Orleans guest new orleans . What makes it special . Host what makes it, well, unique was the word i was going to use and a little bit different. Its one of the few unique places left. Guest i always say its an ethnicity to come from new orleans. We have our own food, our own music and a real sense of place. It is not, it isnt like any other place in the country. Its much more mediterranean. It, in fact, in capital dames elizabeth playly, whos here in washington, is very much for the union, but as various times, as you know, i have trouble thinking of the south as our enemy. Theyre all our relatives in kentucky and in virginia and tennessee, and she says now new orleans, thats different. Theyre a bunch of french people in quadroons. So that was a sense that it was just a Foreign Place. Now, it was a Foreign Place with a very important port, and that was true throughout the history of this country. But it was always welcoming and remains welcoming to all kinds of people. When i was growing up, always all the store windows said bench [speaking french] so there was always that sense of multiple languages. And party, you know . Its a great place to party and parade. And that spirit just permeates the place. Going right after katrina, my biggest sense even with all the huge devastation there, the thing that i couldnt get over the most was the silence. I had never been in the city in my whole life when it was silent t. And finally one day there was a seoul trumpet sole trumpet that played. Thank god, somebodys back with an instrument. So it is, its a special place. Host i think its in capital dames that you talk about a trip you took to fort sumter with your grandkids. Guest i did, yes. We were there with my daughters children, and at that point her youngest was fairly young. And, of course, these kids go to these places and try to completely salve venn bier scavenger in the gift shop. So he says to his mother, what side were we on . He didnt know whether to buy blue or gray. [laughter] she said everybody who was alive in your family at the time fought for the south, but it was good for the country that the north won. And i think thats a very good description. Host in from this day forward, where with your husband, steve roberts, you talk about the vietnam war and a luncheon you had with your folks at 21. Guest not one of my proudest moments, right . Host what happened . Guest well, it was a time when people were very tempers were flaring over the vietnam war, and there was a lot of generational conflict. And my father was in the democratic leadership of congress and a supporter, strong supporter of president johnsons. And the Johnson Family and our family was very close. And my husband was, you know, subject to the draft, and it was a very bad moment when we got in a big screaming fight in public about the vietnam war which is not something i normally would do. Host and you say you regret it to this day. Guest yeah, i do regret et. Host this is a text message from dan in chicago. Having suffered sudden family loss myself, i wonder if cokie could speak to the loss of her father, hal boggs, in a plane crash. Guest its understandable. The plane was never found, and so people always have conspiracies about things like that. Amelia earhart, theres conspiracies around to this day. But it was, of course, incredibly shocking and painful, and not having a body, frankly, is a very unsettling thing. Theres a reason for our rituals around death, and they are i dont, the word closure is a terrible word, and i dont believe in it, but they are comforting. And they are a way of understanding that the death has actually occurred. And not having that is very unsettling is the only word i can use. And i, as i said earlier, live in the house that i grew up in. And for a long time after we moved in, i was hesitant t to change the kitchen wallpaper because i thought maybe hed show up and be confused if the wallpaper wasnt the same. Just totally irrational attitudes, and i didnt act on them, but they were there in the back of my brain. So its a very difficult sort of situation to have to deal with. I know intellectually that the, by far the most likely thing to have happened is that the p plane iced up and sunk to the bottom of Prince William sound which is 600 feet deep and was just never seen again. But thats one thing to know intellectually and another thing to embrace emotionally. And there are conspiracy theories, you know, ranging from he was on the warren commission, and maybe he knew something about the kennedy death, or he was or there was, he and Herbert Hoover had had, cross swords, and maybe there was something with hoover. I mean, there have been all kinds of conspiracy here theori. I dont think thats the way life works. I think conspiracies are much too rational. I think that life is much less rational. Host and this text message, wonderful example of women, bring about change. I wonder if you know of the book written out of history by sonya hendry and emily tatts. With your unique background, i thought you might be interested in knowing the idea of women being ignored by historians. Guest its true. Our names are not on the documents, and we werent the generals in the war. And so there is a sense that, therefore, the women werent important. Thats why ive devoted a great part of my life to trying to change that. Host 202 is the area code, 7488200 in the east and central time zones, 2027488201 in the mountain and pacific. You can also send a text message, dont call this number, just for text messages, 2027179684, and in this second half of our program were going to be looking at some of twitter messages and the Facebook Comments as well. Right now its laura in erie, pennsylvania, with Cokie Roberts. Caller good afternoon. I have to bring up an issue that might be one of the ones you referred to about talking to Gloria Steinem that might be exhausting [laughter] caller i dont know what your personal views are, but i think it has been just an atrocity that millions of 55 million plus up born babies since roe v. Wade have been killed in abortion. I think youre catholic. I would like to hear your views about what we could do to lessen the number. I know its going down, and we all most of us deplore the acts of the person who shot up planned parenthood. But i wanted to ask you particularly if you think that there was an article in the guardian about save unborn life, its a charity that offers money who wont dont want to abort but they do because of financial struggles. Host all right, laura, i think we got your point. Lets get an answer. Guest i think that movement to try to help women who want to carry their babies to term is very important. Its one of the things that has been true in the Catholic Church for a long time, or particularly the religious women of the church are trying to help those women. Its clearly a subject that is of terrible divisiveness in the country because its not something where its not like money where you can split the difference. And so people who feel very strongly, feel very strongly morally on both sides, actually. But i think that those of us who would like to see no abortions, that the answer really is moral asuasion rather than laws because we know what happens when you pass laws that people dont believe in and go around. So i think that the work on moral suasion actually is succeeding to some degree. As you just said, the number of abortions has gone down, and the attitudes among young people on the subject are very different from among young people of an earlier age. So i think, i think that to continue to be compassionate and to show mercy, as the pope said, to the people who have found themselves in this position makes a tremendous, great deal of sense and will also have an impact. Being angry and hateful is not the way to win hearts and minds. Host chapter six from this day forward is on divorce, and you talk about the fact that roman catholics divorce at the same rates as other groups. You go on to say guest and have abortions. Host you go on to say one reason for this trend is divorce breeds divorce. As the National Marriage project puts it, divorce is an everpresent theme in the books, music and movies of the youth culture, and reallife experience is hardly reassuring. Guest well, you know, again, theres some evidence that the divorce rate is going down. And, of course, what does happen with divorce is a good bit of recidivism. But i certainly saw it with my kids generation where they, they were so aware of their friends parents divorces that it was something that they kind of looked for in mates, hoping they could find someone that was not out of that pattern of divorce. But, you know, look, its like anything else. Are there some people for whom doors is the right answer . Absolutely. And particularly, of course, in an abusive situation. But and are all divorces bad . Absolutely not. But to the degree that you can try to stay married forever, i think its probably better. But its not for everybody. And, you know, im not the person to host why did you devote a whole chapter in this book guest because you cant talk about marriage without talking about divorce. Host next call for Cokie Roberts comes from brent in portland, michigan. Hi, brent. Caller hi. Yes. Cokie, do you think that we would ever have the political will to have Campaign FinanceNational Campaigns where washington politicians guest no. [inaudible] [laughter] guest my answer to that question is, no. There was, you know, the brief moment in our history where we had that, and then the Supreme Court ruled in valeo v. Buck hi that you couldnt keep somebody from spending his own money in a political campaign. And so that started to unraffle the whole thing unravel the whole thing. And as you well know since then, its been unraveled even more. But even before we had the Citizens United decision from the Supreme Court, you did not have members of Congress Voting to publicly finance campaigns. For two reasons. One is that its always hard to get people to change the financing of, from the way they were elected. They got there under the current system. So thats always difficult. But its also true that if you try to go to the taxpayers and say youre going to pay for political campaigns, most taxpayers would be up in arms. So its a very, very, very hard nut to crack. Host Cokie Roberts wrote her first book in 1998, we are our mothers daughters. From this day forward, with her husband steve roberts, came out in 2000. Founding mothers came out in 2004. Ladies of liberty in 2008. Uniting traditions for interfaith families. Working on her second Childrens Book, and her most recent bestseller is capital dames the civil war and the women of or washington. Guest this is the revised and expanded version of we are our mothers daughters which came out in 2009. Host yes, there is a revised, updated version of we are our mothers daughters. Guest and you have a noisy machine over there. Host i apologize for that. [laughter] kay in denver, hi. Caller hi. Im so pleased to have an opportunity to see this program. Guest good. Caller its been wonderful. Cokie, i first heard of you, actually met you, in commerce, texas, in 1975. You came to the sam rayburn symposium on that small School Campus along with ladybird, sarah weddington, Liz Carpenter and a host of other wonderful people. Im so glad i had the opportunity to hear you, because i continue to Teach High SchoolGovernment Guest wonderful. Caller for 30 years. Guest oh, thats great. Caller and ive loved all your works, and its just wonderful to have the opportunity to see you. Would you tell me the proper way that i, a former texan and now a colorado should pronounce the name of your state . Guest in texas you probably say louisiana. And theres even a difference in louisiana among louisianians because people in north louisiana might be inclined to say louisiana as well, but it is louisiana. Host and youve been saying new orleans. Guest right. So new orleans is pronounced differently by everybody, and you can almost tell by what ward you grew up in by the way you pronounce it. The way i pronounce it is saying new orleans very fast. Host sandra in california. Caller hi, Cokie Roberts. You are a National Treasure to our great country. Im a 70yearold Senior Citizen guest listen, im older than you are, im older than you are, so stop with that Senior Citizen stuff. Caller god bless you. [laughter] keep up your work, your voice is soft. We need you. Guest well, arent you kind . Thank you very, very much, i appreciate that. Caller i look forward to getting your last book. Guest great, please do. Host Cokie Roberts, do you like the public attention . Maybe like isnt the right word. Are you used to not being able to go out in public without stopping you . Guest people are kind. People are very kind. And the people who dont like me dont come up and say anything, im happy to say. So i can hardly be resentiment of that resentful of that. And ill tell you, peter, when it was really important, it was after it was public that i had breast cancer. At first i found it somewhat offputting that people would come up to me and talk about it, and then i thought, you jerk. Here are people offering you their goodwill, their prayers, their concern, and they have noisy machines. And i then realized that i was really cushioned by it. And it was a wonderful support system of strangers. Host kent in irving, texas. Please go ahead. Caller cokie, ive really enjoyed your work, and i want to thank you for upholding family says. Guest thank you. Caller that means a lot to me. Is and im sorry for the losses in your family. But i did want to ask you, dont you think that a Common Thread in our political structure that causes the biggest problems is the money . Theres no way that all these candidates are spending this much money on their campaigns. I mean, wed be making trillionaires overnight through airtime and newspaper ads. Its just bribery, and i name be it. Guest i agree that money is a huge issue in politics, as i said earlier. But the one thing to keep in mind is that people who spend a great deal of money often lose. I mean, let me introduce you to steve forbes, you know . Let me introduce you to ross perot. Its not dispositive. It can, its a very heavy thumb on the scale. But it doesnt necessarily tip the scale. And i think thats something that is worth keeping in mind. Host steven, decatur, illinois. We are talking with author and commentator Cokie Roberts. Hi, steven. Caller hello. Good day. You know, i dont necessarily consider cokie a National Treasure, i just [laughter] to me, she was always a straight talker, someone that was very charming. I could get the facts, and that was very, very charming. I heard a story that you told about your husband. He was up taking care of the guests while you were taking care of the furnace, and you started thinking of i think you started thinking about divorce. [laughter] but you, obviously, love him, and it didnt matter. Guest you know, thats a true story. It was exactly it was him and the landlord. It was even worse than a guest. We were live anything greece, and he and the land lord are sitting in the living room together having a dream while im in the basement fixing the furnace. There was something wrong with that picture. [laughter]. Syndicated around the country and the magazine so he is busy. Host after the New York Times he went to u. S. News and world report for a long time. Guest and the president said the magic words in doubt chair. Because he had been an adjunct maryann loved it, someone he got full professorship. Host from this day forward, you are pretty frank in their about when he became more prominent, at least your face and the more wellknown than he and what that did your marriage or what it didnt do. Guest some men would not be able to deal with that particularly of our generation. We were not raised expecting that. And all of the young men expected to be president of the United States, and so to have we women didnt expect to do anything. The tables turned, and we need to go through a lot of changes in society and in our own lives. We met very young, we have been able to manage those shoals together and very loving lee. It doesnt mean every day has been perfect but we have been married 49 years and it is a very nice thing. Host text message from kansas city, missouri. Long admired you. Insightful observer of people and the world of politics, your Historical Research in writing is remarkable but i would enjoy reading your eye witness account to the years to modern history, any chance . Guest no. First of all i feel like i do that all the time. I comment on and write about things but secondly it is nice to write about dead people. They cannot argue with you. One of the defendants, i had that defendant come up and give me grief not long ago about one of my books and i said give it a rest. She is dead for hundreds of years. It is important to bring this history to life. I am on a mission to let americans know about the women in our history. To learn about it myself and second, to let americans know about it. Host irving, texas, you are on booktv with Cokie Roberts. Guest another irving, texas. Caller good afternoon. Enjoy cspan, i enjoy your books and your work on abc, i would like to ask similar to the ladies that you write about do you feel you have taken advantage of the opportunities you have been given in journalism and a historian or have you been able to shape those opportunities yourself and what do you think about facebook for washington d. C. . Guest i think i have been very blessed. I was blessed to be born into the family that i was born into and have the education that i had, i have healthy children and grandchildren, it will really, a series of gifts. To the degree that i have been able to make a success of it i take advantage of