Transcripts For CSPAN2 In Depth 20150907

Now were live with author and former active lady, lynne chaney. Nowl be from now until 3 00 eastern. Shes written several books easr yncluding the most recent a biography of James Madison. Lynne cheney, what was your name when you were secretary . Guest they picked a letter of the alphabet and every one who has unrelated to detail has a code name that starts with a letter they choose and ours was [inaudible] also offer seemed like a natural and i has been close angle or because his fishing habits. Host did your writing style change while you were in all their . Guest know that my subject matter did. Id been working on a book for education when suddenly he was chosen to be Vice President and it wasnt as though the book i was working on really contradicted anything that president bush was saying out on the campaign trail. E it just seems to just seemed seems to me inappropriate and o confusing to put out a book sitting setting forth my ideas on education since it was a hotc topic for president bush. Booan so i started writing Childrens Books, and that was an amazing gratifying thing to do. Host you are a history buff is that fair to say . Guest yes. Host in the book telling the truth which came out in theu late 90s, you wrote it issaid a sometimes cited the negative slant we are teaching now is overreaction to this land in th to the past and its true that in the past we sometimes presented as a laboratory history in our schools. Guest we did. T w there is no question about itk but i think the reaction has been extreme and i think learn sometimes they dont learn about the greatness of this country. H t host the beginning of tellingel the truth youre the ch chairman of the National Endowment for the humanities. Hav guest i had gone through a l great siege of the moral relativism. Othin theres nothing true, thereshi nothing false is just an area ss that was the point of the title d the book and that we areobge obliged to do what is close tosi it. We can host here is the opening of telling the truth as ones witness reported at the scene orw when the citizens are required to rise to the pictures of a man known only as goldstein the oy s great enemy of the state and oe of the enemies whose name he joked tears from the assembly. Y. What h what happened . Guest i dont remember if an it was anything in particular but i did as a conservative chairman of the agency that is clearly connected to the Academic Community find my name names was used in that way and also eminem did it. Tuall i felt quite cool. My children and grandchildrenea. Have no idea what i knew eminem, which i dont. But there was a sort of outraget and its amazing to think ane t outrage i think there was such a thing that was true or that ind believe theres such a thing as right and wrong. Im not sure how thats alle played out over the years. Im not so closely connected to it it now as i was then that i ound it outrageous. R viw host what in your view wasoe not being taught in college andw scasses that was taught when you gut hen you were in school . Guest the good side of thefe story as i freely admit i onlydi got the good side of the storyfs growing up and its when i went to college and afterwards i began to understand that this country has made many mistakes that we have not been always perfect but what we dont tell our children as we have comeclr closer to perfection than any other faith on the earth that wp have saved more peoples lives than any other nation. That we have been a force for good and it felt as though thato was being left out of theou st narrative. T before i suppose i started just before w got into school. I do remember learning to write while i was in grade school tha i didnt start writing books until i couldnt get a job as ab phd. I have a i had a phd in english and that is when it started. I think it was 1970 that i got my phd. And i think that there were it 30,000. Y those were the days when it wase a great disadvantage to theervie female. I remember interviewing at one English Department come actually George Mason University and they asked me are you married or are you really interested in the job . [laughter] that might have been a legalobrr then that there was no fervor to take people to account for such an amazing statement. Host and or congressman husband was a congressman at the or a. Point . As an guest i think that he was to an aide to donald rumsfeld. At to host and went on to thetre chief of staff so you wonent ont shington. Guest guest until president ford sadly lost in 1976 and then wetn host home. Host what was the goal after you got your phd and in which . Guest to teach 19thentury century literature in the romantic. Though and victorian. Host in host in blue skies nonces fences you talk aboutout discovering at the local library and casper. Gue guest stindeed what a shocking thing. I was reading in the fictionficn section being very systematicatd and it didnt take me long tolo get toto the jays. And t id never heard of a book likel. That. Host you talk about how you hit it in a camper at home. Guest i dont think that my parents would have picked iti up and read it from beginning tt end but i didnt want him toen open it. . You host what was so shocking g u . Guest we didnt use those words with company. Ompa now i think we over use those words but it was the vocabularyr host in your view is this . A masterpiece . Guest no, i dont think dont so. At i dont regard it as a great classic. I had my own favorite. I think jane austen pride and prejudice is it classic. , great poetry. Try john its a great classic. 20t certainly 20th century writersl are fine. O et but i still think to get yourself a classic you have to hang around for a while and see the work. Est host from the newest book in life we considered the best jame seller, you write it as ayou wri promising time to clear away the misconceptions about madison, brush off the cobwebs that have accumulated around ande to seekt deeper understanding of commande who did more than any other toot concede and estaablish the natin we know. Host guest its been claimed but i think its true. Thnk the misconceptions are that hehe was shy and sickly. Nception those words appear time andut again when people write about madison. And it seems to me that you u coul couldnt be fundamentally shye and accomplish what he did in the public arena, nor could your be sickly and that implies that you are never well and as in began to look at his career, there were indeed times when hes was second out of action for d three or four days. But the rest of the time he was taking these amazing trips across the country with jefferson or with monro. To the energy that it took to travel from his home inmontpetoi montpelier and then he was the e main impetus behind the constitution. He spoke at the s convention an. Almost more than anyone else. I think morris spoke more times than he did at the combinationvh and he kept going. The fe the federalist papers wrote itse think it was 22 federalist papers and 40 days. I like to say to the collegehe w audiences i could probably write 22 essays in four days. They wouldnt be masterpieces. O they wouldnt stand the test of time orey the brilliant. I like to think of the energy and brilliance. I think that he was rather send the brilliance and energy. Hos host who were his parents . Guest he was born in g virginia. Believe i believe that it was in wh Westmoreland County not where he co grew up which was in orange county. All of his ancestors worked ther land. Sme they came from england, they came to virginia and they wereea essentially farmers. They thats what the open source evey though be like elect out as a plantation. T they didnt think like that. Father was a farmer, his motherl was a perfectly nice person but it was his grandmother that really influenced his life as dach as any. R host how so . Guest she ordered a spectator for him. Getting books wasnt an easyor matter and i do think that hea v was a book loving boy from thete beginning. The thi but one of the things she ordered for him was the spectator i think in eight volumes. Eally you can see the influence of the spectator inluen his life. Theri theres a lot of wisdom. His i think it also opened his eyes to urban life. Ad i if you are living on a virginia plantation or farm you have no c idea what cities are like or what the theater is like where bookstores ora coffee shops and think for a boy and young man ii virginia that would have been an amazing world was opening up. Host how did he become James Madison . Guest through a lot of hard work. Cided itust his father decided there was too much scandal going on at williad and mary. People were drinking and playing cards and he wanted james to got somewhere else and princeton wac a choice. Its also tritue that they felth princeton was a healthier climate about whether, not just about the moral climate and the salad was also cheaper. James madison, father, was very tight with a dollar. He went to princeton and ad finished i think with two and a half years because he was ablehe tosh scrape his freshman year b then the effort of trying to do the last two years and one year led to a collapse of some kind a and i believe it was one of the first manifestations was epilepsy. Host when did that h epilepsyos should itself . Guest there is evidence not conclusive but enough to show me that he had seizures as a young child. They go away off and theres also a pattern where a young child might have seizures and then as a madisons case had seizures again as an adult so maybe its kind of you a foretelling of epilepsy. Im sure doctors right now are very nervous that im connecting these two but his grandmother sent him them off from the suffering of policy epilepsy. I could figure out what are the things on the list and what was his grandmother trying to treat. Host did it manifest itself at all during his presidency . Guest i dont have any evidence of that. There are indications for example theres an instance when they are traveling to philadelphia from washington but i cant remember if its when he was the secretary of state or president but its very clear that something happened. They are going along and suddenly this thing happens and later she writes i couldnt fly to him as i used to do. Go, help him and he did right at the end of his life that the attacks became less frequent as equals or. Host how did James Madison get himself involved in the revolution what a revolution what was the role in the lead up . Guest he was caught up as College Students have been forever in the politics of the time and people at princeton were demonstrating against the british but when he tried to enlist, he was practicing to be part of the militia. He talks about a thing that happened to him in training that convinced him he couldnt be a soldier and that would be unlikely at all. So he did not become a soldier. He wasnt involved until the revolution began and he got involved in politics. Host what was his relationship with George Washington have any . Guest it was good enough in the beginning but he wrote washingtons inaugural address. They tried somebody else but it hasnt worked. Sometimes the speechwriter just doesnt get it right and washington do that so he knew that so he called on madison to come right to the address. Once washington was elected he called him again and again and said ive just imagined this conversation. I need to thank everybody for the inaugural. Madison also wrote the response of the house back to washington so i like to think of this as his voice echoing off the walls. Later on he and washington became not exactly estranged. They were in opposition. Host why . Guest its such a long story but basically Alexander Hamilton came into the government and took washington in the direction that neither madison or jefferson thought was appropriate. He was a Big Government man and both jefferson and madison were concerned that the point about the Central Government becoming over powerful. Host relationship with Tom Jefferson . Guest they were great friends. Its one of the great friendships in American History. Jefferson could be a very exasperating friend. Always interfering, get things lined up. Jefferson was often fooling around with madisons plans and madison was very forbearing but a wonderful history and wrote of the two the account balanced. Jefferson was a dreamer and madison was attached to the earth and understood practicalities and politics of the situation so it was a very beneficial friendship for the both of them. Host way learned in the first series that we did on cspan last year was that Dolly Madison had a role in washington and politics beyond just James Madisons lifetime. What did you discover that Dolly Madison . Guest one of the interesting things about the virginia founders is that they ended up poor. Jefferson had to have a lottery at the end of his life. The same was true in the Madison Dolly brought this onto their marriage and John Payne Todd was his name. At one point he was taking stuff out of montpelier and serving on the street corners. I actually have a friend in maryland on the Eastern Shore who said to me i have to madison letters. When people say that you are a little skeptical, but he does. They are short but they are very important for the winding up stories that we dont know the end of ended occurred to me if somebody tells you they have a madison letter you should Pay Attention because of all that stuff out there in any of it still hasnt been captured by scholars. But any case, there was great Financial Stress in the dolly as a widow was poor. It showed her depending on a loan of 75 cents. 75 cents is more than now but not that much more. She started wearing the same clothes all the time she worry black dress and white turban. Theres one photograph of her and she has that outfit on that people didnt care. They helped her put her poverty didnt mean she wasnt thoroughly entertaining and fun to be around. She was quite a citizen. And i read her funeral was the largest up until that time as they had been seen in the federal city. Host this was published in may of 2014. When did you start your research and working on this book . Guest at least five years before. Its a luxury to have that much time to work to be at host where did you start . Guest i research and write the same time. So you start, right preface and keep going then go back and rewrite and get yourself burrowing into these stories or situations like madisons epilepsy. So it takes a very long time. Host where did you do the research . Guest i did most of it at home. I have to work from real books sometimes. There are many books important that havent been digitized so i usually end up with a big pile of books on the floor of my study theres an amazing amount of information online. All of madisons papers are online. The university of virginia has a Digital Program thats just amazing. Jefferson is online, hamilton, washington, madison, munro. People upload google stuff a lot. Theres something called archives that thats done a lot. Kind of the most. Welcome to our monthly in depth program. One author and his or her body of work. This month it is lynne cheney the author of 13 books, beginning in 1979 in novel came out, executive privilege. A mother began in 81, the report of educational practices was published in 1990, telling the truth while the culture and the country have stopped making sense. It came out also in 1996 and then the second lady several Childrens Books. The family adventure in 2006 and about memoir of childhood and family in 2007. We the people, the story of the constitution. Seven to 88201 for those in the mountain and pacific time zones. Cant get through on the phone there are. 202 4656842. We also have social media. Theres a lot of ways to reach you today. I want to go back to James Madison. This is what youve written. Scraping his club across the page madison recorded what seemed to him the essence of the strongest and sound mind possessed with the most sickly bodies. The knife we found this with john locke when he was reading and it was a comfort. Epilepsy was such a misunderstood comment the 18th century and it was thought to be the result of demonic possession we thought it would be the result of sin. And that made having seizures even more dramatic than the offense themselves. I dont think madisons seizures were always of the kind that made him fall to the ground. What he described seemed to fit very well with a partial complex epilepsy. As he described it the intellectual senses are suspended which is exactly what people say that partial complex seizures so nevertheless i think sometimes these seizures that werent were not quite as dramatic manifest themselves in a dramatic way and he had a complete seizure. Any kind and he recognized of attacks representing the books he said he knew that it was linked in having that happen to you is all the more dramatic when theres this overlay that somehow dangerous and full of for him it was a comfort to read this idea that often the strongest minds have some physical ailment and the metaphor is like a sharp knife that she she cant hold. Is the path to the presidency inevitable at the time . Is a he certainly had many has many advantages. He was from the largest state and as you know the first president was from virginia but being from virginia was in and of itself a great advantage. Being brilliant also helped quite a lot. I think that as you were saying earlier she had a role she wasnt an adviser. She didnt tell them about what to do with the Louisiana Purchase but what she did do didnt do is bring people back together so that they not only admire him for his until it that they had a chance to see his personality to know that he was a warm fellow. It made them feel warm and happy and fixed Southern Comfort food so people would walk by and learn there were other parts. There was a senator who wrote home to his wife that mr. Madison has a great advantage in the upcoming caucuses to choose a candidate. Was the war of 1812, what was that about . Guest sometimes i think the best explanation is that its a second war for independence. Weve managed to be independent from Great Britain of course in the revolution that one of the things they were doing is pulling sailors off fighting the war with france and they needed more than they had so its to go on board and ask people to say a couple words so this was a great insult as well. Thats one of the kinds of the senses ended the war of 1812 i think the world understood that we were no longer under the thumb of anyone. Host was James Madisons popularity increased by the war was a curt . Guest during the course of the war itself there were problems. There were many in new england for example that it meant economic suffering and shut down the trade or at least made it difficult so there was talk of secession of madison handled so well. He didnt try to put anybody in jail for suggesting that new england should secede. They did have some troops strategically located so it turned out they tried to cut themselves off from the United States. Hes such a believer in free speech and freedom of opinion. The way to handle it reflected very well on him and certainly by the time the war was over he was admired. Host phd in 19th century literature your first books were contemporary novels and now you are writing about James Madison in a historical biography. Guest the connection was i they didnt understand when i got a phd in english. I sort of followed this path and a major in english and then it starts to seem to be a masters degree. The fact i got it in the 19th century tells me even then i than i really wanted history and that to me is the most important thing now. Host what is your specialization . Guest Matthew Arnold was a poet the right to say i wrote my dissertation most of his prose. Host from the book madison a life reconsidered over the course of a long public life matheson had learned to learn. Guest im not sure that i wrote that exactly as they meant. He knew how important learning was from the beginning but i also think one of his skills as a politician is that you ever assume the other side is wrong. If there are people that dont want to go of right and people that do want to go off right, and right now this is before there was a bill of Rights Health can i get my way through that so that everybody ends up feeling happy . Postcoital is the point was the point of time for freedom . Guest is one of those things i dont know if you see on television they frequently have this one on fox but somebody goes out in the street and says do you recognize this case, it might be Ronald Reagan or Abraham Lincoln or do you know when the civil war was and its an impossible question to answer so the idea was to provide a kind of primer something that would be easy for entertaining. Host some days ought to be locked in memory and think 1492, 1620, 1776 and 1787. 1492, columbus, 07 jamestown, 1620 would have been . In 1787 clicks seven . The constitution. What was he doing in 1787. He said the context saying if there is a convention general washington, we need you. He was through with public life and admired throughout the country over the world but he thought he was through and madison knew that it wouldnt be without him. A traveling up to congress to be sure that they didnt do anything that would somehow make the convention more complicated. Then of course in may he wanted to put off you and was there before any other outofstate delegate putting in the plans and the final touches and talking to people and getting them to sort of understand what he thought the agenda would be that he worked harder than any other person until september to get the constitution in place. Host do you see any parallel issues from those days to today . Guest i think freedom of speech and freedom of expression always need to be guarded. Host what was your path to becoming the chair of the National Endowment . Esko they baited into the chair man. I cant remember who resigned. I had perfect credentials. I was actually writing for the washingtonian magazine that i was writing columns on history. Some of them i just love them still today. One column i wrote was on call ones that you see all over the city and why you see them so i forged a role as a public intellectual and a phd so i called the White House Personnel Office and said why not me so they took my applition. And the rest is history. Host what is the importance of mph, today do you think it still has an Important Role . Guest that was a question that i worried about the whole time i was there. Im not sure that the Founding Fathers would have put this in the category the government should be worried about but there were so many good things that we did, preserving documents and newspapers buffing on the shelves. Now they are being digitized. There were programs underway to preserve the papers, just bees things seem to me exactly what the nih off to be doing. Host where were you born . Guest casper wyoming. We live in wyoming right now and its grown so much and there are so many people. Sometimes i can say that nobody else in them was born in wyoming and are usually right checks and we get a lot of tourists. Host much time do you spend in wyoming . Guest eight months a year. Host and you still come back from time to time guest yes we do some of my children live in wyoming. Some of my grandchildren live in virginia. During the summer they are all in wyoming. But its important to be in virginia so i see those japan. Host you were born in 1941. There was casper and then there wasnt so the kids had no doubt about where they were from. You could encompass casper in the wind and sea forces at work and imagine that you your self might have an impact. You could see were so creating your own future rather than having one handed to you. Guest thats true. I suppose there are times like this in nebraska but in casper was the town and then there was the prairie so was a kind of manageable universe intellectually and physically you could write or bike to school and he used to go out on the prairie. His house was the muslim east side of town so we would go out on the prairie. I think his mother mp sure that its those rabbits whose mother used to put in his lunch bag. Host and that was march . Guest yes. She was very energetic. Theres nothing she could do. She could sew and cook and pitch a good baseball. She was a very energetic person. Host she played on the Softball Team did and she . Guest she taught him how to catch and how to throw that she had been on the team called the bluebirds in the nebraska. But that movie with tom hanks and Rosie Odonnell . A league of their own. It was kind of like that. They traveled around him had uniforms and it wasnt as valued as it is now so dalia pioneers in the way. Host you spend time talking about your education andsign blue skies and no fences. But here you are answering a question from a student about the importance of education. When you were a child were you interested in this . Guest i was and im not sure why. I suppose it was teachers that were able to tell us the stories. Some people think history is boring because they think its just names and places and dates and dont really know that its people that have hopes and fears and aspirations. Its when you talk as great as real people it becomes interesting. I had some really good teachers that told me stories in a way that made it come to life. Guest im just amazed that i said Something Like that. Its true though. Thats what kept me going for five years how did these people relate to one another and when were they mad at each other, when were they friends and accomplishing things, what challenges do they face . Do they have lives that were mostly happy . Its when you are working with that kind of thing that i think history becomes a dynamic and great story to read. Host who was margaret . Guest when we were growing up there was a whole class of women who didnt marry and became teachers and of course now they would be scientists in the ceos and so on but we were so lucky to have their Energy Invested in us. She taught latin and was one of the teachers i could of in memory and think. Host you spent a lot of time on your teachers. What was it about them . Were they nice were part of the community . Guest nice isnt the first thing that occurred to me. They were not there to make us feel as though we deserve we deserved to crown no matter what we did. They were there to make sure that we worked hard and the lesson that we took away his mostany subject. It could be physics, latin, history. But if you dig deeply enough into it, its interesting. If you just stop on the surface and say he c. Squared, but if you dig down underneath and especially if you understand the people involved, then it becomes interesting. Host you wrote this in 2007. Its about your parents. Your mother loves you and your father loved her but there is a difficult marriage. Guest its true and i think a lot of marriages are difficult. They saw it through. It wasnt always happy. Life isnt always happy. Host you go on to write my father never shouted that my brother and me updated raise his voice when he and my mother quarreled although never as spectacularly as ralph was always threatening to send alice to the moon. My father gave his threats for people outside the family but his blowups were still memorable and frequent. Guest he did have quite a temper and George Washington did, too come to think of it. Its not an unusual human trade debate coach rate. It is one we should control also i find myself doing it every now and then. But its better control of course. Host was he a drink or . Guest yes. Host do you think maybe he was an alcoholic . Guest could be. Host did that affect the speed youre sometimes . Guest maybe may be so. Host im only bringing this up because youve written about it. Guest its hard to judge other people, isnt it, particularly when they gave me in childhood and teenage experiences and so supportive of me. Host your mother died in an unusual way. Guest she drowned. She went out to a pond and she didnt come back. When we found her, when my father found her to the door of the car was open, she had a couple little dogs she liked running around and she was dead. Host where were you at the time . Guest college, graduate school. Host blue skies no fences and memoir of childhood and family came out in 2007. She was second lady. I dont mean to be all touchyfeely touchyfeely that was their therapy in writing this book . Guest i dont know if it was their peak that i enjoyed writing that book may be more than any other other book that ive written partly because it gave me a good excuse to go back and talk to my friends and find out what happened. There is one story in the book about a girl in her High School Class who got pregnant and when i think of those days i think of all the good about them that if that happened to you like the end of the world its so nice to go back and talk to this woman now because she got through that her husband, father of the baby was killed the baby was born and that is a really dramatic beginning. To see how her life has been good and she made it through that awful time and is now a good friend. Host when did you start dating . Guest when i was 16. He just turned 17. Host how did you meet . Guest we argue about that. I think it was chemistry class and he thinks it was algebra. Host and what happened, wasnt automatic . Guest he tries to tell the story in a way that is very flattering to me. He says he knew who i was but i didnt know who he was. During my junior year i woke up to the fact that this is a pretty good guy. Host you broke up for 11 days you wrote about it. Guest he broke up into the 90s did his best friend who had a golden colored convertible and i think that when joe and i were seen driving through in a cold gold convertible or talk to his senses. Host a message for a retired air force colonel how does your writing habits differ from his . Guest im much more disciplined i get up every morning and right unless theres Something Else i have to do but host are we talking 6 a. M. Come 8 a. M. . Guest i will be at my computer by nine but thats what i do. He does a lot for traveling. He likes to fish. Maybe ive got the wrong approach. Host do you write in the same fashion . Guest he still likes to write by hand a lot. There theres an importance of having notebooks for something you want to remember dont write it on scrap paper. Get yourself a leather notebook and ask yourself all the important things so when you say what was james munro thinking on the morning of august 17, 1777 and it was important going back and time. Host did the madison book experience, has led you to another book at this point . Guest james munro was understudied. Thats an interesting story. Ive been reading a lot about munro. Host are you working on that right now . Guest the way that i write write write books i helped myself as an example i write it anyway and its like the story emerges and then you think thats what i was trying to get to and they go back and start again. Host back to blue skies. Guest youre lucky i remember these. [laughter] host why was it important to you . Guest again in those days girls did into track. I dont even think gymnastics were very much on the screen. Physical activity wasnt something that girls did but this was acceptable like cheerleading and i worked at it really hard. I had the state championship, do you want me to say that . [laughter] host and he went to nationals, that was your first timeout of wyoming . Guest my reference was wyoming and only later did i learn the whole continent beyond that. Host you had a scholarship why did you not attend . Guest it was expensive. Even though it was full tuition all that i had to get there and get back. It seemed really prohibitive, so i went to Colorado College where i had a scholarship and or hearings could drive you there so it wasnt so hard hard, complicated and expensive. Host did it occur to you to go to college and were junior year in high school . Guest it wasnt an option. You didnt think about not going. You only thought about where. Host wasnt rare in your college to go . Guest nobody was also not acceptable to not go to coverage that host our guest we will begin taking calls in just a minute. We are going to put the phone numbers back on the screen and if you cant get through, you can text your message or make a comment on social media. Those addresses will be on the screen in the next few minutes. We are going to begin with this call if i can figure this out. We have eric and whether so. Good afternoon you were on with lynne cheney. Caller i admire your scholarship and i recently purchased medicine. I havent started yet, but its something i look forward to. Guest thank you. I hope you enjoy it. Caller my question to you is and about history although im a great lover of it, but about contemporary politics and that sort of thing. Guest i dont know i think about that. Caller i think even a Rocket Scientist to know what your opinion on the iran deal but i want to put you in the place of the majority leader of the senate. If the democrats try to filibuster this so as not to bring a vote to the floor when you invoke or let me say it this way would you do it with a 60 vote filibuster requirement and get a majority vote to bring it to the floor . Guest thats a hard question. The Nuclear Option ive heard that cold. You probably know more about this then i do. Dont the democrats already do that . I know now in this congress the republicans are not chosen to do it. But please, if youre out there im not trying to give you advice but if i would. Host do you miss being in the center of the storm . Guest it was not onerous. Many sad things happened when he was Vice President. 9 11 of course at the top of the list. And guess it is a little bit better at the end of the day. But you have a the feeling of being involved in an important cause and maybe in those years more than sometimes true and thats gratifying at the end of the day to think that youve been involved in something important but its also very nice to have a lot of our privacy back and just to pick up and go to the Grocery Store if i want to and not the secret service picked me up. There are good things about it. Host do you get stopped on the street when youre out of . Guest occasionally. He does much more often than i do. Host in the time for freedom you ended that time period. Where were you that today, day, but was your day like . Guest i was downtown and someone told me that a plane had flown into the world trade center. And like everybody else i think i thought to myself what a strange accident and then of course the second plane went in and of the secret service took me from where i was. I rendered it took me to the white house host which is where the Vice President was. But i can remember looking up and there was smoke. You couldnt see where it was coming from and i wondered even if the white house had been hit. So i was taken into the white house and everyone else was running out and spent the day in the president ial Emergency Operations center. It was a stunning day seeing things happen in realtime. It was a day am always proud of him. It was an eyeopener to see the kind of leadership he was able to bring to the situation. And at the end of the day you were taken to this undisclosed location which Everybody Knows by now his camp david terry at host how much time did you spend their . Guest the. Not always that once. And its not like we were there just pinned up back and forth but the situation would warrant when the alert levels were high they would take us to camp david. Host how much control over the schedule did you have . Guest a lot. I didnt have meetings and so on and the people that the Vice President s office were so skilled. But my life was not at all enclosed. Host next from paul in Pompano Beach florida. Caller hello, im a recent retiree in rediscovering history on my own and i was reading a few books lately like the great divide on the quartet and i wondered if you wrote the books what do you think of them and should it be ted burns burns entering this point to give another civil war revolutionary period because it is so stunning i can barely contain myself. Host what do you think of those books . Guest that they are each in their own fashion utterly amazing. They would try to undo each other and jefferson was trying to undo washingtons tradition and alice seems to have a different take on it. Sort of with the idea that they were all ultimately gentlemen and they all respected each other and our country was the amalgam of especially madison who he portrayed as turning against jefferson at the end because jefferson was flying off as the napoleonic fan and so it seems like the story is never ending almost but it seems to be something that everybody should be totally aware of like ken burns brought to the civil war. Guest zero while ago peter was asking about the National Endowment for the Humanities Initiative mentioned one of the things i am the proudest of that happened when i was there is that we provided major funding for the civil war and this was before ken burns was of world historical importance as he is now great but that was a good thing. I am reading the quartet. You asked what books im currently reading and the quartet is on my list. Caller hello, peter and you are a one. Deal had any adn how many books you own or whether your favorite types to read when you were not researching for your own riding . That is a good question. Your personal library . I spent most of our married life building bookshelves are having them built because we have so many books. But did does not want to let go a single one and people have given us many books over his public career so i would say that most of them are history. There is quite a bit of commentary on the political scene but mostly history if i am not reading history i do like a good thriller right now i reading the english spy that is a very good thriller mystery. Also i dont spend all my time reading books id also like to watch thrillers are my i patted maybe i enchanted with this series they are swedish mysteries but i started to watching them with the subtitles and dick came into the river to said what in the world are you doing . With the wall and a series. Another text message. Dick cheney said that you play the role to get him back on the straight and narrow. What did you say or do . I dont think i said or did anything. I just made it clear i would not marry him unless he shaped up but i dont think i said it that way. What was he doing . Gimmicky was kicked out of yale twice coming he was arrested twice for driving under the influence and he was without direction. I dont think it is uncommon but he was without direction of the to see that imports and some direction. Host to have the western u. S. Perspective of the world . Yes. Not a lot of finance eunice to be around subjects, not getting dressed up a lot. We both like to be in wyoming his jackets that our fuzzy. I will think of its budget we are not athletes anymore. We both used to ski but the course he is a fisherman. The last time the offer to take me i hooked him in the year it is not a good fishing etiquette. [laughter] greece still writing . To make yes writing. No but my granddaughter has three and she is becoming a worldclass barrel racer. So all the kids love that. She has something that says cowgirl up. [laughter] host the caller from indiana. Caller talking about Straight Talk it seems to me that the issues that are horrendously complex it is impossible to even discuss them in the campaign rather trying to be straight or not. To talk about the Iran Nuclear Deal with the big complexities is if the United States is able to inspect the iranian sides with obamacare and another complexity than ever like to hear you talk about the most with a fair tax that huckabee is behind and that is my a suspicion in trump got into the race at all. I degree. There is too much complexity so i just pick the issue. So you can imagine the lee it is the iran deal and i am so concerned with the inspections regime that is proposed to do their own inspections which sounds worries some. And with delays you put your finger on an important part of a problem. Host im surprised we havent had a caller yet from wyoming. Guest it is not in time. They are all outside you know, how beautiful the weather is right now . Host annapolis goahead. Caller my friend had the pleasure to take you and dick out of his go into said dont get ideas about getting a boat. [laughter] over the years year used to be on tv quite a bit and i admire everything about you and as i am looking at you right now, you could have been a senator or president of this country per you have all the attributes but made the old and a sacrifice. Guest that is very kind of you. Host it is Common Knowledge you were considered at some level for the Vice President ial position . Give may be yellow and imaginative level. I think more likely would be for me to run for the senate when there was an opening right after he was secretary of defense. I thought about it but you have to do what is involved in never really liked writing books so i appreciate the comments but i dont think i made a sacrifice. Host did you make that comment to the Vice President about a boat . Guest that is absolutely true. But i did even know how we have three horses to be honest. [laughter] himself i did not want to approach. Host do you have protection today . Guest i dont think we should talk about that. Host the next caller goahead. Caller george bush was advised not to travel to switzerland because he could be charged with war crimes. Darr sure husband had any problems traveling overseas . Guest we have managed to keep busy here in the United States though i dont feel there is anything we are avoiding. Even in the middle east we have done so much traveling and i have a great longing to do travel right now. Host speaking of books your daughter has the book out did you have any part of that . If you want a good copy editor i am a, queen. They dont like there are rules for, as if you have a series including before a and i have them internalize. I do copyediting if there is a historical fact then you are on their own. You dont really write together you just take topics is each review undertakes that topic then you work on that after that her crowhop also one of the interesting things i found is madison and hamilton were so frantic to get the federalist papers finished they didnt read with the other one had written and if you think how it hangs together it is a miracle. I dont know how that happened. Host when were the federalist papers written . Guest they were written specifically to get the constitution ratified in the state of new york. Of the failure to ratify would have been as damaging to the process or deadly as virginia failure to ratify. So they were published in newspapers as an essay to give up our rationale for the constitution and. Maddow said major with the Virginia Ratifying Convention had copies so that is what they were now regarded as a classic importune to interpretation they take up some of the ada is that it doesnt have to be small. With the idea you could not be larger in the republic. Host every talked earlier of a College Professor today and we found some of the video of you talking about college requirements. The opinion the American History is now required because faculty members would have to teach a. [laughter] petraeus met in academia comes from publishing and there is Little Market on the subject header broadly conceived of specialized article that is ticino specialized courses people in academia are doing what other professions do to avoid activities for which there is little professional incentive. Host day remember that . Guest no but that is a good point. [laughter] we dont provide reinforcement for some activity so we should not be surprised when they dont happen. And that is required to reread. Host calling from massachusetts. Caller ic the teaching of history with american exceptionalism coming out. What books are of interest to you . I am thinking of kennedys profiles in courage. Sole focus of the episodes that one teacher is. I even thinking of doing a webster and tuesday and for the union to be celebrated as heroic but not to overlook the fact so because of my interest that the real things in this universe are events. So with american exceptionalism and our need to recognize the al rashid rose wouldnt that be taking care of by focusing on heroic events in shouldnt we teach kennedys profiles encourage . Director has been a long time since i have read that. 25 did thrilling. With the treatment of the top down the cherry tree is not true but ivory totally with your point lets look at people and what they did or the bench that surrounded the constitution and dont forget the serb people like us. One of those examples is jefferson and madison and they understood slavery was morally wrong even more than that. That is a simple explanation but it was wrong in real understood that. But at the same time with medicine in particular a friend of mine used to say they created a constitution for a society more just them their own but when the supply of indentured servants began to dry up and then from the rivers offer of the Chesapeake Bay ambrose is recorded to buy slaves and then he bought more than he died in his thirties and it is said that the slaves poisoned him and that was unusual. To take free human beings to transport them and awful conditions to bring them into a place where they dont want to do the work they want them to do as an extreme response but it is not surprising. Host for lauderdale email will there be a renaissance of history in our schools are seems to be a lack of interest to us lerner our past. Knifing were not doing a very good job. 0 understand where they are and what their ancestors had done. Somebody wrote ones history is looking into a rearview mirror. It doesnt give you the Forward Vision that is the only thing we have. How else do you understand the universe and human life. Host next call is from gordon who happens to be in miami, wyoming. I come aboard and purity were on the air. Host howdy, folks. Thank you. Great show. I just want to thank the chinese for being a great conservative here in laramie. We need that here as you know. And also im really hoping this will run. Host what part of the statist laramie, wyoming and . Guest caller 35 miles west of cheyenne. Host are you a native of laramie . Guest caller no, i am not. I have been here since 1996 and while minimizing of colorado as a kid. I love it here. Guest . So much to contribute in the years ahead. And you like thrillers. I now care for her politics becher writes some good thrillers. Guest i like mr. Bob, a native of wyoming and writes for thrillers. Host lynne cheney comment your first two books were novels. Why . Guest it was much more practical. In those days you couldnt do research on your computer. I dont even think i had a computer. Dick and i are moving around the country. Thats when we started in washington and went to wyoming. So its a fun experiment. Host the book he wrote together, kings of the hill, power and personality in the house of representatives. Your husband was serving at that point. Nick longworth is one of the people your profile. Why was seeking at the hill . Guest it is no easy thing to do, plus it such a colorful character. And he is dreamy passages and i one of the things this profile tom reid speaker of the house. Here he was this fascinating, fascinating person. We decided there was a bookie or anything of the last person we profiled. Host does the congress is significant to date as it used to be . Guest i think we have seen the fact that the congress has not been able to assert itself very fact of late. I dont know what the solution is and theres lots of old town in their heads to think what the solution is. The iran agreement should have been a treaty. How can we get to the situation where we are worthwhile takes two thirds of the senate or the house to pass it. Im sorry. Itll take two thirds of the senate or house to override the president s veto. It should be two thirds of the senate or house to pass it. I dont know how we got in this upside down situation. Host bill is calling in from sebastian, florida. You were on with lynne cheney. Caller good afternoon, mrs. Cheney. I would like to know if you agree with president obamas policies and your opinion on frankie and in the controversy that its created. Guest you are not surprised one of the few decisions i agree with his drilling in the arctic. I think for our team is the way weve seen with Energy Independence which could not be more important to our national security. Even as i say those things, one of the things im proud of dick for having done this for setting aside of the million acres in the west and wyoming in particular for preserving wildlife and preserving nature. I dont think we have to either choose to be green or not green. We need to evaluate it situation by situation. Postcode doug sends an email and a native of orange two miles from mount hillier. In your research, did you find out infant madison traveled from point conway to montpelier . Why no credit for the bill of rights and how do you believe madison was the look on to shine today . Traveling as an insolent, why no credit for the bill of rights and madison constitution today. Guest i am having trouble thinking what body of water you have to cross, but mostly by horse and carriage. George mason has been given him and he refused to be involved with the constitution because it did not contain a bill of rights. Madison was a little more politically minded. He wanted to get the constitution ratified. That was his main goal at that point. If he started each day adding a bill of rights they would no agree. So maybe that the necessary states to ratify it then there is another huge ratification. They did exactly the right thing that kept everybody from putting a bill of rights in. But then after you got the ratification, madison is the primary author of the bill of rights. Mason was also not for another reason. He thought the Vice President he was a Strange Office at the constitution as the Vice President in the executive branch. He sought this is a great conflation that threatened the separation of powers. But theres so much interest in glad you brought it up. The third question . Guest madison and the user cant do to shine today. Guest even if you brought that, if you brought back any founders they would be absolutely confounded. I think this has gone so far beyond what any of them could possibly have imagined. Host in your research on James Madison, did any contemporary politicians come to mind . Could you do any comparison . Guest i think thats really hard. The challenges are so different. Host wasnt James Madison responsible for making the Vice President or president and didnt he play a role in making sure that happen . Guest probably. I know when they came to be at loggerheads about how to elect a president , that was the question. Madison stepped in and drove a plan and got this through the constitutional convention. It was a big state, but a state issue. If we say the number of electors is going through the number of senators plus the number of representatives, the big states are going to have to much influence on the selection of the president. So then i think it was madison who came up with the idea of real actor has to go for two people in one of those has to be knocked from his day. In other words, the author virginia elect durst cast one vote and one vote for somebody not from virginia. So this gave the big states less power because the votes would be scattered around. Then madison is so smart started worrying what people throw their second vote away. They will take all the nonvirginia does and give them to go down there who doesnt have a chance to be president. They will throw it away. And then you say okay, lets make the second vote count and the person who gets the secondhighest number is Vice President. That is how the Vice President came to be. Host and political recently wrote an article entitled the father of partisanship. Heres the opening sentence. Partisanship gets a bad rap taken the blame for problems and government including turning citizens away from politics and you go on to say we should thank george mason for partisanship. Guest i wouldve thanked James Madison. Are you sure thats me . Guest im so sorry. Guest Thomas Jefferson even though James Madison was more to move her. The thing that happen as i mentioned before is Alexander Hamilton came along and seems to have captured George Washington feared in either madison or thinks is correct that they are faced with this problem. After a revolution, after a constitution you get something going and everybody thinks if he say anything about the way we are going that is seditious. You cant act against it but that is sedition. What they did and madison in particular is get across the idea that its okay to criticize the government, that it is their duty to hold the feet of people in power to the fire and madison wrote essays in newspapers that now it is not disloyal to criticize. It is loyalty to a principle you believe in and with that kind of camels nose and of the 10 i guess you call it, madison and jefferson formed the first opposition. Its a breakthrough in political science. Host steve, oklahoma city, please go ahead. Caller im interested in whether bodysnatcher came from. Theres two madison. One window with a party to marbury versus madison and allied to stop the republic from being undermined by excess national power, does the republican party. Yet that is the 19th century madison. Eighteenth century as father of the constitution advocated frequently and almost endlessly that the new congress be in power to veto any state law they find offensive or socalled negative. Guest thank you for calling in with. Its one of the most interesting episode scholarship. How did this man who is so concerned about the Central Government not having enough power, so concerned he suggested there should be a veto. How did he turn into this defender of small government that he became the answer one right time is Alexander Hamilton. It wasnt until Alexander Hamilton came with his report on public credit with the National Bank and George Washington was perfectly aligned with this. It wasnt until then madison saw the overwhelming threat was not from the Central Government to weak, but too strong. You could call it a bodysnatcher or someone who looked at the situation and decided he had taken a wrong track and put himself another way. [inaudible] guest you said that twice now. sorry. Phd 19th century British Literature university of wisconsin from a senior the American Enterprise institute from 94 to today, second lady of the United States 2001 to 2009, member of the board of lockheed for several years. Cohost of cnns crossfire, and author of the teen books. First of all, you used the term cheating and i know theres been talk about how to pronounce cheney has become cheney in todays world. How do you say . Guest cheney. This is a good one. This is about dick going to a family remembers oldest living relative is. So there had been this question that cheney versus cheney. He goes for his uncle was standing with this very odd dog. He jumps in and makes you nervous. He went over and said uncle art, tommy is said cheney or cheney . They said thank you. He wants out of there but he doesnt want to be rude so he says what kind of dog is this. Uncle art says its a big old. So that leaves you perpetually confused. Host its a little confusing because you said it right on the air. Do you remember classmate named tl quan h. . Cspan traveled to casper wyoming. About your high school years. We are going to show a little bit video and is referred to earlier, we will show you some of the books shes reading and some of the influences in her life. We will be back to take more calls life. This is a copy of our County High School senior year of 1959 when dick and i were classmates and along with land all in the same class together. The first one is a picture of dick coming down the stairways and we were all juniors. He was a junior also and that was the group of individuals picked to go to the conference around the state fairgrounds. Some of the better students and boy status but is actually called. They had grossed it also of which land and this picture happens to be a picture when she was getting ready to go down to gross state, too. I moved here starting at the eighthgrade when dick and land and we all met each other at the school year. We would all go to the same parties and they never dated until they were seniors because everybody call mingled with everybody else. Not like it is today. They were very popular of host lynne chaney, we are showing influences in your life. We talked about margaret scheidler. Another is richard himmelfarb. Who is she . Guest an amazing intellectual who i have been interested in the taurean period. She is much more insightful than i think ive ever been about while we condemn as morality of the victorian period with this underway. How was important and what we gain when they move away and what we lose. Hes been a wonderful writer on the enlightenment in america. She resigned the national and im up for Humanities Council when i was there. You could just count on her to be incredibly perceptive about whatever the subject at hand was. Burchard as i call her miss mary to crystal and her husband as bill kristol of the weekly standard. It is a family that has made the intellectual life seem so energizing and reporting. Host when you were second lady did you maintain an office . Guest yes, but i didnt go down very much. This trouble to get secret Service Agent and a couple of cars. Host this text for you. Can mrs. Cheney comment on the role of think tanks and contemporary politics . Guest well, they are different. Aei is even different since ive been there. I suppose there was more influenced more attention paid to the humanities. I think it has evolved so the issues that are front and center are those that are front and center on capitol hill and in the white house. It has become a much more dynamic and energize placed as the evolution has occurred and we have a great leader right now. A fellow named arthur brooks. Host this text goes on to say what in your opinion would madison and the other founders think of the think tanks . Guest they would probably want to be in one. Host 202. A little over an hour left. Author and scholar, lynne chaney. 202 7488201 for the mountain and pacific time zone. Several other ways to get ahold of a city can get through phone lines. Email otb cspan. Org. Or a twitter handle. Facebook. Com booktv you can make a comment there. And finally, text a message 202 4656842. Lynne chaney is the author of 13 books. Six or seven of those are for children. A couple novels for the most recent bestseller and James Madison and michael is in ft. Pearce, florida. Hi, michael. Caller good afternoon. Mrs. Cheney come i first want to let you know i have some fond memories memories. I have the opportunity to travel all over the rockies. So you have a beautiful postcard guest it is beautiful. Caller my question has to do with the political environment today and why conservatives seem to have such difficult the in communicating their message to the average individual. They do very well singing in front of the choir but depending upon the audience it doesnt seem to get through relevant. Host michael, are you conservative . Guest theyll actually made a conscious effort to maintain my independence. It hasnt kept parties from contact amy for support but im a registered independent. Host in your view what would be a good message for conservatives . Guest the benefits of a conservative sort of government in a place like east st. Louis take a message to where it is needed. You know, speaking to the American Enterprise institute, youre going to have a very nice reception is a conservative. Conservatives need to get out and get their message to people who need it most. Host who i have heard recently talking about this in a very informed wastelands previous was the chairman of the republican party. I heard him go on at some length about the necessity for outreach. You dont make phone calls trying to get those. You go when men say they are and the fellow failings you have with people who are working hard and making their way up. Arthur brooks has also spoken about this very well in his book, the conservative heart. When youre a conservative you find yourself saying no a lot. We dont want obamacare in what you have to do is explain why it is often really gas. No, we dont want to raise taxes because yes we want to support people who are working their way and do understand the importance of free enterprise. We dont often get our message across while, but those are a couple of people who have been contemplating the subject sensibly. Host text from 10 tidbit come im sorry, facebook comment. Im a teacher who shares your america book every year. What advice do you have for your second grade writer . What did you like to read in Elementary School and here is one of the Childrens Books. Guest one assam member clearly was about my dog and the dog was named heidi and i got lots of praise for this essay from my teacher. One breakfast a home and having the teacher find what is good in that as well as pointing out where you could do better. There arent a lot of stories in American History that would be good subjects. One of the books i wrote for children is called when washington crossed the delaware and it is such a great story because its enclosed. Washington after this long retreat decides to go on the offense and does this heroic thing crossing the delaware, capturing a thousand haitians, taking them back and then he goes to princeton. This is the kind of a story. The glorious end of the story followed doubt and difficulty leading up to it. So i think there are stories like that they have to tell the children first. Maybe you can ask them, what was heroic about what washington did . Guest here is the inside of america, the Childrens Book from madison i guess you could say. What is the difference between writing for children. How did you change your style . Guest you cant write for long sentences and you have to be thoughtful about your vocabulary. I have to tell you that is wonderful discipline. When you move through that, theres also this great feeling of freedom because it doesnt matter if i was sometimes prayer for lifelong. Ive compared this to writing haiku. You have to condense so much in such a little space. You have to make it accurate and that is important for children and it has to be understandable and still enjoyable. I was lucky with this book and a couple others who have a wonderful illustrator who brings such joy to the process. Host here is her picture. Shes also a dancer. Guest just, she is. She has now written a series called fiance nancy that is so wild and popular i dont know if ill ever get to go straight again for me. Host another caller. Caller hi, i just want to say mrs. Cheney in such a great admirer of the research you put into your book will be fascinating if you could write a continuation to blue skies, no fences if you could describe your phd years devoted to motherhood and also behind the scenes of her political life. Is that something you would consider . Guest jazz, but i want to be a lot older first. You can be franker as you get older. I dont want to tell tales right now. Maybe when im 90. But thank you for that suggestion. Theres a lot of things i would love to say that i would have to be tactful. Host have you kept a diary . Guest no. I wish i had. As someone who is close to a public figure, it would be a mistake. We could get subpoenaed. Host are we losing information with email with some of the ways we communicate today . Guest washington papers are the ones that knocked me over because he had a lot of people helping him right. There are many people. You know every day for washington was doing during the revolution. Every day. Im sure there are exceptions but mostly not. I dont think we will no doubt about president obama for president bush or anyone who has lived as far back to the 20th century. Host in your husbands book coming he writes about driving across country after surveying the secretary surveying the secretary of defense and delivering his papers. He delivered quite a bit of material to the university of wyoming in a uhaul. Did you accompany him . Guest now, do i look crazy . Dick likes to drive. He loves the way the various aspects and he loves going across nebraska which can take you forever. She just loves it. He wanted to take a drive. He also needed to get the car out there. Host you did not participate in the driving . Guest i flew. It would be nice to have them all in one place. Host next call comes from the weeds in bozeman, montana. You are on booktv. Quote caller hello, mrs. Cheney. Its quite an honor to speak to you. Im going to be a celebrity at our dinner party tonight. Everyone will be so jealous attack to one of the cheney members. Without your daughter and her son and in your husband. The reason i called this i didnt know you had written so many Childrens Books and my sister and i are in a mission to get better history lesson. My question is simple. What are the age groups for being able to read it and secondly to read it to themselves. Guest ive had my own experience reading it to 4yearold grandchildren and by the time they are six. The illustrations and thats a wonderful reason to read it with them because you can talk about the illustration. I mentioned a minute ago the book i wrote about Washington Crossing the delaware from an other one called we the people about the constitution. The pictures are so wonderful. Here is madison, Benjamin Frank lindh. While they could read books themselves by the time they are six or seven, i also think the x variants of rating them to a young person for a clinch road is very, very rich and enriching for both parties involved. Host dear mrs. Cheney, what is your next Children Book in your next nonfiction memoir going to be. Lets bring it back to the conversation. This is from tom in tampa. Guest you know, i dont know when im going to ride it but i sure would like to. These books are so gratifying because you go do a book signing with little kids and thompson died who want them to know about history. I look forward to doing that. Ive got a couple titles in mind that i dont want to give them away. I am interested in the work of in the worker junior president s as is a book for adults. Theres so many great personal stories. Not only great accomplishment, amazing, schmidt, but just so many Great Stories i would like to tell. Host we interviewed David Macauley yesterday at a book festival and a caller asked him where he got his boys in the senate put it it on the shelf for two weeks and then i go back and see if it stands up and if it bores me. Guest i have also heard David Mccullough reads his books aloud to his wife. I think thats a great idea. Britain and prose is so important. There is a copy of the declaration of independence as these marks on it. As you scan poetry to see how the river marks. Another way to do it is read it out loud and you hear it working. Caller yes, thank you. Hi, ms. Cheney. Guest hi. Caller i just want to ask do you think that barack obama a should be impeached . Guest well, no. No. I think hes been a disastrous president in many ways, but i dont see high crimes and misdemeanors. I just see taking the country in the wrong direction. Host jill is in woodburn, oregon. Jill . Caller hello, mrs. Cheney. Its an honor to speak to you. I want to ask you when did you first decide that you were going to become a writer . And did you have a mentor, and was it difficult to find a publisher when you wrote your first book . And then just a real quick comment about im actually born and raised in colorado springs, and i wanted to ask you what was your experience like at Colorado College . Thank you. Guest gosh, thats a lot of questions. Caller jill, whered you go to college . Guest i went to college in bend, oregon. Guest thank you for what you do. Lets start with the last first. My experience at Colorado College was terrific. My two daughters went there, my soninlaw went there, i have a grandchild there. Its, you know, peter and i were talking about small liberal arts colleges, and its just my cup of tea, you know . Where you can get to know the professors. Now at Colorado College theres this thing called the brock plan where you block plan where you study one class three weeks in total depth and nothing else. And that works very well. So for me, that was terrific. I honestly and this doesnt sound like a very inspiring answer, but as i said before, i became a writer when i couldnt get a job teaching. And, you know, you dont know how these great disappointments in life are going to turn around and be a great blessing. But for me that was certainly the case. Getting published, i think, is harder now than it has ever been. Partly because the Publishing Industry isnt quite as robust as it once was, but theres a lot of selfpublishing going on which i find very interesting. And, you know, people find ways to set up web sites and promote their own books and sell their own books. So in a way while the Publishing Industry itself is not as robust as it once was, there are these other entry points that i think are very promising. Host your James Madison was reviewed far and wide, liberal, conservative. It got pretty high marks right across the board. Do you care about the reviews . Guest oh, yeah. I mean, i wish i didnt [laughter] but sure, i do. Especially when youve spent five years on something. You know, youd like to have a little ratification, a little hint that maybe it wasnt five years wasted. Host next call for lynne cheney comes from dorothy in kentucky, i think thats ur langer, kentucky. Caller hi. Hello, ms. Cheney, its a privilege to talk to you. Guest hi. Caller my concern is freedom of religion. You know, the separation of church and state has gone way too far, if you ask me. The state is trying to take freedom of religion and god out of our public, and my problem is with this ms. Davis in kentucky being jailed and because of her belief, isnt that the state impeding the religion of the American People . Guest you know, there are many people who look at it that way, and i understand that. I guess i also think, though, that ms. Davis is a public servant, and in that role has to uphold the law. I mean, its a very difficult problem. But, you know, you cant have policemen, for example, refusing to arrest people or arrest them because it would be more fitting to say not arrest them because of their gender or their race or their sexual orientation. So i find the fact that shes working for the state problem mat you can. Problematic. Its a different matter in private life, i think. But i think ms. Davis has to uphold the law, or shes always free to find another job. And im sorry you and i, i dont think, agree on that. Host what did James Madison, what were his views on religion . Guest views on religion. Well, he never said. I think he was most likely Something Like a unitarian. He thought that religion was very important to public life because it turned people toward the good rather than the bad. But he mostly, his most underlying important belief is that each of us ought to be free to worship as we wish. Now, you know, im not sure that this case is the same as that. Were all free to worship as we wish, but if were in the pay, in the employ of the state, dont we have to enforce the law of the state . Thats this is all very complicated. Host how did you pick the charities that the proceeds from your Childrens Books go to . Guest oh, well host i know theres some Educational Endowment funds there. Guest yes. It seems to me to put some of the money into causes that support children was very important, and i think also causes that support the armed forces. That was very important during a time that and it still is very important. So i have to say it wasnt as systematized as it should have been, but i felt so grateful that i could do that. Host and i think it was reported about eight million, at least 8 million guest no, thats a different pot of money. Host isnt that the money oh, was that from thats a different pot of money . Of halliburton, and he had these things called unvested options which basically are promises that in the future youre going to get options which are worth some money. So unvested options, promises in the future. There was nothing illegal about keeping them, because, you know, they were already a done deal. They were already baked in. But he thought, and i agreed, that it wasnt as clean as it should be. And so we set up a plan whereby the unvested options got donated to charity. And there was im not sure of the number, and or seven and or eight million dollars. A lot of that money went to George Washington hospital where dicks life has been saved many times, a lot to the university of wyoming, some to an organization in the District Of Columbia that helps put kids who are not in good schools into better situations, and so that, i think those were the main contributions. Host vicki is in meridian, mississippi. Hi, vicki. Caller hello. Guest hi, vicki. Caller hey. Id first like to thank cspan for booktv. Its a wonderful window for so many people. And mrs. Cheney, your family for all your Public Service. My question is during your research of James Madison, was there anything that surprised you . That you werent expecting to find . Guest well, i certainly didnt know at the outset that he had epilepsy, and i am now convinced he did. I always knew that Dolley Madison would be fun to write about, but i was surprised at how much fun she was to write about. When youre, when you write books, youre always trying to give people images, you know, so they can see it as well as just understand it intellectually. And dolley has some great images. One of my favorites, you know, is a pink velvet dress with lots of gold chains involved and a high white turban with peacock feathers coming out. She was already taller than james, but the time you add the turban and the peacock feathers, she must have been a foot and a half taller than he was. This is just a delight and to be able to convey to people. So those are the two things i would say, james illness and Dolley Madisons wonderful dramatic self. Host stephen in charlotte, north carolina, email. What does lynne cheney think of the decision to change hamiltons 10 bill . Which woman should be on a bill and which bill . He this thinks jackson he thinks jackson should be replaced on the 20. Guest thats interesting, because ive had that same thought, why hamilton . You know, he contributed so much to the Economic System that we have in this country. Also i just, not so long ago i saw the play hamilton in new york which is, oh, its quite wonderful. Why hamilton . I dont want to replace hamilton. Now, like the person who emailed, im not that great a fan of jackson, but im also not sure what were doing here. Im not sure what were doing about changing the name of the Mountain Range from Mount Mckinley to denali. People were already using both names. Why do we have to break these connections with the past . We are more moral in some ways than our predecessors were in virginia in those days, but they had many things to contribute that we dont have. So im just not a fan of this. Host kate is in austin, texas. Kate, youre on with author and scholar lynne cheney. Please go ahead. Caller hi, good afternoon, and thank you for this wonderful show. Im a big fan of Dolley Madison, and im wondering, mrs. Cheney, if during your research do you ever come across any evidence, for example letters, that dolley and influenced james political ideas on the form our government should take or on the bill of rights . Guest ing no. She wasnt abigail who was quite clear in her letter to john that you shouldnt forget the women as you form the new nation. Now, they did pretty much forget women as they formed it anyway, but abigail was out there pushing her point of view. Dolleys influence was maybe as great but more subtle. One of my favorite dolley stories is, you know, you know the story a little bit, how shes in the white house, and the british are coming during the war of 1812, so she saves the George Washington portrait. But you look at the letter that dolley wrote, it went over three days. And it just seems such an unlikely thing, that youre writing a letter over three days while youre running away from the white house, and getting someone to cut George Washington out of the frame of the painting. It almost she writes it as though shes writing it at the time, but i really think she wrote it after. She understood the importance of telling the story right. And so she told it really, really right. It was a different kind of influence. It wasnt a political one, i think. Host although he had long regarded an army, in particular as dangerous in a republic, he now realized that military strength was essential to the nations security. From James Madison. Guest you know, during the revolution when the revolution got started, it was widely believed that an army was a monster, you know . You maybe needed to gather a few militia together, maybe even a lot of them to fight this war, but you didnt want an army because they could turn on a free people and make a tyranny of what had been an independent land. So it took a long time during the revolution for congress to even come around to the idea that, you know, maybe we ought to enlist them for three years. But first it was like six months and a year. So lets enlist people for three years. And the whole notion that a Standing Army was evil lasted in american consciousness for quite a while. Madison, faced with the war of 1812, certainly saw the need for a Standing Army. He also, he had never wanted us to build ships. Thank goodness for john adams who managed to i think it was six frigates that he managed to get authorized. Theres a wonderful book called six frigates by ian toll. Ian toll is the author. You know, those ships, the constitution, these ships kept american hope alive when the war of 1812 wasnt going well. Host we havent talked about john adams and James Madisons relationship. If any. Guest not much. Not much. Host why . How did they miss each other . [laughter] guest you know, adams was the interloper. He was the second president. And otherwise the virginians would be in charge. What relationship there was was pretty hostile, because adams signed the alien and sedition acts, and madison who was a great champion of freedom of expression suddenly found himself in a country where, you know, the president said, you know, you Start Talking ill against this country, you Start Talking ill against the alliances we have, well, well put you in jail like we did that newspaper publisher and this newspaper publisher. So that, that was a great shock to both madison and jefferson when that happened. Host when you look at James Madison, you look at the executive branch today, the powers, what kind of powers would James Madison have as compared to today . Guest very small. I mean, today its grown so amazingly. I mean, you know, executive orders, executive agreements, i think jefferson is even on record as having said, you know, when weve got some business to do, we cant always have a full treaty and the full vote and all thats involved. So that started very early. But i cannot imagine that Something Like the agreement with iran wouldnt have been properly regarded as a treaty. Host larry is in las vegas. Larry, weve got about 30 minutes left with our guest, lynne cheney. Guest good morning, mrs. Cheney. Its a pleasure to ask you a question. Number one, how do you think the people that framed the constitution and our laws feel about when they were in their later life . And also what do you think they thought about, would think about potus, the Supreme Court and the Congress Today . Guest i didnt quite get the first part. Host yeah, larry, could you repeat . Caller this their later life in their later life, the framers of the constitution and everything, how do you think they felt in their later life . Do you think they felt they had achieved success . Guest yes, i think so. There was this whole tradition. It was around the country but especially in virginia, you know, the ideal outcome of life was fame. And that didnt mean being famous, it meant being honored by posterity. It was regarded as a kind of immortality. And if you had done something grand, and the grandest thing you could do would be to be a founder of the nation, then you would be remembered by posterity. So i think they all understood at the end of their lives that they had, they had achieved that. Its an interesting question to think, you know, what if i could have James Madison for my house guest, you know . And drive him around downtown d. C. I just, i think it would just be shock, just complete shock at the size this whole thing has achieved. Now, it had to be a lot bigger. You know, the countrys a lot bigger. But i still think theyd, you know, have to be taken to a bar and have a good, stiff drink, you know, after having seen the gargantuan that weve created. Host the president was modest when he spoke to congress for the last time in december. He spoke of his pride that the American People have reached in safety and success their 40th year as an independent nation and that for nearly an entire generation they have had experience of their present constitution. He did not mention his role in creating the constitution. Instead, attributing it to the citizens of the United States. Guest thats really nice, isnt it . Host thats from your book, James Madison a life reconsidered. Guest and i think they also understood that they had created something so innate. It hadnt been seen under the sun, a great republic. And they had seen because theyd been through the french revolution they had seen how this can go awry. You know, revolutions dont always end well. Revolutions dont always end up in republics. So i think, you know, yes, modesty was considered a great virtue. That was one of the things that madison learned from reading the spectator. Modesty was really important. But inside i think they just must have burst with pride and happiness at what they had created. Host once you finish your manuscript, how many pages did you have . What happens to it . When do you see it again . How often do you work with an editor . Guest well, you get several chances, you know . The editor will read it first and send it back, and then, you know, you rework if you think you need to parts that he or she has pointed to. If you think you need to. I mean, its usually a back and forth. And then it goes this again. You might get it back again. And pretty soon you get it back in a way that is in print, but you can still make some changes. And then you get it back again in a way that its more firmly locked in print, and if you make changes, it better not change the lines. You know, you still want i dont know what it is, 23 lines on the page. So if youre going to make an addition or subtraction, it better fit, because other the index will have to be changed. The index drives a hot at the end. They prepare the index, and it says this is on page 323, and if you do a lot of changing, it wont be. You know, it goes back and forth quite a lot. It took nearly a year, i think. Now, this isnt the case with all books. Host did you turn in more than 400 pages of manuscript . Guest is that only how long the book is . Host i think its about 400, is what i want to say. Im looking at the soft copy here. About 435. Guest okay. Thats u know, im sure that is not very far off what i turned in. I do a lot, a lot of rewriting, but not at that point. Host diane, mission viejo, california. Hi, diane. Caller hi, mrs. Cheney. Its such a pleasure to talk to you. Guest my pleasure. Caller this is a funny story, but my maiden claim is cheney, but its cha guest ah, so no question about how to say that one. Caller no. Im so looking forward also to reading your husband and lizs book, but i also wanted to ask you i have a 4yearold granddaughter, and which book of yours for chirp would be more for children would be more appropriate for her age level . Guest oh. Well, im not sure its age level, but whenever im going to give a first Childrens Book to a girl, i give a is for abigail. Its just a perfect gift for a little girl. Whats her name . Host diane, you still with us . Caller yes. Host whats her name . Caller her name is bella. Guest then you buy a is for abigail, and inside the page you say, and b is for bela. And she will love it her whole life. Caller yeah, because she can spell her name real well. Thank you so much. Its a joy to have this program. Host thats diane in mission viejo, and next up is david in cape coral, florida. Wow. Cape coral, florida billion. Hi, david, sorry about that. Caller hi. Hi, mrs. Cheney. Guest hi. Caller i just called to express, i always wanted to tell somebody how grateful we were that your husbands willing to take on the job as vice Vice President at the time he did and when, you know, he really had no expectation of going on to run for president or anything like that and was so secure. We really appreciated that. Guest well, thats so nice. Ill pass that along. Im sure hell be happy to hear that. Host he is out on david, did you want to add Something Else . Caller well, no. Just that irene and i just got back from wyoming. We visited guest oh caller its very interesting how close and personal the political life there seems compared to other places. Guest thats a really good observation. Everybody knows everybody. Its like someone once likened wyoming to a sort of small town with very long streets, you know . A whole state is lined up. So we all know each other. Host 202 is the area code, 7488200 in the east and central time zones, 8201 if you live in the mountain and pacific time zones. Were going to put up some other addresses, including a text address, 2024656842. Go ahead and send those texts to lynne cheney. She is the author of 13 books. We want to show you the covers of those 13 books. The first two were novels, executive privilege came out in 1979. Mrs. Cheney, when you sat down and you saw a copy of that, you kind of laughed, because you had forgotten about that book. [laughter] guest people often ask me how many books id written, so this morning i thought you would, and i was trying to total them up, and i dont know the number i came up with, but i didnt count executive privilege. So thank you. Host sisters in 1981, another novel. Tyrannical machines, 1990. Telling the truth why our culture and our country have stopped making sense and what we can do about it, 1996. Kings of the kill written with her husband, 1996, its about power and personality in the house of representatives. America a patriotic primer, her first Childrens Book, 2002. A is for abigail, 2003. When washington crossed the delaware a winter time story for young patriots, 2004. A time for freedom, 2005. Our 50 statements, another Childrens Book, a family adventure across america, 2006. And then her memoir, blue skies, no fences a hem worry of childhood and family, 2007. 2008 another Childrens Book. Her newest book, James Madison a life reconsidered, came out in 2014 to very good reviews, and it also became a bestseller. Did you do a book tour . Guest oh, yes. Host did you enjoy the book tour . Guest well, more than i might have because dick went along. He was he used to joke he was my arm candy. You know, wives go along on everything and, you know, smile nice at the crowds, but dick came along. And so instead of giving speeches, which i find, you know, i can give a good speech, but its just a little bit stressful. Instead of speeches, dick interviewed me. And so everybody loved it. I loved it because i could just answer questions and not have to stand up and give a speech, and i think he enjoyed it too. And audiences, for sure did. Host and, in fact, booktv covered you out at the reagan or Nixon Library with the two of you sitting and doing that conversation when the book first came out. Guest yeah. Host was it like campaigning . Guest a little. But, you know, youre not so worried about saying something that, you know, is going to cause a big bruhaha on the nightly news. So its more relaxing than campaigning. When we campaigned, i didnt get to talk very much. So this was a little more enjoyable than that since i got to talk a little bit as well. Host well, i remember the 04 campaign you did some town meetings where you interviewed the Vice President. Maybe not interviewed guest no, thats probably right. I got to ask questions. But this time i got to answer them, so host why is speechmaking stressful for you . Guest well, not that its i think its stressful for everybody. You know . You have to try to entertain people by talking straight at them for a long time. And having been an audience member in a lot of speeches, thats just inherently boring, you know . You dont people always like the question and answer after better than they do the speech. So, you know, i think they just enjoy this interview format more too. Its a little easy its more surprising, you know . You never quite know whats going to happen. Dick will ask me a question like whats the best thing about me . [laughter] you know, i actually have never asked that, but some surprising questions. I just think the entertainment value is achieved without so much work. Host marty, trenton, new jersey. Hi, marty, youre on with lynne cheney. Caller ms. Cheney, i saw your list of books, and among them was David Hackett fishers [inaudible] and thats also one of my very favorites. And, in fact, i taught an immigration course for quite a few years, and i used that as one of the texts. Guest oh, great. Caller and i also teach new jersey history, and David Hackett fisher has also wrote washingtons crossing. Guest exactly. Caller i assume youve read that as you wrote your own book on washington. Guest yes. Host crossing the delaware. Marty, why did you teach albion seed as the one of the books you taught . Guest its a good introductory book to the whole problem of immigration. He poses a scenario where four groups of people, the puritans, the quakers, the virginians and the irish, scotchirish formed the basis for the mores of america. Guest yep. Caller but his accounts of those communities are absolutely priceless. He really is quite a good historian and a very good writer. And theres that and, of course, theres the washingtons crossing. Theres perhaps half a dozen or so accounts of Washington Crossing the delaware. I think of all of them fishers is the latest and the best. Hes a great admirer of washington. He brings out some of the superb qualities that washington had. This doesnt come out in the book, but for example, ms. Cheney talked about the fear of a Standing Army. Well, thats why they formed the society of since gnat discuss. I mean, washington could have been king. He could have been anything. And he gave up his control of the army and went back to mount vernon. Thats perhaps his finest hour, i dont know. But, you know, these are things that fisher brings out. Thats all i wanted to say. Guest i enjoyed albion sea because it was at the time i was writing blue skies, no fences, in which theres some genealogy. And i became interested not only in my own forebearers, but in dicks. As a result of that we figured out that dick had one cheney came with puritans. But another cheney came with the roilists royalists into maryland. And there are so many wonderful documents about the cheney that came into maryland, but you just see how one family line became so different from the other, because theres hardly a more different contrast, greater contrast than between the new englanders and the virginians, the marylanders. This ancestor had come because of religious oppression. You know, the puritans were being discriminated against. This ancestor came because of the civil war in england. He was a royalist. And Oliver Cromwell was making life for the royalists difficult can. So i loved the book in that context. And, yes, when Washington Crossing the delaware came out, David Hackett fishers book, dick was Vice President at the time, and so we were fortunate enough to have him come for dinner and talk about his book. He does a great job of that too. Host and you have a family tree here guest yes. Host in blue skies, your family tree at least. In the acknowledgments of this book, you thank i think its the mormon church, their genealogical records and some other laces that are those hard to navigate . Guest you know, its easier than ever now on the internet because so many people are navigating things. I was trying to, you know, discover the identity of a young woman, her last name, in fact, was brown. But i found, you know, a great record of her in the French Family records because one of her ancestors had been named french. One of my maternal ancestors was a woman named katura vaughn who was recruited in wales by Brigham Young and the people. So she came over as a mormon. Its just a heroic life. You know, she landed in louisiana. Therecholera on the boat, her hd died, her baby died. She went up the mississippi and the missouri to Council Bluffs which was a steppingoff place to cross, you know, the whole west to get to utah. And, boy, they were just tough people. And i just loved knowing her story, and i certainly got a lot of the information from the mormon archives. Host this is i think my favorite quote in the book, and i think it was written in your yearbook. Lynne, you have a wonderful personality, youre very pretty, and youre awfully intelligent. Most girls are either pretty and dumb or smart and plain. [laughter] you have a rare combination of both. Guest or dick. Dick cheney wrote that, of course, but hes evolved. Host and heres a picture of lynne and dick cheney at their high school graduation, and thats your mother in the background. Guest yes. I remember that picture. Shes trying to keep the light from coming through the door to the living room, so shes up there kind of holding it back. Host rita, daytona beach, florida. Please go ahead. Caller yes, good afternoon, mrs. Cheney. Guest good afternoon. Caller my mom, my mom passed away over 30 years ago, and she suffered from epilepsy, as did James Madison. She was a very intelligent woman, and she also was a lover of history. She believed, as i do, that truth in government was very important, and for those interested in truth regarding the issue of iraq, i suggest they go online at center for public integrity. Org which documents over 900 lies told by the bush cheney administration. Guest im not going to go on that, because it sounds like propaganda. But i just will say that i think president bush and my husband did a fine and honorable job, and ill further point out that when they left office because of president bushs courage in pushing forward a surge iraq was a stable place, which it is not today. Host i want to go back to your mother,. [applause] cheney, because you write about her mrs. Cheney, because you write about her quite a bit. Having her teeth pulled, it turned out, wasnt the answer. She was still sad and tired from the moment she got up in the morning. Finally one doctor suggested that she wasnt sick, it was her nerves, a diagnosis that she decided was maybe right. She needed to be busier to quit thinking about herself so much, and so she got a job. Guest well, you know, women didnt work very much in the 50s. Unless you had to, but if you could afford not to, you stayed home. She was just the whole issue of health. I mean, i look at a lot of 18th Century Health issues and think, gosh, if modern medicine would have been there, this would have been so different. I think its the same with my mother. But when she got her job, it was as secretary to the police chief. And a few years later she became a Deputy Sheriff. And she was so proud of her badge. When she would come back to see us in washington, d. C. , she kind of carried it and showed it to people. Partly because it was so unbelievable. Here was a woman, and she was a Deputy Sheriff in casper, wyoming. I also think she provided a model for me. Its good to be busy in your life. It is good. And if you find work that is rewarding, youre very lucky. Host did she go to college . Guest no. Host did she finish high school . Guest yes. But my grandmother, her mother, came to wyoming with my grandfather to work my grandfather was going to work in the salt creek oilfields which is about0 miles from casper. And through long, hard winters, i mean, they were very poor, my grandmother raised five children in a tent with wooden sides. I know. I mean, you think of these women like vaughn, like this grandmother, i could, you know, go on, these women were so strong. Host eleanor in texas. Eleanor, whats the name of your town in texas . Guest its wax hatch chi, texas. Host thank you, maam. Where is that . Caller its south of dallas. Host all right. Go ahead and ask your question or make your comment, maam. Caller okay. My comment is this. Im so full of gratitude to Vice President cheney and lynne cheney, his wife, the second lady. They were unbeatable during that time when everyone was so shaken up by the 9 11 attack. Guest well, thats, that is just so kind of you that youre making me a little bit weepy. But thank you for those thoughts, and i will certainly pass them on to dick. Host even though youve been out of office for quite a while, do you still have any official commitments or official roles . Do you get invited to certain things . Guest well, in wyoming where lots of our friends show up in august, you know, we go out a lot. And thats just fun. You know, these are people weve known for such a long time, and some of them dont want to do the winter in wyoming anymore, but thats great. And when were back here, we have trends. But, you know, its not official really. Host do you youre out there eight months. Do you spend the winters in wyoming . Guest it varies. Oh, of course. We were there all of january and february this year. I will tell you its not as easy as it was when i was younger. You know, you worry about slipping in the parking lot at the Grocery Store. There i go talking about the Grocery Store again. [laughter] gosh, its beautiful. Ive got a wonderful picture taken at christmas time of the lights are on in the house, and theres a moose in our backyard. You know, a christmas moose, i call him. Hes eating our willows, of course. But thats okay. Hes so beautiful. Host jane, chicago. Go ahead, please. Caller hi, lynne, thank you so much. Im enjoying this program very much. I also appreciate you and your husbands service to our country. Guest well, thank you. Caller i think you were there just as we needed you. I am so grateful that you and the bushes were there for 9 11. You helped the whole country get through that. But i wanted to know if you think we will ever get to the point where people limit their Public Service that they on their own, that they dont spend whole careers like 50 years in the senate . Guest well, you know, there are term limits now for president at least. I think public life may be but this isnt answering your question. Im thinking that people maybe dont want to go into it as much as they used to because its become so contentious and so difficult. Once you are an incumbent, though, its not so difficult. And since these people are the ones that would have to pass term limits, im not sure i see it happening. Its also the case, though, that there is wisdom gained. You know, i think dick was much wiser after hed served ten years in congress than he would have been, much more prepared to be secretary of defense. And i realize hes changing jobs, but there is wisdom that comes from experience, and im positive that that time as secretary of defense was crucial to his being able to deal wisely with the job as Vice President. So there is this other side to it. But i know what you mean. There are definitely some people who have overstayed their usefulness. Host time for a few more calls with our guest. Jim is in jackson, ohio. Jim, hi. Caller hello. Guest hi, jim. Caller yes, in traveling from the state of ohio to visit my family out in washington state, weve crisscrossed wyoming many times, really enjoyed it. Guest good. Caller i have a question about the book you wrote called telling the truth. I was just wondering if you might make comments on why you wrote it and does it still have relevance today . And perhaps to put it in context in todays world. Guest i think it does, certainly, have relevance. It came out of my experience dealing with people in the humanities whod moved in a direction that i thought wasnt helpful. The whole direction thing, you know, theres no truth, theres no right, theres no wrong. One of my favorite responses to this idea that theres no right and wrong, theres just how you think about it and i think about it, was to say that i knew things that were wrong. Slavery, for example, was wrong. Now, thats a very hard assertion to challenge. But thats what this book is about. And i still think we have a lot of this happening in our colleges and in our schools. The whole idea that, well, what you thought was great when you were young really isnt so great because, you know, for example, the United States victory in world war ii wasnt really great because we interned japanese. Now, we shouldnt have done that, but there was rationale for it at the time. And even recognizing that there may have been error there doesnt heene that the whole doesnt mean that the whole thing wasnt great. So that was the notion that i was trying to battle then. Dont think i won, but i think its still going on today and is something we need to be aware of. Host one would sometimes think, you write in telling the truth from reading todays textbooks that the founders of this country were a most singularly flawed group of men. Guest its true. The best example of this is to read howard zinns history of the American People. Thats his story. Host and we had an email here from somebody about howard zinn, and it was about, that howard zinn focused on people as you talked about focusing on personalities and maybe that was an area where you agreed with howard zinn. Guest i doubt there are many, to tell you the truth. [laughter] host and i apologize, im misquoting the email, but ill look for it. Next call is another jim, this one in per sillville, virginia. Hi, jim. Caller hi, thanks. Im sorry, i was confused with your earlier caller jim, but i just want to say i have a daughter bella too, and im going to get her a is for abigail. Im just wondering if a part of ms. Cheney would want to vote for hillary . And if not, would she win . [laughter] guest no, i wont support mrs. Clinton, but, no, i dont see myself running either. I do think its a better world than it was when i was growing up in that we have women moving into higher positions. How many are in the senate now . I think 14. Were going to have more and more chances to vote for women, but i dont think i will ever vote for someone just because of gender. I will vote for someone whom i think will make this country a secure, a more secure and better place. Host are you having fun watching the 2016s . Guest oh, gee. I mean, you know, its terrifying and interesting, and ive never seen anything like it. Host heres that email, just so i didnt misquote michael in fargo. Im glad to hear your comment that the way to teach history is to focus on the people, this is what howard zinn did in his aptlytitled peoples history of the u. S. , can you offer any thoughts about mr. Zinns contributions to our country . Guest well, is it michael, did you say . I think, michael, that was a good question. [laughter] host nathans in san antonio. Hi, nathan. Please go ahead, just a few minutes left. Caller hey, how you doing . Its an honor to speak to you, mrs. Cheney. Guest good to speak to you. Caller yeah, i had a question with the Founding Fathers, and you had discussed name and legacy. What do you think of your husbands legacy as the guy who brought back torture . [laughter] and would a good Childrens Book be be w is for waterboarding or w is for war criminal host nathan, what do you do in san antonio . Caller i work. Host you want to tell us anything about yourself . Caller i grew up quaker, and im antiwar. Maybe thats it, or maybe its that the gloves came off after 2011 or whatever the excuse was for, and i think its wrong. If he does go to the International Criminal court, and if he does get prosecuted i know he cant travel in certain countries are you going to visit him this prison . Host thats nathan in san antonio. Guest nathan in san antonio cant just say those things without my answering. Youve heard, i know you probably heard that most Important Information that we got that kept us from suffering another attack after 3,000 people had been killed in the first one came from Khalid Sheikh mohammed. There were three people who were waterboarded, and california leak shake mohammed produced information that was absolutely vital to saving more lives. Let me just say, though, that i appreciate your quaker heritage and salute your belief in peace. I just am firmly convinced that the way you get to peace is through having a Strong National Security Defense and policy. Host lynne cheney is the author of 13 books, shes a scholar at the American Enterprise institute, shes the former chair of the National Endowment for the human the cities. The email, and kate repeats something that we talked about earlier in the program, but just in case people werent listening then. Mrs. Cheney, Dolley Madison appears to have been a very highly intelligent, politicallysavvy and active woman. Is there any evidence that she influenced her husbands ideas and thinking about the form of our new government in creating the bill of rights, and is the story about dolley saving the white house relics when the british burned the white house true or just legend . Guest you know, i dont think dolley was a policy person, so i think that the answer is, no. You know, she wasnt telling james that we have to have a bill of rights. She wasnt doing that kind of thing. Actually, they werent married then. [laughter] she wasnt telling james what to do about the war of 1812. Yes, the story about her saving the washington portrait is true, though it has become distorted over years. The historical evidence is that she asks someone in the white house to cut it out of the frame. It was rolled up and sent off with a mr. Carroll for safety. And she did say some save some other things. She put silver in her tote bag. So, yes, yes, that storys true, though it has been exaggerated. Host time for two more calls. Were going to begin with tom in hollywood, florida. Tom, just a few minutes left. Caller thank you for taking my call. I would like to say to mrs. Cheney thank you and your husband for your service. Guest thank you. Caller and a comment on the japanese internment during the second world war. Guest good. Caller i believe that the colombian government at that time was greatly compromised by activities from the japanese populace in that country. And i think roosevelt was looking at that, and thats what caused the internment. Although i dont completely agree that everybody should have been interned. All the japanese should have been. And they a bit overdid it. But i think that was the fear. Guest well, thats interesting. Caller and i would like to pass on to your husband thanks for standing up and speaking out about the administration as it and the, oh, well, the failure of what theyve done to really stand up for america. Guest thank you. Thank you, ill pass that along. Host and final word is from sarah in olympia, washington. Hi, sarah, youre on booktv. Caller thank you. Mrs. Cheney, ive got to read all 13 of your books. Im a reader. [laughter] guest good. Caller i, unfortunately, had my career cut off very early. I wanted to be a teacher. I didnt have the chance to do what i wanted to there, and im thinking ive been very patriotic all my life. Ive been active in politics on getting people elected sort of thing. What do you think about older people, i mean retired people, knowledgeable people Going Forward to actually volunteer to run for office . It seems to me there are many young people out there who could use our help. Guest i think its great. I think its great. I heene, ageism is i mean, ageism is a great social impediment just as sexism is. I think if youre fit and energetic and you want to do that, you should. I was also thinking though as you were talking that being a teacher, reading to kids in school, i mean, these wow, is that ever needed. Especially by someone who knows a little history and wants to share it. Host mrs. Cheney, do you have to be in good shape for a president ial campaign . Guest oh, my, yes. I have to also say dick did it after five heart attacks. But, you know, it came at a time in his life when he was very fit. He had a bad heart, and were so lucky now, you know, since hes left the vice presidency, hes had a heart transplant. And its a miracle, modern medicine. You think how its changed our world, and when i raze history, i cant help read history i cant help think how it could have been different. Guest weve got some video we want to of to show of you campaigning at ellis island. Guest oh, what a wonderful place. Host there you are campaigning. Whats a normal day of campaigning like in the middle of a president ial tell me your schedule. Guest well, you know, you just get up and go all day. But the wonderful thing about a Political Campaign is that you dont do anything else. It just totally absorbs you. You just cant worry about the laundry, you know . [laughter] its total energizing and absorbing. Host were you handed a piece of paper with your schedule on it in the morning . Guest yes. I mean, i went i had some part maybe not during the campaign, but after in developing it. Oh, look at those little girls, theyve grown so big now. Host do you remember that day . Guest yes. Host or do they start to bartend . Guest i see those little girls, and i remember that day. Host lynne cheney. Author, scholar, second lady for eight years and the author of these books, a couple of novels, executive privilege and sisters, 79 and 81. Tyrannical machines came out in 1990 on educational practices. Telling the truth, which weve talked about quite extensively today, 1996, why our culture and our country have stopped making sense and what we can do about it. Kings of the hill written with her husband about house of representatives. Childrens books while second lady, america a patriotic primer, 2002. A is for abigail, an alma that can of amazing women, 2003. When washington crossed the delaware, a time for freedom, 2005. Our 50 states, another Childrens Book in 2006, and blue skies, no fences, her memoir, 2007. We the people, her last Childrens Book, was in 2008. And then James Madison, a bestseller, a life reconsidered, came out in 2014. Lynn cheney for the last three hours has been our guest on booktvs in depth. Guest went fast