies beneath. It isn't that we're unwilling to show what lies beneath it's that we're not able to find out because we are not magicians. You know I'm just a reporter all I can do is break the ice and. But you have to break the ice somebody has to break the ice somebody has to start writing about it because well we still don't know the whole story of Watergate for example. After all the court trials and court testimony after all the congressional testimony after all the books that have been written. I mean Richard Nixon is still withholding stuff. So if we waited for the final information we wouldn't have broken Watergate yet. You can't wait you have to go ahead on the assumption that

news is a serial story and there will be another chapter tomorrow and if you if you don't tell the whole story today maybe you can finish it tomorrow. What is your own view about the P O W's and that's rearing its head again. I have taken the. I've had access to some of the documents that are now coming out I saw other years ago and these documents declared clearly that we left behind people in Viet Nam. I don't think there's much doubt about it now are the documents accurate I don't know but I mean I wasn't Viet Nam I didn't see them myself but I did read the documents and the most compelling documents some of them I read for example and these haven't come out yet but among the documents I read which make a lot of sense to me is that we left behind a lot of sophisticated weaponry. When we pulled out the North Vietnamese inherited this sophisticated weaponry and didn't know how to operate maintain it so they went on the prisoner list and look for people who might be able to help them and detain

those prisoners. Now I understand that those particular prisoners have been mistreated but they are mistreated in the sense that they were had their baby set off from their home their roots their families but they have remarried into it and these families and they're making the best of their new situation I understand that they are still alive and they're still there. Back to the telephone caller it's your turn you're on the air go ahead please. Oh yeah I have a program car problem. So we're going to have to stop the violence. I'm like you know knocked out of the bottle. But can I leave my telephone number please. Just to wait six six two just I mean we gotta stop this I mean the killing is crazy. I'm frightened to rock the program I know you ain't got much time at people please call me you know move on to another telephone call I agree we have to stop the violence I mean the first duty of the government is to protect the citizens and our government isn't doing that at this point.

Caller It's your turn you're on the air go ahead please. Yet that is right and if the reference is it true I've heard rumors that also affected Dick Cheney. He also a doctor. If that's true I don't know I don't think so I haven't heard the report and you know I don't know there all I can say about this draft dodging is that there was a prevailing view I think among college students and I knew these college students and used to visit their campuses and I think it prevailed everywhere that the Vietnam war was wrong. And because they felt that it was wrong they weren't that eager to fight in it. And I wonder whether we can blame people for something someone like Bill Clinton I don't know that we can blame him for a view for adopting what was really the prevailing view among the among the students that he associated with I don't think we can blame him for that. Now we can blame him for lying about it now. Do you know we have to hold him to the truth now. We can hold him responsible

for coming clean. That's about it but we can't blame him for what he did when he was 23 years old. You're absolutely right caller it's your turn you're on the air go ahead please. Well go right ahead. Yeah I wanted to. I understand that George Bush sold property and you know what he did he claimed he would remain right now he wouldn't have to act. Now I understand you mean the hotel room. Heck the president doesn't have to pay tax. Well you know he he he's a politician I don't think he did it to escape taxes and the truth about George Bush is that he's quite wealthy and that he can afford to pay taxes and I never heard that he's interested in avoiding taxes what he's doing is playing politics. He wants the people of Texas to think he's a tax and he wants the people of Connecticut to think he's he came from there because he grew up in Connecticut went to school there and his father was a Prescott Bush was a senator for Connecticut and he wants the people in Maine to think that he's from Maine. He wants to win all of states I think it's political. But what you are telling me I hadn't heard

and I do think it's worth looking into and I will look into it I haven't heard about that. I haven't heard about it. What do you think about ever since 1975 Richard Nixon's attempts to reinvent himself sometimes with the help of the news media. I mean he's got more lives than a cat. Yeah he keeps coming back and the new Nixon and the new Nixon and I don't know how many skin disease you got and how many times you can reappear. But every time I've ever took or taken a close look at him I always find the same next and he still believes he still needs a shave. Whatever the mask mix Richard Nixon is under there. What is going to be new is a lot of new congresspersons coming to Washington for the next Congress. Do you think that will change in any significant way the way business is done in this town. I think this election is up in the air. I think we've got so many people who are turned off so many people who are imbedded so many people who are frustrated we don't know how they're going. They

take in-depth surveys. These are confidential surveys would have had access to what they do is take special groups all over the country. They ask them how they're going to vote. They go in depth. Why are you going to vote that way how do you really feel. And they're finding that about 50 percent have not made a final judgment. They may say today that they favored Clinton they may say today that they favor Bush but they really haven't made a final decision because they don't like either guy. And that is what this applies to Congress as well and that is what is meant by Clinton's lead being based on soft support. That's right. To take a break but we'll be right back. Stay with us. Mm hmm. There's no problem here.

OK this promo airs Wednesday October 7. Hi I'm Kojo Nnamdi coming up tonight at 7:00 on evening exchange no more special admission considerations for minorities at Berkley's Law School says the Department of Education and assistant education secretary Michael Williams will be here to explain why. We'll be joined by Berkeley Law School Dean. OK. Also got some soldiers have been left behind in Vietnam. Families of WMI have been saying that all along and now some officials from the Nixon administration agreed. We'll explore that issue and the next thing next. Why.

That's it. That's our show for tonight. Our very special thanks to Mary and Jack Anderson. Joining us this evening. And thanks to you as usual for always being with us from all of us here on the night or. Evening exchange depends on your contributions. Please send your donation to

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