Transcripts For CSPAN2 Joe Klein On Politics And Literature

Its a pleasure to be back here. Here. Joe and i were just comparing socks, crucial political issue, and you can see he has the best ones. [applause] like everyone else who has been on this stage, perhaps myself excluded, joe clines conditionals are so numerous and so varied that you need to read about them. Theres no point in going through them here. We will lose time. Especially considering the fact that joe has just told me he has Public Service announcements to make. Some going to, if we ask any questions spirit i do have a few Public Service announcements. Since were coming to the end of the road, i just want to complement the people who put this thing on. [applause] it has been pure joy every minute of it. I mean, the endorphins are just running crazy in my brain. And also im just so honored to have been on the same stage with so many brilliant and wonderful writers. I want to do a special shout out to Joyce Carol Oates who defended against the 80 towards on this stage in your paneled the other day. [laughter] and 20 years ago when the 80 towards becoming after me after i wrote primary colors she defend me, too. And she defended the act of writing anonymously. Dont screw up my questions, joe. I also want to thank the for young cubanamerican High School Teachers who may be in audience today that we had dinner with last night. They teach in miami and it was just inspirational to hang with them. And that i have an observation. Ive been looking at that thing, the Abraham Lincoln, for the last four days. Its the only rendering of Abraham Lincoln that i found that isnt haunting. Every last other one was haunting and i was trying to think, it was kind of like photoshop. Did they have photoshop in the 19 century . I wish id figure out who he kind of look like and i think it looks like a cross between mitt romney and gary cooper. [laughter] so they had political spin doctors back then. And finally i want to say that Donna Brazile is a good friend of mine, and she gave me many of the questions in advance. [laughter] so fire away. [laughter] and the answer to the first one is that the Supreme Court really is a crucial issue in this race, but if you dont get out there and vote to not get the Supreme Court that you want. Yes. Evidently. [laughter] in payback, your book about vietnam veterans, actually im going to start with something else, sorry spirit wait a second. I dont want you to come this is a question you dont know. The narrator of primary colors knew the beginning of a guy who is sort of beginning to attach himself to the president ial candidate jack stanton says, hes trying to make a decision about whether to keep following vicki says anyway, i was curious. Thats a sentence that really struck me even though its pretty plain speech. In comparison and in relation to your career as a journalist. What is a journalist curiosity come from . Why do you, for instance, in payback which is what was going to start with, and payback you go back and talk to i think five veterans of Charlie Company and you want to know why. Well, in my case, this is a nice biographical question, it comes from having been a child of the 60s and kind of made my way through College Without ever going to college and graduated from College Without ever having learned anything except for one brilliant course but the history of the south. And i came out and i was angry about the war and is angry about segregation. And i started to write. Over time an incredible thing happened to me. I found the one action without and reported things, the results were not, didnt always conform with my preconceived notions. For example, i covered bussing in boston for the underground press for the real paper. You know if any of you remember that brilliant publication. [applause] one of the most talented staffs i ever worked with. And i couldnt find any like people who favored bussing. I would talk to these women, his these black woman at Columbia Point Housing Project and it say things like which is that the last four years try to get a Breakfast Program in this place and now theyre making our kids go off to civilize donkeys . And the fact is that 20 of Jeremiah Burke high school, the black high school, went on to college, and 4 of southie high, in fact southiegraduated more kids into the the marines than he did into college. And it seemed to me this was the beginning of my political education. That this was being imposed by liberals who did know anything about the working, poor people they were imposing this on. And so over time i just picked up things i wanted to know about. When russia was collapsing i went to russia. I did china. I did veterans because the notion of service has always been a huge thing in my life. And, in fact, charlie mike my most recent book is the one that probably of the seven ive written is closest to my heart but it was an educational process, thats all. So lets talk about, i mean, you have in your dossier three basic categories writing. One is a novel, one is a journalism reporting which you have just spoken about, and the third is column which is different from the other two obviously. Let me ask you how come since were here to talk about revealing power but also literature, how do those three different categories affect the way you write, do you feel different . I guess youre not writing fiction anymore what did you i am working on some now. Excellent. Didnt know that. I came from the underground press. I was Rolling Stones Washington Bureau chief in the mid70s, and it seemed to me the mood and from that to writing a column was a very natural thing, and also ive written a column for 30 years now, or thereabouts, but i never wrote it the way other people did. Chin and think deep thoughts. I had to go to afghanistan. I had to go to iraq. I had to go across this country many times talking to people. I had to go to tea party meetings. I had to actually see these things and experience them because of that First Experience in boston. More general way, the process of doing journalism and writing fiction are the exact opposite for me. Although both involve some research obviously, but in journalism i just report the hell out of something and i get the lead in my mind and a sit down and write the lead, and then i completely panic. With fiction writing, and this was especially true with primary colors come with a lesser extent the the running mate which was a semisequel to primary colors, i apologize i did read that book. Its the exact opposite. I have no idea what the characters are going to do next. And i sitdown totally panicked and then they Start Talking to each other. I once had a conversation with, i twice had a conversation with bill clinton about primary colors on ill tell you both of them before the end of go ahead right now. This one was, i said to him, you know, the deal was that the gimmick was going to be that he is going to lose, but he just wouldnt. I kept on throwing al all of the stupidest scanner somewhere out there at this character, xml he would wiggle his way out of there. He wrote me a wonderful note thanking me for my subconscious. [laughter] he said, i always knew you liked me. And the truth is that i did. Lets talk about primary colors for a second. I had the privilege of editing that book. I did not know who wrote it until the day before joes press conference, and i liked that fact. Lets i like the fact you thought i was lisa grunwald. I dont think that could be any higher praise that a male writer can receive than to be thought a woman. [laughter] [applause] very good. So lets not talk, i promise we will not talk about the anonymity of primary colors and the publication from the standpoint of stupid controversy. Let me ask you literary questions. Why did you decide to write it anonymously . There were three stages to this process. The first stage was cowardice and whimsy. The cowardice part is that sounds like a law firm. [laughter] it was a dickensian a law firm. My first two editors were named bob cutting and irving sheer. [laughter] but cowardice and whimsy, every last journalist thinks that they have a novel sitting in the brain, which is a really stupid conceit, because its just an entirely, entirely different thing. I didnt want to make a fool of myself, but also my wife and i, especially my wife who is best read person i know, loved 19th century english literature. Nobody put the name on anything back then. Jane austen was, it was pride and prejudice by a lady. The first semi, not the first, and early semitolerable political novel, democracy, was written anonymously by henry adams and his secret was in revealed until three years after he died. So that was the first part. Then the second part was the cowardice . No. The cowardice was i was afraid i would make a fool of myself. The second stage was things started happening to these characters. Things that i didnt expect. At one point in the second chapter, susan sten tells the story about jack stanton as a young politician that had absently no basis in reality. In fact, none of the dialogue and a book at any basis in reality. And i said where the hell did that, from . And then libby, my favorite character, my heroine, sixfoot lesbian with a mouth on her, suddenly appeared in a job that Betsey Wright had any campaign but i did know that you write. I had kathy bates in my mind when i wrote her. I would write during the day and i bring the pages up, down to victoria at night, the libby pages and she would start reading and laughing hysterically and saying where the hell did this come from . And i didnt know. I decided i wanted to have the book judged on its own merits rather than on my relationship with bill clinton i knew that if my name were on it it would not be treated fairly by my fellow journalists. And then the third stage was after it exploded, which none of us expected i did. You did . I did. And why did random house keep producing the printing week . Are you kidding . They couldnt keep up with it. After it was published. Because they didnt thats publishing for you. It got scary as hell. To have a feeding frenzy going after you. And when i became a target, we had two little kids are going to Elementary School and i said to victoria, i think i want to come up. She said no, no, no. No. I think that in the end i probably shouldve come out earlier, but there was a lot of fear going on. So thats why. Okay. How did you decide to take the voice of a young black political worker . What led to that choice of narrator . Well, it was an all my two Arthur Penn Warren who robert. Thats okay. Another anonymously. I say we give you a pass on that. Why black and why young . And the other most crucial part of this is that he was the most middleclass, uppermiddleclass character in the book, which i thought would be kind of ironic and hilarious. Blackness was in part because i had several people in mind, one of them was myself obviously. Another was george stephanopoulos, and the third was bill morton, who was in a two ron brown who was an aide to Ron Frederick was a wonderful smart guy who died in that plane crash. And years later, and this is happened to me sometimes with primary colors, a woman whod been dating bill morton came up to me and she said, how did you know that clinton had him come to an event in brooklyn and want him to be on staff . And i said i had no idea. It just, it just happened in the novel. It was in harlem. Did the choice of that narrator affect your voice . I mean, did you inhabit him . Did he inhabit you . Who knows . I mean, there was some you should. There was some kind of melding going on. I wrote the book on mondays, because you know, i was working at newsweek at the time and tuesday through saturday was the work week, and on saturday and sunday i was also doing commentary for cbs news. And i would sit down and all of a sudden it would be four hours later, and 5000 words wouldve been written. That is never happen to be before or since. Ive had some good days, but those days were kind of scary. And the active disappearing i think is a really important thing for all of us. I think that the purest state of intellectual nature is when you are so involved with what you are thinking about that you disappear, that you forget about your corporal existence. You use the word scary witches, you almost sort of glanced over it. I come in so far as i ever shared that experience, most of the writers i know would say the same thing. Its a little puzzling to me why its frightening. Do you have any ideas when you get in as they call it does so and you sort of forget yourself. Its not frightening while you are in the zone, but when you leave the zone is, the biggest fear is am i ever going to get there again . Can i come back . So i promised that we wouldnt talk about the controversy, so lets talk about the controversy. What do you say . Okay. What were your experiences going through that firestorm before, during and after . I mean, just talk about what it was like. It was a fabulous learning experience. It was incredibly painful but it was a fabulous learning experience. Guess i was just shocked. I was shocked by the anger. We did that first press conference, you and i shook hands for the first time. You hated me groucho glasses. I walked out and i said, i held them up and i said i guess i will be needing these anymore. The New York Times reported come subsequent that he gave the press Conference Wearing groucho glasses. There is nothing so humbling for a journalist as to be subject of news. Because i learned what slippery as souls most of my, many of my colleagues were. [laughter] you know, and the times, the times in particular, i mean, times has some of the greatest journals in the world especially those who i have covered wars with overseas and politics as well. But when it comes to social and cultural, there is really a lot of nonsense going on there. I mean, maureen dowd wrote three columns about primary colors e4 came out, and she said that we will know immediately who wrote it because of who the villains are. When mike nichols bought the movie, but the rights to the movie, he said the thing i liked most about this project is that there were no villains in this book which is why i wrote it. Which was a good part of my motivation. So i had that terrible press conference and that night random house put me up at the waldorf. We were up on the keep always been our summers, and at a certain point i couldnt sleep. I couldnt eat. I kept on Drinking Water and is going to the bathroom and are shaking uncontrollably. And i had this moment and i said, you know what you just experienced, joe . You just experienced an average day in the life of bill clinton. And its true, when you think about entering a press conference, i mean, it almost gives me enough, it almost watch it. Its almost enough to make me sympathetic with donald trump but i cant be spewing i knew thats where youre going. But its been then a very interesting thing happened. In the weeks after that i started getting phone calls from politicians. It has absolutely no ideological consistency. Some good friends like paul wellstone, dear kaunda wonderful , wonderful guy. John mccain on the right community, people from across the spectrum, you know, said to me we know what it feels like to be in the position you are in now. There were people who are trying to drive me out of the business, newsweek laid me off for a week, and then kay graham, bless her heart, called the up and she said how are you feeling . I said im pissed off, i want to write a column about welfare reform. She said youre in the magazine this week, im going to tell them that. All the politicians said the exact same thing. They said weve been through this, and he the way you get through it is go to work, get out there and start reporting about other people. And the final thing that happened was that i decided to change the rules of journalism. For me at least. I decided that i would have a new gotcha rule. That if a politician said something really stupid, that didnt involve, you know, a matter of life and death, national security, war and peace, and i would tell this to the if i were interviewing them for the first time on if you Say Something really stupid you can take it back. Because i really feel that, you know, politicians are no date in the park. I mean, but they are not as bad as we have come to portray them. If we want them to trust us and to tell us what they are really thinking, we have to make some concessions to them as well. And i thought at that point i had so much notoriety, i didnt need to make my name by saying Chuck Schumer said shit. It didnt, i didnt need to do it. I have upheld that principle ever since, and they have only called on themselves once or twice in the last 20 years. So lets talk about the elephant in the room, and, with regard to literature again. On this stage during the seminar, dont you like to call it a seminar and not a conference, not a festival spirit makes me feel academic. Weve heard people say that donald trump, and perhaps others like them, if there are any others, are not easy to sort of write about. That, for instance, to do, because he is so onedimensional, that he could not be jack stanton in primary colors. Do you share that feeling . I do although i am planning, im writing a novel that takes place in new york city in 1896, and im thinking of making, having a trump like character. Because i really do believe he is a figure from the. Before there was, you know, self observation, you know . I had one line in the running mate which was the unexamined life is not worth living with. [laughter] and i think about donald trump, that line comes to mind when i think about donald trump. The phenomenon of donald trump is something that we have seen in literature in the past. What was the movie with andy griffith, a face in the crowd . The demagogue, it can happen here, you know, the charming demagogue who has come a long and raped people, raped the public, is not unknown in america or overseas literature. In this case, well, let me tell you you know what, how about chinatown, the movie . Megalomania try to, but he is interesting. Thats the difference. In a way trump is, too. But only as i sai