eligible families access to affordable internet through that connection feed program. bridging the digital divide one connected and engage student at a time. cox, bringing us closer. >> cox, along with these television companies, , supports c-span2 as a public service. >> up next on booktv is author interview program "after words," syndicated columnist george will reflects on what he calls the unruly torrent years between 2008-2020. he's interviewed by amanda carpenter, bulwark columnist and cnn political contributor. "after words" is a weekly interview program with relevant guest hosts interviewing top nonfiction authors about their latest work. >> host: it is such a privilege to sit down with you for a whole hour to talk about your book and really the first and want to ask is how do you

approach your role as a writer? in particular a political writer. >> guest: first thing, a political writer ought to be aware of is that politics is not a big part of most people's lives and shouldn't be a big part of the life of a healthy society. so that if i don't write a score of collins, so my hundred columns a year on books, and another score on cultural matters, i'm not doing my job. politically, , the country is obsessed with the presidency. there is the presidency and then everythingng else, although he s the head of one of our three branches and one of our many governments whose job is outlined in article two is to take care that the laws are faithfully executed which makes him definitionally secondary to those and make the laws in article one, congress. but we have this swollen presidency that attempts to absorb all the energy of the

country and a lot of the space of journalists. so the first task of a political columnist it to say i'm not really a political columnist. that among a lot of other things. >> host: what is our stood out about you is as a young person coming up i see so often the temptation for political writers to score points rather than make points. but you, maybe it's because you choose to focus on the people who don't pay attention to politics, that you can take a broader focus back.ta but do you think people should focus more on being observers or perhaps at the kids? there's always a purpose to what you were doing when you sit down. >> guest: they ought to be observers first. they ought to understand what's going on in the country before the make judgments about it. and they oughtit to do what i tried to doo in each column. i bear in mind that the episode, cultural, judicial, legislative,

political occasions of the column will receive but there's apl principle involved or i wouldn't write about it. i tried to find a nugget of larger principle, constitutional, legal, moral. that will remain and the focus on that makes politics richer and more nourishing. >> host: i was going -- so many of your writings, i remembered you call bill buckley the most consequential writer of the 20th century. >> guest: consequential journalist. >> host: you would remember your columns better than i. >> guest: [inaudible] >> host: but, of course, he had a purpose, in the "national review" and the thinks is doing advocating for. what made him -- why did you call them the most consequential? >> guest: because before ronald reagan that was barry goldwater who captured the republican water for conservatism. before gary wallner -- affords

very goldwater there with the "national review" that made the nomination i can secure possible and before those "national review" the was a young deal graduate and bill buckley and, therefore, the buckley won the cold war. >> host: that's consequential. >> guest: that the compressed version, yes. butd ideas have consequences. bill make conservative ideas accessible. he brought in the spirit and cheerfulness to the business of political argument. .. went very goldwater might have my first vote in 1964, when he first went into politics i think hewas running for the council in 1948 . he wrote a letter to his >> and the politics and it could be fun because it turned out to be for lifety and certainly was fun it was fun to do something else.

and personal writing has been fun and i love to write, i am a compulsive writer. i write 100 columns a year i'm always writing books. i happen to like politics like a lot of politics and i dislike some of the attributes but i atadmire the business. we have to have politics, we have have government and we have have walls and therefore we have to have commitment, the whole culture of democracy and persuasion an argument is fun. if you don't like argument, you you picked the wrong country because we argue about everything. >> the difference between arguments and fighting, and they rewarded me call it something.

how do you always stay focused on making the argument in a fun way because politics, you can get very invested into it and the stakes are high these days as you well know. how do youke make it fun and hae this attitude when you sit down at the computer every day. >> first of all keep in mind that what seems earthshaking today will be tomorrow. in one of the first things, an attorney 80, you look back and you see, that happened in the carter administration and he had of been so excited. just remember something what ford did and also take a deep breath. >> one of the things that i admire i think so many other people do about writing is that you have a happy attitude but

you are not afraid to confront very complex problems. as i was flipping three broken ribs noticing that you are writing about the mark in history and there is a consultative debate especially in what things like critical race theory. which is not talking about history, gets muddled and confusing when you have confronted this the one that i remember you told a story about a lynching that happened in illinois, not far from where president obama announced his campaign. can you talk about why because as a conservative who grew up in rural michigan, we would not talk about these things and sometimes the things in her column was the first time that i even heard it. >> i would 80 years before learning that this year, about the tulsa riots. we called it tulsa - we should

fully hear the same as europe. i knew nothing about it and i should've. conservatives sometimes flinch from confronting with disappearing go under disagreeable american history because the disagreeable are presented by some progressives as definition and typical. and it requires a kind of mental equilibrium to confront these things and put them in context. and this is why were having so much of a fight it by the new york times of egregious 1619 project that americans will founding was not july 1776 it was when the first slaves arrived at and what made this reframing is new york times said in american history pretty approximate matter was that

according to them if the american revolution was fought to preserve slavery but it was fought because of dinsmore and said that blacks speak slavery in front of the side of the british and the american revolution would be emancipated. while this is flat-out historically illiterate, think that was sent in november 1775, after the boston tea party and after the boston massacre and after george washington was made had of the revolutionary army. it does not square. and is so bad, and obviously. >> what do you think there's a reason that people want to start the conversation because there's this blind stop with american history were people do not know and so we maybe 70 comes up with

this project that is riddled with a problem, maybe it's the first time 70 heard it and said maybe we should give it a chance so who is in default from writing this because it did so clearly happen it was not taught so why is that. >> a lot of people just don't know and knowing that we teach history, probably cursory and serious. in the recent that wecu are arguing about it is that it matters, 1984, he who controls the past controls the future and he who controls the present controls the past. t then we are arguing about the past really arguing about the trajectory of the nation and about the future. >> one of the interesting point that i never consider when it comes to this, what do we know about american history and what we don't has to do with another lesson that you wrote about on

america'ss last lynching and erase the point that our government didn't have the knowledge and documents about this but they work classified. you wrote that most tell us what we don't know - there was a rule for government not necessarily making these things public. >> deformation came from the man who was my best friend and pat made the point in that sequence or government property governments tend to work them and become inquisitive about the property and property in secret. and secrets make us more unnecessarily ignorant. and this had to do with the grand jury as money from 60 or 70 years ago for pete's sake. what is the point of keeping the secret. >> so therefore disclosing

documents and you ended it by saying that this is a culture that should be but not part of our national memory, too cold to learn moree about in the correct answer is never so your argument seems to me that we should not shy away from this and do you think conservatives inr particular takes mormon interest in this complex is printed we have rather than perhaps by an because it seems to me that this is more well formulated argument that tells us why we do need to know rather than writing about what other people have presented us pretty. >> i think they should pay attention to the lynchings and to the with the conservatives, they should pay attention to as i said tulsa and other matters because if the conservatives it gives them the chance to make a truthful case and they's astonishing progress. and to say the 1619 is

everything, things really have not gotten all that better and the illusion that there better, is itself is racism and all that stuff which i say the government as to play this football game, mississippi playing alabama, and had referee is african-american and he's bossing everyone around ander penalizing them. i think this is as close as we come to an established religion in this country with football. they are generating billions. it turns into a great deserve deformation of american to understand how bad things work and how much better they are today. >> to thank you so further hindered when athletes decide to take any braided you don't think

that is something the president should complain about. >> 95 percent of what presidents talk about they should not read it doesn't have to become more and that she and where is that article to. the british have the house of windsor to separate the head of state and government we don't and therefore the ceremonial secretions gathered around the presidency and make it all the more present and swollen. >> anything or so obsessed about the presidency, isn't the easiest thing to talk about. >> modern technology helps and i think when we get more distant that people say radio was more fundamentally revolutionary change in television because radio was crucial. one of the first things he did

when he got in was make radios cheap so everybody could have a radio. they give residents and when roosevelt sent down to give his first chat he began with two words do not appear in the text, they were my friends predict now try to imagine washington or calvin coolidge saying my friends or pick another one of my heroes. but roosevelt understood that and he was going to created new intimacy with the country and i don't think that we want to dig into that with the president pretty. >> another not pretty. >> there ahead of one branch of many of our governments.

>> will they do the right release came close to a because ronald reagan was famous for communicating with the public, the ghost of regular and bring him back. >> it feels wrong that the president should be front and center all of the time and communicating all of the time. in colorado the brief tweet, but for me and you're going to president that won't have to think about for weeks at a time. >> what we talked about this and you mentioned that the advent of radio but certainly social media has changed the game for all campaigns. and how they communicate and how have you witnessed that change because it changed how the

canada's change but also how the people react to it and how they talk to one another. i have never tweeted and i don't know how to tweet in effect had to find a tweet, were not entered no help to be fair. about twice a week a member of my staff tweets out for my columns and that is it. i am totally of a facebook page but i've neverer seen it and i'm just not interested. i've always thought stupidity relative to the size of the population was fairly constant over time and i'm no longer so sure because it just may be the social media give such velocity to this and i do think that,

once upon a time and wanted credit eugene with the conspiracy website, it's a wonderful place. he teaches constitutional law and at ucla in rather fascinating article that i found, cheap speech and what it's done to us and it used to be on a radio station or a television station or on printing presses and all of that stuff on the distribution but now, it doesn't described inexpensive and beyond measures, it is free. anybody can say anything to anyone. well, that is so democratic. >> what this would lead to a net good.is

>> however, there is a downside to everything including this in the downside is this, it's much abused mainstream media and gate keepers and responsibilities and vulnerabilities and they had keep newspapers and their subscribers happy and the community and they had reputations to uphold and therefore, they stood between the public and stark raving mad lunatics. another just get them up there. so there is a cost to everything. >> ongoing debate about canceled culture that is happening and as you know the right side of the aisle, there is a raging debate over social media roles and moderation in and what they can expect to say whatever they want the abuse an idea that will support and freedom of speech and encounter that speech in

which i believe and wavered a bit when itt comes to these issues. >> section 230 is a provision that says that the facebook and these other social media platforms are not publishers they cannot be sued enable people to be out there but they are not liable and i think i am for that these are private corporations they are tremendously important for the public square nowadays they are also not forever. there's such a thing as monopoly fatalism and you can say that these are big therefore they are forever and they are unchallengeable. i can exhaust you in the hour here with all of the unchallengeable thanks.

in 1935 that was like 15000 the stores in the country and 9000 americans when was lessening for the fun. in 2007, the cover of the magazine said can anyone challenge the cell phone giant. nokia, five months before the cover came out the iphone was another monopoly so, i think that we can rest assured that nothing is immortal and certainly these giants today bopredict. >> i would say twitter and facebook, they're getting challenged but usually from the right with this gap with a explicitly say that you can come here and say whatever you want that we have like these weird things that happen where president trump is kicked off of

twitter for the taliban can put their messages on is posing to be the work almost at this war where no one wants to attempt any responsibility. and then you see these guys like mark zuckerberg go to government simply solve this problem for me regular and it's something that nobody can cross. >> there's a quite serious argument that they should be treated as common carriers and if you open your doors, anybody can come through and he opened the doors to the public, but the public in an entirely. now this has lots of wrinkles like the colorado maker, he opens his doors but he didn't want to serve some people. and basically i'm an absolute >> but it's okay to not have your mind made up and turning to

a different subject, but has a lot of applicability of applicability today and another home subject with him you see the abortion debate so you have a wonderful way to talk about the heartbeat and whatt you cal it a wholesome provocation. and attending to have viability versus trimester and how it was received. >> did you ever think what what americans constitutional law of abortion and his friends right there than think would would amaze the framers of our constitution. what would it be if the number of months involved in gestation of the human were a prime number say 11 or 13, could not have trimesters. when did we decide that because is divisible by three, there should be different constitutional imperatives for

each of the three segments. it makes no sense whatsoever. people can say, it's of chastity and great triumph or the human condition it, they couldn't agree in both camps, this god-awful constitutional law rated john hardy, was pro-choice, he said so it was a great professor of law at yale and ruth bader ginsburg and the doubts about the way they did the constitution which is why the argument coming up in the mississippi case, it will be argued it this fall and decided by june in the middle of a midterm elections is going to be momentous. >> of course all of the focus is on the texas law.

the private right of action in order too explore this and go after the doctors and taken to court. >> private attorney laws and some conservatives are impatient with making progress against wade and that patience is required for constitutional government and the rule of law. in adjusting the powers of the citizens of the bounty with the dollars to sue people and 70 has to say wait a minute, just wait until california saids will hae a private action against hate speech and give you $10000 to try get people into court. so, i'm all for enterprise but not foror outsourcing this kindf law. >> but it sounds like you

welcome the cases pretty. >> yes absolutely and viability will change and it will change but we have to confront the fact that here's what makes us intractable problem, pro-choice people say that one person, the woman, and pro-life people centers to individuals involved and we willl have to argue that again.. >> in the couldn't be progress made with viability with all we know about science plus 1973, and how they attend many children can survive outside of the womb or the woman. >> uterine medicine now, and he wonders for pre- born children. so not saying that you can't split the difference. from the moment of conception on some people say there is a distinctly unique a creature who absolute violence or accident by

nature, is going to become a person with god that that is true that is high school biology. but, if we had abortion laws much more like those in europe for example, in europe, hardly bureaucracy these days. if we had say a limit on abortions up 20 weeks. that would be 95 percent of abortions would still a core in temperature woulder go dow pretty. >> are you saying thatg it woud be worth it to split the difference and it will all be decided by the court and - >> it is terrifying this idea, about a thousand state legislations in the country a lot of him say we want to return to the weighted but in the heart of hearts they are saying spare me that and a lot of americans

think if you overturn it suddenly abortion will be illegal, that is not true. all it wouldld do is establish t and reestablish abortion as a subject regular level by state law and we would have differences. you have one abortion regime in louisiana and one in new york, noand someone. >> i know a lot of people were in favor all for the above abortion rights and if you want to put it that way are looking forward to this because they believe it will energize the woman going into the major elections in 22, and another debate arguments are going to be made in this but i think it will turn into a fight given how emotional this issue is. >> people are emotional about pita butter these days ago

imagine what they willto be lik, june 2022. >> that will be a big day and you have a lot of friends in the court system. >> i think of bee well but i do have minimal faith in the other two governments. my view is that for going to have another governor, independence on the supervision of democracy by the judiciary and congress will not limit itself it will not stop violating the delegation document which the court punches from enforcing what it should and says that legislatures can make laws they cannot make other major source so the congress ought to stop tailgating essentially legislative powers to these agencies such as. the power to have an eviction

moratorium for the center of disease control the power of osha. safety and health administration. to impose mandates on private sectors. >> what you think and obviously this is the supreme court overturned the eviction fan by emergency powers and you can also be that or what you think that the most important decision that is impacted american life in the modern time. our member john roberts being reluctant to overturn obama care and then also on the attachment eight pretty kindhearted have a lot of faith in what is coming and that there will be a counter to many things. >> it depends on board of

education it which gave the court an enormous prestige the future because it went against public opinion and everyone knew it and not just public opinion, how many americans remember the board of education voted against the board of education of topeka, kansas. this was morere than segregation story and the fact is that they exist for the majority's. in my spiel predict. [inaudible]. >> and somebody also around a te midwest. >> champagne county courthouse typical midwestern scene, square and big sandstone courthouse, according to this, lincoln very prosperous railroad lawyer was there when the lord the douglas the illinois senator, has

succeeded in passing through the senate the act, kansas act, they will solve the problem and was the exact same question of should slavery be extended into the territories, popular sovereignty and he voted it down and he said there's a moral indifference whether he voted down the importance because america is about the majority rule. and let his greatness begin with the recoil that doctor neeson know is out of that process, is about the condition of liberty and that is what the courts are about, they existed to say that the majority rules and should have a broad sweep but not a limitless slip in front sweep there certain things that we do not put to a vote for example, should make no law of ridding of freedom of speech.

and you can't do this and some people call us a dilemma and there is no dilemma and it, that's why you have a constitution is to say this thing cannot be done. counting has recorded box, i get up every morning at 520 and by 521, i am listening to an audible book. andmm i shave my have breakfasty commute to work and i walked to lunch, i commute home. two after three hours a day, is wasted time i am listening to books most often on history. >> you can tell because you have so many facts shoved into every sentence and have any times do you spend reading rather than writing and have been imagine that's in enormous.

mostly after reading henry kissinger he once said that when you come to washington you start toow run down your intellectual capitol because you do not have time to replenish it. but my friend who i once will he said. [inaudible]. he said most of his colleagues read, proved that it was not so in confronting and producing serious books but the trick in life in washington, really everywhere but particular here is to keep your intellectual capitol re- stocked. >> what books have impacted you the most, you read so many. >> i just read a biography, and

very bright man, veryry bad man. it's a very bad combination but is true. he was a good thinker and a terrible cause but it was white supremacy. >> speaking of these bad causes, is: that you wrote in 2018, about the holocaust, the museum here in washington another placn to learn about it is hard and obviously went. it's called eternity - and will you tell the story. i will probably cry little bit but it's about a woman and her son was taken. >> yes the holocaust museum, from someone who discovered it along the way, some photographs

and letters about alumina clinic issues and czechoslovakia was sent to death camp, not just a concentration camp at a death camp. and i've writtenen a lot about e holocaust, the museum and in manhattan and because of the italian survivor said that it happened once, it can happen again. and that wase his reason for writing about the holocaust and nothing is unthinkable, nothing. >> the other thing that is striking about it is that you don't write it to be scaring people but you included this incredibly moving letter, museum presents the noblest as well as the violent manifestation and three c-letter 40 million visitors and 90 percent him orto non- jewish.

so is the statistic that you found that makes you see this horrible thing and we are learning about this in the new dugout that this is man's noblest virtue and that were telling about insuring and working through it. >> when the french decided to watch bentonville this right next to the museum in washington it was controversial and people could've said, what is the point. in our protocol of this and looking, the mall with its wonderful geography and monuments to washington and jefferson and lincoln, is a tribute to the bright light of american life, the reasonable notice of american experience and is therefore all the more important that this american nation is a product of the enlightenment and the confidence

of the latenkers 15th century had, is important that we have a black son in which to stare and that is the holocaust museum. in it was becausese of that thai was asked to go with the delegation that went to parliament and went to the death camps to get to the hard facts. it was sobering i got the helicopter and into my 12 -year-old son and we got off of and my son looked down and he said - >> did you think about taking your 12 euros son. >> key to peace said dad, there is a bone and i said, and i said dear villager imagination run away from you and the man said

as a man's river child's room or a finger and sadly, that part just keep sifting up of the remains. >> did you talk about it with your son after that and i'm asking out of the personal interest of my own predict and they're taking six growing children to the to the museum but i i think a lot of people need to know about this and think they have trouble talking about this because it is so difficult. >> i went to new york and in a glass case there is a red shoe high-heeled shoe at this museum and this woman put this on when she was taken to the train. and i begin the column with where does she think she was going with this red shoe and did try to capture the reality of what the people went through is

a test. >> we always need to think about the past we think of it is another country. and the authoritarianism and the fascism sr off a lot when it comes to our modern liberal culture and how you feel about that and he think the people have the understanding of thest stores are they cheapened it are they necessary or should they be used. >> they should be said, actually fascism has to have a complex the fascism had a worldview. and i had sort of a biological theory of the world that there

was a strife and inherent in racist we don't have that in this country. we have authoritarian temptations and pretensions and fascism as we have not had >> have you think that in each of these impulses by americans, and what makes it so confident about that predict. >> because they be paid well in the past even when they made mistakes, they corrected them and the people said to the market people are not really is squeamish to face the difficult past. i was in seattle, and i'm driving down the road and there's a sign the shows a

memorial it turns out that after roseville, president franklin roosevelt signed the order to allow the military to uproot the japanese, two thirds of them, american citizens and half of them were women and children move them away t from the west coast. the first ones to leave more from this island and they said we will talk about it and were going to have a memorial. in the supreme court in 1944, affirmed they used the executive power by franklin roosevelt, 1983, this report repudiated the decision and said we were wrong in 1988, believe it was the congress reparations for the century, americans are good at this. the question them aboutiobo the courts and nothing is certain.

in the course of a very good record on protecting speech and also good at protecting the constitutional equilibrium that inmedicine gave us between the branches of government with the if theo course don't do it, no one will. >> in order to give us some perspective because people have been so worried about what happened particularly on januart mob deliberately disrupting the special proceedings of transfer of power in the report cases for those individuals but are not sure about something that the court can solver will solve. >> the courts don't solve the problems they should apply the law and holdhe the law up againt the constitution. in very short walk from where we are sitting ise the capitol sts

and they blocked them up again if offenses and i think it's an obscenity in the makes the united states look like a banana republic worried about regimen at the edge of town it is nonsense. the police can surely control a crowd. but the idea that we have to take the united states capitol, the greatest secular building and daily use g in the world haa very simple but the epicenter of american democracy and protect it from home, a rebel, no. >> what you make of what happened where they clear the square and the walk-through i mean, it seems one of the different types of problem but essentially post 911, but they put up the walls and barriers in

every possible opportunity when these things came to the front predict. >> will the president use lafayette square as a prop with the bible which he held upside down outside of st. john's church, the so-called church of the the white house and follow the general joint chief of staff milley who understandably felt used s. and he should not have allowed himself to be put in the position. and again, an example of the aspect of our politics that is degrading politics in the senate yesterday almost performative and people making gestures predict and the courts are different than they have to decide and they have to be gives and they have to write opinions and appearances which is why

where we really do political philosophy because we truly do not have treats on government and we don't have. [inaudible]. and i say we do because we do constitutional warriors and arguments, is constantly philosophy about the nature of freedom and freedom as opposed to head intentional with a quality and we doing all of the time. >> and he would do this for the supreme court. in the cameras. >> i do think that the justices would behave. >> and make those transcripts available in a more timely

fashion and you mentioned and that it is taking you many places but at what is the most memorable trip. >> trip to israel was quite good, everybody can go to see how small it really is and you can drive across it in 30 minutes. and i think that is probably the most memorable and i've never been to the soviet union and what's interesting is what is weird about this place, absence of advertising. i think when he saw times square it would be beautiful if you cannot read but you look at there's no advertising because there's no private appetite and not supposed to be consumers, we are supposed to be persuading people. and i said will that is

advertising. >> while you're in the business of persuading people in some respects. where do you think people could maybe change the mind is invoices priced you. >> out so you the one that did not, there's one in this book of maybe start of more people is my - against denim. it gives me a chance to illustrate how i think you can illustrate large things from small things just got tired given the airport concourse and there is a father is late 30s and his ten -year-old son and their dressed exactly alike, running shoes, jeans and a

t-shirt and mom is wearing blue jeans and i say you know, there was a time when different dress signal different stages of life that we grew up. now what is this have to do with larger things, will this. somewhere in the last 20 - 30 years, it became a verb now became a verb and parenting is important. the belief in parental perfectionism and if you do it i right, like calculus. [inaudible]. >> okay let's's go back. >> i was ten years old and i went on a summers day maybe i would come out for lunch and

probably for dinner but they didn't care and now it's called free range and parenting and it was called being a kid back in those days and you are free to fail, cope with your failures and that is called growing up in learning how to cope with failure but today, it's a helicopter parent hovering over their children their bubblewrap children and protect them from injury not just to there's a chance to knees and elbows but injured into their psyches. and they wind up being risk adverse and guess what happens when they go to college. they sent directly to the safe space and i want freedom from speech and i want that bias response team to run around and capture them. that's where these younger people on the campuses come from, they come from parents who did not let them go out and skin their knees.

>> you have a great interest in academia, but on the college campuses, they have different ideas predict. >> because what happens on campus does not say there at least with the culture and because what is happening to the campuses, it matters very much, took 800 years of passage through ecclesiastical and political thank you so to evolve at the great universities that are the greatest ornaments of western civilization. and you can kick that away in a generation or two and we are doing that now where the name of diversity, we are seeing enforced conformity. >> also have so, how do you see that pretty. >> adyoung people the reluctance to speak their minds on college campuses and we have speech code is, there being struck down in

many cases but they still proliferate and we have speech zones, james madison came to the united states turned to north american continent into a free speech zone. at one point- texas had a gazeb, 20000 gazebo was the free speech area and don't make this stuff up i can't. and brandeis university once had trigger morning, it was a warning to make people unhappy and sanded nervous. and it triggers will get what they make people think of. >> so i talk to college students what you think we can be done, that if i do have some kind of idea or right the wrong things in a post on facebook, they should come back to site me or was a scholarship, so there is

this kind of thing that is happening more people are afraid to speak pretty and i don't have the right advice for them. >> buyback speak anyway, individual rights in education and quite a check and terrific scrappy group of people who are, the rake in a green light for good. >> there are so many college rankings. free speech. but who is doing it right. >> i will get into, university of chicago and a number of universities that have been adopted and as usual purdue university and herbage daniels and the president that we should've had. but is a great president at

purdue university has made this absolutely clear, free speech and medicine lives in lafayette or wherever. >> you have so many conversations with people asking you things and once upon the time, you choose, you have all of this incoming information obviously histories wonderful resource but the most important thing there so many. >> that's unusual, most people say honey come up with things to write about and that is the most commonly asked questions of the colonists and is what began as a columnist, heavy come up with things to write about becauseri the world irritates me. i would say the world irritates me and amuses me, because my's

curiosity. the world is just littered with things to write about and instead of the podium he could not look at a landscape without seeing a battlefield but the columns, not be able to the world without seeing something, they just come at you. >> what you think the differences about writing about politics and speaking about it and are completely things that are related. >> will writing is demanding and running columns is vertically so because their short. i've been here i strip myself to seven or 50 word limit which means you have to be concise and elliptical and make certain things and you have to assume certain things in most americans don't read newspapers and the

majority of the minority do read it they don't read columns. that is a good thing if you're columnist and here's why. it means that you have a self selective audience that is intellectually upscale, they are people who come to the utterly optional reading a call and because they're interesting and are interested because they have a stock of knowledge. as a great audience and you don't have to talk down to them and you should not talk down to them because they came to you knowing what they were going g o get pretty. >> i have one final question because an analyst listeners are so interested in other things and read some asking about the history of one of the other things and other colonists that you read to keep your mind active in what he watch i don't know if you watch television but what else is going into the mind of george will on a daily basis.

>> mostly reading, marcus from colleagues at the washington post, jenkins, baker, wall street journal, there's an awful lot of calendar writings, d.a. aggregators and politics and policies in defense and conspiracies printed a tremendous amount of good writing. >> thank you and hope everybody gets the book is available everywhere and thank you so much. >> thank you so much i have enjoyed it. >> afterwards is available as a podcast, listen visit c-letter - span .org/podcast or sir cspan afterwards under podcast app and

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