A Word on Words; 2903; David Maraniss & Ellen Nakashima

oh i don't see you know once again welcome to word on words were talking about the price of tennessee and the authors of that book right here with me david anderson thank you very much for coming weeks are there that you talked about the price of tennessee who is of course our poor and this is a book about what you call arise about or i should say to our view has to begin with that my name is mentioned in the book as many of you know who are winning about me al gore was a reporter at the symphony is ours editor and publisher and make a disclaimer in front so let any bias or opinion the attacks on these jewelers are welcome it's only fair that you interview us and so the reason to intimidate that's right so i came out very well well thank you for coming to the book is son of a given three definitive books on al gore under and the football season is by far away is the earth i say that not because it's also sell

more answers but it does seem to me that the research is more deeper and interviews of your own images begin asking two views of his books about how often worked to go to work well it actually started though with ellen to work before he got into the book as i was finishing live in snowboarding and the mother started as a search for the washington post at first we were even sure that it was going to be a book excerpt so you know and then as we got into it became more and more interesting so well known that a lot of the early interviews which you can talk about and then we started doing interviews together and then conceived of the crafting of the book and david had started in ninety seven i think with a few interviews with with gore and leave with yourself and then a few articles in the washington post a pre prelude to this and cause them to do you know which other

rallies you're both at the post and you're not covering covering the white house mclaughlin about him david is somewhat prickly but that just brings me to him and the question i'm from the andes aside before the book is very smooth one night to write well ellen wrote some of the chapters the first drafts of the chapters in and i'm part of the the pleasure for me working on this book was to serve as a mentor for all in in terms of writing and so i think by the end i you couldn't tell the difference pretty beleaguered an emergency one is the phone was there something that technique elon musk at the assumptions in all on i'm a little surprised that so much of the book i

would say half of the book is pre politics mrs whole life was politics but many city could talk a little bit about how much his life from birth being raised the son of a senator a candid briefly for vice president as they deserve on one side and the son of the woman who was a lawyer and a politician tufts political mind beyond that is it because of that a brain that you thought that was imported dedicate that much of the book to the pre political i'll go absolutely week we got we went into this thinking that the way to really explore who al gore is is to look at the people and the places and forces that shaped him frowning before he was born his parents his grandparents the place they came from

all the way it through the present if we'd had more time we would have probably gone into more of his political career but we felt it was really important to go as far back as possible as deep as possible first that's my biases a biographer in every every book that anyone writes every biography anything like that there are lots of italy choose where your interests are where you think you can wear that vermont the mine is the deepest interviewer is the best um i like i tend to think that some of the later stuff while of course enormously important on changes more and if you go back a deeper and find out the roots of everything on the part of someone that don't change and that's what i love to explore and so that's why we spent so much time on his parents' tennessee and the fairfax hotel that sort of dual life bomb exactly right

it's just and i think it's it's a way for for the public to get past the stereotypes of someone before they get into their political were the more it's all sort of set in people's minds already you know the american nickel or much less of the original by me talk about the stereotypes was a great deal of the nih in this campaign about or exaggerations of quote an almost every pundit has said something to say about how i'm climbing into india and then when you heard all of the rick perry on many months now on but new deal with that by saying there is some facts foundation that sort of provides for the springboard for which templeton be on the foundation talk about first thought i felt about dealing with subjects of

exaggeration of the criticism and the reality of it as a political campaigner but before that also about some a fact that that the koreans weren't going well it's interesting john admit to some of the stories that have become the biggest myths and people's lives so beginning in are the ones that are unfair to corker we're interested in your condition gration of the internet which anyone who study the early days of when the pentagon was fooling around one bikini internet al gore was primarily congresswoman any clue what that was all on a really was instrumental in that nonetheless that it did not ride along but not all the legislation well he often that he coauthored legislation that has enabled what became in what he called the information superhighway so in a sense he did

he was instrumental in creating what is today called internet but you know just as his dad sort of would boast would take credit for the interstate highway system now more sort of unveil a slightly to take credit for it from more of the interview that you deserve oh the criticism well it's pretty stupid because he was you know instrumental in unless we find a new political knowledge bombs and that might be just sort of the storytelling nature of love you know his roots arms so that seemed to be the lead he wanted to be seen as perfect or smarter than even he and everybody else will affect the smart enough already so a lot whereas with with someone like president clinton listened and sometimes see him exaggerated revulsion or not been straightforward to cover something up with a warrant the reality is okay just make a movie the other permanent security so you know that i should some swallows involves intimacy i had

said during that period when you wrote for your document in the chapter called the stain of the work he did along uncovering the corruption in local one by poison would have been no pleaded guilty and sentenced la own so so much people who was another story course clean up corruption and city council which was good enough but it i guess and we set it in her intimate he's forgotten but after this settlement building so what the question is really no one reality is a yeah i don't know i've been unthinking assess to make it a little better than it is within what it is is good enough they'll point in the book that was a small study us was as if he twice in interviews with me tell me that that in nineteen sixty eight when he was listed hubert humphrey speech he heard his own words

back to life not because he'd talk to charles bartlett who was writing the speech with humphrey and end the day before the speeches and listen to and thought it was his words and the third time you're starting to talk to two os i had to interrupt incentives to vice president i'm sorry but i've talked to trolls are lit in the center of an earlier so it didn't give the speech and the reason we're talking about and more immediately backed away and said oh why did this have to know that is normally sit by john edwards said i must have a conversation with him i must've been you in for something that it was for his father a speech but at any rate the reality is there is some foundation that they exaggerate their let me ask you about your treatment of chipper because she shows up briefly bud as a very strong personality clearly on the record she was working as a as of dartmouth films and

when he was when he was there as reporter decided to go and you deal with something that i think many people who know him closely you may not realize and that was dipper is her own person and he did have reservations in terms of her life about well if you want to go to washington and be the wife of them i'm a freshman although she knew that her following all wanting to go and that his mother and his mother wanted to go she says she fell below four minutes ago and saw that had elephants mr was reporting on other later well that is that's the second story which is and given her own emotional distress at times which is acknowledge that first love that about the lady across a lot of fast lane store again i'd never read it the homeless woman or i to her never wanted to

be a politician's wife when she found herself with corn washington she knew she wanted to do something to help people but she didn't want to be in the public eye a way now once and she found her rendition through helping the homeless and the mentally ill and she would go out with a man who was held for the homeless army once or twice a week and without a lot of fanfare she'll want any reporters in media around the time she go on a t shirt and shorts sometimes in jeans and she'd work the park's the city parks getting to know all the homeless people there and she know them by name they recognize your dating know a lot of times she was the second loss when she was placed reasons why they didn't know she was the vice president's wife they just that she was a lady with the van or the blind lady and there one day

she met a woman who i had come across the country from california had our belongings and big hefty bags and took the wind up in effect the front of her top turn went to get her and for a shower and sing some treatment the wounded one ago she insisted she needed to tell her husband where she was because her husband was the meter and divorces all pain will find where is he she said he is across the street a white house sixteen came to form a trilogy of teachers was convinced she was billions why along with it and it's an insult and it's a story that i'm sure it's under an abuser same time came to regret your laws how much the person the help of the people over there that bargain all across washington and all across the country are suffering from that it shows both for empathy but also something else which was the temper

um you know is not a theoretician but she as she does something you know it it certainly caught us on the contrast with with hillary rodham clinton and he was an incredibly articulate woman who understands policy and loves to talk about it on the sometimes when you look at which which has actually done compared with what temperature would double apartment interesting because looking back on that that period and in covers some lesson book to those two parents have even come up in that in that environment i guess you go david halberstam additional partners saying that only was a leavening and then that and that all his followers recruited one who pushed only in bum and was always she supported

one question she was the brains of the operation but the one who is on kraft you're more sort of looking out for one other people's mozart were also not naive about about life but engaging with people in a way that both the father and the son of some times where i think pauline this is really the most interested in these known of the characters in the book whether those you just terrific thing and there were talking today with david madison no indication that the causes of the prince of tennessee the rise of al gore and the rise of al gore came as you were late after that long gestation period of development as a child and young adult as a as a student in tennessee ed saying all been sent harvard

larry is we would topple earlier about the list there is the myth that he is not processing at the front of the fairfax and i really never lived in tennessee and very very well to destroy that then that means i think boeing out that at one point you say your songs over the seller always felt self and is it settled lives in the labor force and so there was all this is also saw don't try it was sen bennett i think it's a it's one of those things that it's done in campaigns were both sides are utterly more of you know than the imports and we're trying to say that he's just this elite is trump from washington that's not fair it's not true in the book documents that judge or sometimes to sort of white wash out his harvard years in the senate although it does preserve themselves early to this is equally isn't that both worlds and that's what makes him so interesting and sort of tore listen to use his life has been a search to to integrate the two worlds in his

personality in his politics just a moment all are going to do you do a tommy lee jones and is a lot of there is a they were it was a sweet but not been honest joan showed up at a convention where both of your reporting in burma when the woman's relatives in the snow years ago that sweet that there was horses others of the various times that you know and that's also part of for what politicians to give someone famous in your passion gore was actually the better storyteller of the two labels of every competitive about was more southern al gore going to jail and jones was very seriously play games with him whenever jones walk around carrying a rose were involved with what jack everett reciting korea lawyers and before that these firms norwood

or his orchestra that is it that is common on weekend is not here a recession jones acknowledges marketers driver dressed in his latest thriller a play he's memorized ago they just adore invented gore was that women's rights i'm doing it now from those early years he goes to vietnam he comes back he works for us at the paper and then eased into politics the congressional uses you point out were years of investigation both i guess fight song that's a big part of like the investigative reporter with the you know you point out that that in a very brief passage there that the number of investigation to conducted on the number he conducted the always turn him inside out new more bombers much as the staff and that usually they

made those lies myths and the alliance which were that come from that i mean i know part of it didn't work as reporters what is what is what the person obviously sitting four legged cow and a person obvious sometimes intelligence going which is very wouldn't it well he's a very competitive people forget sometimes are under estimates the war's competitive nature so they get to congress it was at a time when there are a lot of very smart ambitious aggressive young congress aren't eckert york and right now a lot of them and they were all going to try to do about the same thing so they're all going home holding court holding open meetings would set the records to compete with other major musical more than anyone

and he was to find a way to get on television and to make these these investigations it was also someone who liked to tutu told investigations and try to publicize the results of them and even looked into campaign finance back in the fifties before anyone else before out and that i think some of his style does come from his father put in his speeches speaking and his in his pockets fervor during the first presidential campaign in seven problems and finally it was the end of a massachusetts the reverend from washington and some of them fell asleep in that campaign has a little anecdote that early on a lot of his supporters brings in a political operative who takes a look at him and says he's too wooden most of these two

wooden but then these women face to face soundbite of sciences today reversed now when he's with me from all these charming he's got repealed up there on the stump it's not the same human being and i've heard that said again and again and again what is it what is it you know when he was at harvard senior thesis was on the power of television and the presidency so he understood from that very early age what television and public appearances commuters of policy and campaigning all of that and yet you interview to talk to me television crews who has ever done a show about warner's know before hitting chocolate it that is sitting there like <unk> enjoyed talking in this arcane so different way what's the gavel as their arm it's only in nato insecurity has with it with his art with intuition and in an instant i think because that's when his is all the

more he falls back on sort of factor note cards are things like animals to jewish and if you had to if he had to look at the showers of ringing we are in the cycle but is there something they are winners and there's something in his education ms maturation in that makes that happen that are high expectations he'll win and when he was born his father had a birth announcement on the front page of the curious mr lauren page one atlanta analyst are you all hopeful optimism saying with what sets lyrics that look really tone for the bulk of the tarp is that as a boy you weren't you add color with reporter and photographer staging an old

kid from a safe sex what happens then translate in two one person in the chair beside you who who really knows that you know we his sister nancy who filed houses as as outgoing and spontaneous than and done an intuitive and cute and comfortable around people as el wasn't in many ways she is his alter ego she could have been them senator snowe senator nancy miller but countless can mean coming from the same families same parents yet completely different personality el has i think he was born with a sort of sensitivity that made him very sensitive to to criticism

on the two too high says high expectations that he had from his parents hand and so maybe there was more difficult for him to prove that again you see him well i'm in some criticisms of his of his convention speeches and you see a different with no witness that's right and i remember not long ago on his own and i guess it was affable santorum and bob came back here and spoke gave a eulogy at the dancing of his home or your colleague who's going on the news and others eulogy which was as you do if you called me really begin with and then you evaluate the speech you were given a lawyer with beautiful us waterways in black churches and so there is that there is an ability to rise above the witness and

to appear you know elizabeth was feeling comfortable in or out when the russians win was simple it's not a creature you know i'll have benefits if it's a performance situation he gets a little baby instead stage schroeder was yasser doesn't have the incredible fluidity of bill clinton and in the last eight years inevitably he's always compared to that one person and already making as elaine it is comparison lamanna is an unfair comparison there are so intimate that's what is a duo that's the reality sometimes he tries to mimic what number from dunedin and six two years before the election i was traveling with resident president clinton or was introducing a speech in cleveland and shouting just you know yell hits how does it cut as incredible billboards that franklin roosevelt had for breakfast this morning that is or wanted to impress that he could do this together doesn't quite have the subtle too well we're back on our time

and that we won't get to use his stands on race we've focused largely on this fall's and there is a great deal of positive reporting in the book about al gore and his potential but let me just before your syringe to budget expert want to sign a contract to do a book on all my book on the sixties in vietnam based on three days in october of nineteen sixty seven with a specific battle in vietnam was that glistens in terms of anti war protests bring the two worlds together ok wait i hope you'll come back again david allen then it causes a princess fantasy the rise of al gore thanks for talking with us and like all of you for joining us on our own words and john c dvorak he really no no no