We have it signed here but his book is the luckiest n, light with john mccain and jim and i have been fascinated with it. I didnt expect to read every word as my reading list is so vast and once i started i couldnt put it down. Its kind of you tosay, thank you. You worked with senator mccain in 2005 and i am blanketing, i know you did seven books, do you remember which was the 2005 one . It could have been a book on character assassination. We sold thousands of copies and one to the senator and i believe we ran low on signed copies. I find this a little strange to be talking about him without him after spending time with him. The other thing id like to say before i turn this over to jim was that i was really surprised that the mccain family listened to deep roots. I just assumed he had western roots. Im a carpetbagger in arizona. But i didnt recognize that john mccain was perceived as something of a carpetbagger when he ran for office but i asked johngrisham when we did an event , of course he was in smalltown mississippi and i learned just a little bit and im going to read it again to get his reaction. The attitudes of his i. E. John mccains southern forebears had its ancestors in earlier generations to distinguish themselves in war offer parallels to colonies of his own personality. Derived in part from the personalities of his father and grandfather who were steep especially his grandfather in the tradition of the mississippi mccains. It certainly is high spiritedness , enthusiasm and craving for adventure run an inheritance from mccain and his mother and Melissa Spencer who wrote about john mccain said this when mccains uncle and grandfather went to mississippi. What could they do around small towns in an area not yet healedfrom the civil war . Law, the church, nothing seemed to challenge them. And both john and i think thought that was fascinating and also were surprised at johns history as an mississippianso thank you for that insight. Im going to sit back and let you take over here. Thank you so much for doing this. Thank you barbara and thank you mark for a fascinating andcompelling book. I put my cards on the table and congratulate you on that. Im going to starty telling a story about the firstime i ever met john mccain andhow i quickly learned a lot about him. Through thatexperience. We were both on the face the nation show and john mccain was coming out and i was going to go on and there was a pae there, a break. Jo mccain walked up to me and said ive been readg this stuff youre writing about thisbozo clinton and i dont like it. I respectfully disagreand then went on to the showthe next day , im sitting at my desk at the washington post, and its john mccain. Its not you, its not his secretary,ts john mccain and he proces to apologize to me and to say to me that he had quite an irh temper. And i said to him well, my mothers maidename was salter so im familiar with that but i was justmpressed with your book d the way in which he did thatnd the genuine nature of his apology. Now, you learned a lot of his temper as well. You write at one point that he and you got locked into a terrificargument and he said to you finally, we both have been hot heads, the two of us. One of us should calmdown. Talk a little bit about john mccains temper and how it manifested itself and how you lived with it or didnt live with it. Its kind of like a summer squall, it came out in sudden bursts and moved on when it was sunny skies buhe was very rarely everdirected downwards. He could argue with anybody, his staff had great license to tell him what they thought they were never afraid to challenge him or disagree with him when he would argue write back if he didnt agree but when i think he thought he lost control of himself, you know, he became discourteous and personal or something, he always regretted that and many many people have been recipients of a note hastily written or an apolo. He didnt pick on a legend, it was kind of exaggerated i think to be honest really it wasnt that big ofa problem. He just had one. It could come up fitfully, it could be an inmidating thing to the hold while it was happening but he said a fight not joined isa fight not enjoyed. And i think the best line anybody ever wrote about john mccains personality was the late journalist bob temper in his wonderful book nightingale song. He was describing mccain as a plea at the Naval Academy and when he participated this summer and in a line i think itsverbatim , unschooled as a boxer mccain found e center of the ring and threw punches untilsomebody went down. That really was an apt description of him. Don mccain let his emotions and character show more and more purely than any other politician. Discussed that in relationship to his upbringing and to his family. His mily had the roots in plantation life in mississippi. John mccain never considered himself and never acted as a southerner as you point out in the book. And so he was brought up in a military context. As a military brat. Thats right. Talk a little bit about his parents, his family and that influence on him. It wasnt just his father but it was his grandfather. There was i think the first father and son, fourstar admiral. His grandfathers brother was a west point graduate. I think he got Brigadier General in the army. He had mccain relatives in the service and ever professional soldier and sailor and every genetion going back to the volution. But he was imbued with a sort of tradition of the military and his father and grandfather preached and ethos, but he tried very hard. His sortf codes he lived by were an amalgam of codes that he inherited. His father and grandfather taught him, the literature he wrote, he was one of the most well re the people ive ever known and he consumed fiction and nonfiction he always had two or three booksellg at the same time. But it was sort of the hemingway code of grace under pressure and courage and selfsacrifice was very important as were the honor codes of two institutions that were important in his life, alexander virginia and i think the Naval Academy where he was rebellious, had very poor discipline and very cle to building out of the Naval Academy, graduated fifth from the bottom of this class but he never took pre init, i never violated the honor code. I think the idea that were serving a cause bigger than ourselves is what de him, is why he wore his emotions onis sleeve all the time. It was devoted to hicauses and he rarely no matter how angry he was he would never give them up and he would get quite emotional about it from time to time and i think all those things contributed to that class unit passing reference to the fact that his father jack mccain was a binge drinker. You have an allusion to his alcoholism. How did that affect john . It did affect him. He had a hard time pullingout of john mccain how itaffected him. He was among , he was very candid, very unguarded person when you were talking to him but he did become a little tightlipped when talking about his father. I think he revered his father and his father was gone all the time on deployments and i once asked him, he said the difference between your father and grandfather was your grandfather loved the navy and your father lived for the navy and i said give me an example of how that was and all he said was at christmas, my father would come down and we would open our presents and we would go back upstairs, put on his uniformand walked to his office and thats all he said. Didnt comment on it other than the observation and when i would ask him about his he would, he allowed his father had a binge drinking problem and that he struggled with all his life but heroically area he would get sober and be on the way for a long time and then start all over again. He would prey on his knees every night to overcome this, his habits and when i asked how did it affect you when you saw your father drunk, how did affect yourview of him , he said i didnt recognize him. And i said why so . He goes because he was a completely different person and i didnt recogni and and all thats all i uld pull out of him. Can relate to that. Talk a little bit about his mother who unfortunately passed away last week at age 108 and must have been one of the more remarkable women. I never met anybody like her. She really was one of themost memorable people youd ever encounter. She had a good run and she wouldve been the first to say her age was 20 but she was old, curious, adventurous , resilient, charming. Just beautiful, well into her golden years, beautiful woman ive ever met. She had an identical twin sister and they were just as tight as sisters could be and when they were both widows they traveled. She and her sister were inveterate travelers and in the 90s they went to europe and planned to rent a car in germany and drive to turkey and the rental car company to police on the car, they were in their 90s so they bought a mercedes. Her sister lived in la where roberta and rowena were brought up and she decided, roberta decided to spend christmas with her and john got a call from arizona Highway Patrol saying they must have just beenpulled over outside flagstaff 212 on the interstate. But he credits her and john more importantly for the purposes of my book, he credits her with his curiosity, his rebellion because his father was a more remote figure and his mother really raised him and he was most transparently his mothers son and of course it was devoted to her and loved her very much. It warmsyour heart to think they were reunited right now. Well, talk a little bit about how johns mother and father presented him with the option of going to the Naval Academy. And never ordered himto go. They just talked as a function he was going. He said nobody ever asked me if i wanted to go. He would talk about being a little kid, i guess he was about nine at the end of world war ii and he said he hide under the table when his father came home from the war and hisgrandfather unfortunately died the day after he came home from the war. They would have to officers over and they be talking about their war experiences and he would hide under the table and listen to the stories that you hear his parents say its time to their friends, this is john, hes going to the Naval Academy and he resented it. He once told me it was a place i knew i belong at dreaded area and he didnt like having free will, having a say in the matter. This could have presented him with a real opportunity to be a belto rebel against the academy. But i guess he didnt, tell us. I think he rebelled biting insubordinate. He piled up against the Naval Academy and he got in trouble a lot, went over the wall like you would at the academy and went to Downtown Washington in the Old Neighborhood where there mighbe burlesqueshows. But he had the good fortune of being mens lord. Workedff the demerits by working ithe yard of one of the masters, the english master , i guy by the name of williaravenel who had been i think intake command in pattons army in world war ii. And john revered him area he taught john to love shakespeare and a lot of great literature as his father and mother didas well. But he revered him and he sort of model is co, modelehis code on william ravenels code ofconduct. But the Naval Academy, he was described as a lder in his class but not because of academics or class standing or you know, any form of achievement. He w constantly in trouble and ways being boed out of the place. He got in a lot of trouble and he said once, i had extradition on the weekends to pay off these demerits to walk to baltimore and back 17 times but i think that was his way of clearing himself and that was the great art of this story. The individualism that really didnt get subdued so much as he sawimself in the context of something larger than himself when hwent to vietnam and i think result that needn him to assert his independence and while they always remain mad i guess you could say, he talked about subsuming his own interest and accomplishing some larger purpose. Im going to follow the chronology or actually the structure that you follow in your bk is you go away from john dietary carrier to talk abouthis political career. So lets talk a little bit about it but we will come back to the military part. John mccains decision to run for congress in 1981, what led him to go intopolitics . His job in the navy was the United States senate. Nonpoliticians were friends of his were in there but he worked in the senate, he was effectively the navys lobbyist in the Armed Services committee and he got on that committee and as part of his duties he would assert some of those numbers when they took overseas trips and he became of a protcgc of john power and Barry Goldwater and jackson and some of the old bowls in National Security guys and he became kind of peers in personal conflict to the younger guys at that time. Theyre all old now but they were young back in the 70s. Bill cohen, young senator biden. He traveled with them and became friends with them and he told me he would watch in amazement area he be in the Armed Services committee and he would see Scoop Jackson or powers and they would scribble something on a piece of scrap paper and that would become an amendment to the defense bill and hundreds of millions of dollars would be sent from one account to another just like that and he said it dawned on me that most of these guys had more power than a one or two star admiral would ever have which was the most i think he said he could realistically aspire to. So he decided to retire from the navy and he went there clearly with an entry into politics in mind. I wanted to ask you why you chose that structure area you talk about politics instead of going straight into the incredible story of john mccain getting shot down. And then was of course tortured and he refused to accept an early release. Why did he shift to politics before he got that . I thought it would reflect but i would share how that experience affected him as a politician if we got into the story. It didnt matter because any politician you have a conscience, you have to task all the time and he had some early on and what that experience, is sort of main crucible in vietnam when he refused it, that was the test of his life brought him to trust his own probity and sense of honor. It will him. I think it made him realize that he wasnt Strong Enough, maybe Strong Enough to get through all the challenges of life on his own but it also wasnt to trust his own judgment and it refined his sense of honor which was provoked i think in a couple of early experiences, john powers nomination so i wanted to begin to go back and show how it affted him. He was elected to the senate in 1986 and staffed in 1989. And you were with him for two runs for the presidency. 2000 and 2008. At that time as therepublican partys nominee. And you make the point that in all of his electoral campaigns but particularly in the president s ones he ran on and egos rather than a governing philosophy. Talk about that a little bit area what difference does that make them and how successful was that . He was a conventionally centerright guy. Smaller, more effective government, a strong defense. He had those fears but when you look for, when you asked to give a philosophical review of his politics he looked at you like whats your problem, son . Not to philosophize. I saidim serving my country here , and he had a very practical humility about the role of amember of congress. But you shouldnt expect to get 100 percent of your away but you can make modest progress on the problems of your time and honorable thing to achieve so he believed if you look at the american experiment in a sacredcontext. That we were proven that selfgovernment was the only moral government and all beings are entitled to it. He thought that was a great precious clause that was placed in the hands of the people elected to represent americans and congress and the white house and who do their workoverseas. And you know, things that sort of exacerbate public impressions of politicians as selfinterested and corrupt and all that were sort of complicated that cause and hurt that cause so he sort of had this probity in government that we are here to serve and its a noble project, lets do it fairly. Lets make progress on our problems and lets not put ourselvesfirst all the time. I think it was a code, he was a man with a code of conduct and thats how he operated. Thats the thing that came through most clearly in the instces in the 2008 campaign where he actually defended his opponent against racist attac from his own supporters area i thought that was justabout john mccains finest moment. It was an impressive thing to behold. I was fortunate enough to be in that event where he did that and was booed by his own supporters, some of them. Most people ey are gave him a good round of applause. Campaign also contained two enormous mistakes that you helped h make. Yeah. One was sarah palin. The other was calling for an economic summit suspending campaigning and failing to put forward a convincing program there. Talk about those two mistakes and how quickly both of you, john mccain and you realize they were mistakes and didnt leave any lasting effects in your relationship with each oth . Not those two decisions, number earlier things in 2007 , i wouldnt say strained our relationship but wean talk about that some other time, ill answer yourquestion directly. One thing senator mccain would never allow one way or another, he felt responsible for puttg her on the ticket. He felt her he put her in a position she wasnt prepared for and she struggled under the strain of it and he felt bad about it and never said a d word about her. He did say many times privately and publicly that he wished he had done what he wanted to do what was make Joe Lieberman his runningmate. That was a fraught desire of hithat would have led to a very messy convention and a lot of unhappy republicans but he said that was my mistake. He never phrased it putting her on the ticket was my mistake, it was not tting Joe Lieberman on theticket was a mistake. Cent leaving lieberman was a democr and he was an independent caucus with democrats area he was convinced to meet with sarah palin and was impressed on the meeting with her. Because she was pitched to him as a reformer republican. Taking on the republican establishment and taking on the oilcompanies of alaa. And we got a settlemt for alaskans that was quite an improvement over what they were getting and also the argument was made that it would satisfy lori clinton voters who we dissatisfied with how the primar