Some will criticize any book like this as liberal propaganda. What is your response to that assertion?
Interesting you mention this because there are about a half-dozen Republicans/conservatives featured in the book, which is little more than one-quarter of all interviews. I do not defend the Bush administration in this book. How can I when I had interviewed people like Paul Krugman, Paul Hackett, and Randi Rhodes? But I don’t ever see liberals criticizing conservatives for being “unpatriotic” or “un-American.” The verbal abuse and invective usually comes from the other side - the right. Just listen to Fox News, Sean Hannity, or Rush Limbaugh for a few minutes on any given day.
The book is propaganda for defending those who dissent. I am not ashamed of this. In a political era when any criticism of the war in Iraq is immediately attacked as helping the enemy, then we are indeed entering perilous times. In the costly and futile fight to export democracy abroad, we are only eroding democracy on our native soil.
And which political party is truly addressing this constitutional crisis? Even the big media players like the New York Times and The Washington Post are cowed into submission by the strong-arm tactics of the White House and its fierce apologists. And when the Times does break a major story like illegal domestic wiretapping, what happens next? It gets attacked by those on the right for supposedly endangering national security. Something is indeed wrong with the picture when dissent is suppressed, when legitimate opposition is attacked, and when self-censorship by the non-adversarial media is the norm.
The White House has been effective in exploiting post-9/11 fear for political gain, and this partisan saber-rattling continues despite dwindling approval ratings for Bush. That is why many people are afraid to speak out. Politicians are especially nervous about walking the electoral tightrope. Meanwhile, Democrats have been wrongly castigated and singled out.
One striking example is former U.S. Senator Max Cleland (D-Georgia) whom I interviewed for the book. Cleland lost his re-election in 2002 because his opponent questioned his patriotism after Cleland voted against an amendment of the pending Homeland Security Department bill which was still in committee. Now there’s a few things you need to remember about Cleland: he’s a triple-amputee Vietnam War vet; former director of the Veteran’s Administration; and Senator John McCain called him the greatest American hero he’s ever known. Yet his Republican opponent, Saxby Chambliss, who had sat out the Vietnam War with a bum knee, nonetheless had the utter audacity to run a television ad comparing Cleland to Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. As Cleland told me, “There are no manners left in politics anymore.” I think he’s right.
Article comments
1 - gonzo marx
some really Good Stuff here...
excellent Interview and timely material...
"it's got a great beat, Dick, and I can bug out to it"
/golfclap
well done!
Excelsior!
2 - Lumpy
Sounds like another example of a good book on an important topic where serious analysis is sacrificed on the altar of leftist bias. I should really say partisan bias because right wingers are often just as bad.
But it was a good interview and made me interested enough to at least leaf through the book next time i'm in borders.
Did he really interview krugman? what qualifications he has on any topic relating to patriotism is beyond me.
3 - gonzo marx
one would think that ANY American can have a vlaid view about Patriotism...
that whole Individual thing
i'll hold off on Judgement until i can actually read the book
but the Interview, and the subject matter is very pertinent in today;s circumstances
any disagreement on that?
and one cannot Objectively state with any degree of accuracy that therehave not been numerous documented cases of some partisans labellign ANY dissent with the "anti-american" or "america hater" kind of labels
and THAT is the Point
Excelsior?
4 - Scott Butki
Glad you guys liked the interview. We had to cut it some and the original is here.
5 - Scott Butki
Take 2 - the full interview is at my blog site.
6 - Scott Butki
I was thinking about this interview today because of one comment that was in the interview that I cut out because of space limitations.
I'll post it in full below.
I mention it because of the death of journalist Oriana Fallaci, who Temple Stark wrote a good profile of.
7 - Scott Butki
The excerpt:
"Would I be correct in assuming Studs Terkel, one of the best practitioners of oral histories, was an influence? Who are some of the other influences on your writings?
Absolutely, I am in great debt to Studs. I was introduced to him as a freshman at the University of Michigan in 1975. I read Working straight through Thanksgiving weekend. I had never read something of that breadth before. I wasnt a journalist then. But his brand of reportage influenced me greatly. It just took awhile to germinate. I later went to Berkeley for grad school in political science. While there, I read Oriana Fallacis Interviews with History, which made me realize how much skill and insight are required to really get to the soul of one's interview subject. Shes the best in the game at this. The gold standard. I recommend anyone interested in interviewing a public figure to read her interview with then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger under Nixon. Listening to him talk, she wrote in her intro, is like a dull rain hitting the roof. She made Kissinger disclose how much he thought Nixon depended on him for his expertise on global issues; he compared himself to a Western gunslinger, the man in the white cowboy hat. The net effect of her interview--it first appeared in The New Republic--was twofold: Nixon was furious with Kissinger; and the interview became a major media event.