Booktv. Org bookclub. President ial historian tevi troy examines the Popular Culture that american president s have partaken in over the past 200 years from Andrew Jacksons interest in attending the theater to the Reading Habits of dwight eisenhower. He speaks on a panel with jonah gold burg, William Galston and political analyst and columnist mona charen. This Panel Discussion is just under two hours. Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. Im chris demuth, fellow here at the Hudson Institute, and i will be moderating this afternoons session in which we will be recognizing and celebrating and discoursing upon tevi troys new book, what jefferson read, ike watched and obama tweeted 200 years of Popular Culture this the white house. With a title like that, you might expect that the book is a parade of ton and entertaining stories about president s idiosyncratic tastes in reading, theater, music, sports, movies, tv, or maybe its more than that, maybe its a study of decline [laughter] from adams and jefferson reading cicero in latin and the current bestseller over from the u. K. , the wealth of nations to president obama tweeting about his favorite dessert or newest pop song. Well, theres a little of both of that, both of those things in this wonderful book, but it is a very serious, it is a very serious work. Our president s since andrew jack son have been popular figures. Their popularity has been the most important source of tear political power. Of their political power. Theyre the only national popularlyelected politician, official at any given time in america, and their relationship to Popular Culture has been deep, and it has changed in fundamental ways over the decades and centuries. And that, above all, is tevi troys subject if this book. Tevi is a senior fellow here at the Hudson Institute. He is familiar with president s and the white house. During the administration of george w. Bush, he was successively assistant secretary of labor for policy, deputy cabinet secretary at the white house and liaison to the Jewish Community for the president , he was a Senior Member of the u. S. Delegation to the organization for security and cooperation in europe. He took a little time off to work on the bush Reelection Campaign in 2004, and from 2007 to 2008 he was deputy secretary of health and human services. Since his ten your in the government tenure in the government, he has written one book before this one, intellectuals and the american presidency philosophers, jesters or technicians . He is a prolific author and may be said to be a full spectrum public intellectual publishing in the new republic, reason, National Review, the weekly standard, and washingtonian magazine where he writes about the presidency, as you might expect, Current Issues in policy and issues of Public Health reflecting his involvement this those issues when he was at hhs. Were going to begin with tevi telling us about his book, what motivated him to write it and what he thinks the most important themes from the book are. And i hope he wont tell you too much, because i expect everyone to go out and buy the book afterwards. And we will then hear from a Perfect Group of panelists. These are people who do read cicero and other books. They also write books, and they blog, podcast, facebook, tweet, broadcast and probably to some other things do some other things those of us in this room havent even learned about yet. We will start with jonah goldberg, a fellow at the American Enterprise institute and a regular contributor to fox news. Jonah has been around the world of popular media and trying to elevate it and educate it for a long Time Beginning in the 1990s as founding producer of the pbs think tank with ben wattenberg. He has written two New York Times best sellers including one that went all the way to the top of the chart, liberal far bism. Fascism. Following jonah, we will hear from bill galston. Bill is senior fellow at the brookings institution. She taught for many years he taught for years at the Public Policy school at the university of maryland. He also has spent time this the white house and as Deputy Assistant for domestic policy for president bill clinton and work on the president ial campaigns of both Walter Mondale and al a gore. Al gore. His field is political philosophy and political institutions. Hes the author of eight books, the most recent Public Matters politics, policy and religion in the 21st century. Published in 2005. And then we will hear from mona charen who is a nationallysyndicated columnist, a journalist and political analyst. Following the pattern here, she worked in the white house as a speech writer for nancy reagan during Nancy Reagans husbands administration. And a Political Campaign working for jack kemp in his president ial quest in 1988. Her most recent book and i want to mention that monas most recent book is called dogooders how liberals hurt those they claim to help, and jonahs most be recent book is how liberals cheat in the war of ideas, but i want to make it clear mona and jonah exempt bill galston [laughter] just to try to maintain a comity among our panelists. But our subject today is not partisan, it is far more elevated. We will begin with our author, tevi troy, and then proceed through the three presentations, and then well have some discussion up here and open it up to everybody in the room. Thank you very much. Tevi, the odium is yours. [applause] the podium many is yours. [applause] good afternoon. Thank you, chris, for that nice introduction. Thank you to my fellow copanelists and to the Hudson Institute for sponsoring this event. The book, as chris mentioned, is what jefferson read, ike watched and obama tweeted, and i mention it again. Hudson institute wants you to know you may tweet this event at your pleasure, and we will also take questions via twitter. This is how even musty think tanks adapt to the 21st century. Getting to the titles, i originally had a different title for the book, and i came up with the title after i saw an interesting incident that someone, as chris said, who was a president ial historian and also someone who worked in the white house, an incident that kind of surprised me. A few years ago president obama was trying to sell his health care law, and in doing so, he went to the white house correspondents dinner, and he told a joke. The joke was about an exemption that he was trying to get for the bill, and he said that ive got this tanning tax in the law, and in order to get this law through or the tanning tax through with the rest of the law, were going to have to put forward an exemption for john boehner and for snooki. Now, the crowd at the time laughed because at the time snooki was enjoying a cultural moment. I think now in 2013 her moment is unlamentably gone, but at the time, she was the bucks some denizen of jersey shore in which she extolled the three priorities in life, gtl, gym, tan, laundry. And it struck me how bizarre it was that the president of United States was actually citing this person from the president ial podium. It also struck the president as somewhat bizarre, because the president was later asked about snooki on the view, one of his favorite shows to go on, and he professed not to know who she was. And it led to this question appearing in my mind, are we better off with a president who knows who snooki is or a president who doesnt know who snooki is . And its that tension and that question that really animates the book. And it led me to come up with my initial draft idea for a title which was from cicero to snooki. How our culture shapes our president. The good folks at regnery talked me out of that. They said that the venn diagram of those who know cicero and snooki does not intercept. [laughter] and they were right about that. But they were also right that three years later cicero is just as relevant whereas snooki is, as i said, unlamentably forgotten. So i went with this alternative title which i think conveys what im trying to convey. My book is about the different eras of technology and delivery of culture and how theyve affected the president. I begin with jefferson read, thats because at the time those were the available options available to sun seeking someone seeking education or entertainment. So the first era is that period of the founders. Jefferson and adams were probably the two bestread people on the continent at their time. Which is an astounding statement. You never think of the president of the United States being the bestread person in the land, and im not sure wed want the president to be the bestread in the land, but nevertheless, these people lived booked, they consumed books, they were engaged by booked. And this was at no small hardship to themselves. I say in the book in 176 1776 a First Edition of that book cost 615. That is the cost about of an ipad today. And if you were to have an ipad today and if you have an ipad, i suspect many do, an ipad can store manager like 160,000 to 180,000 books. So when i say that jefferson had a library of over 6,000 books, that was no insignificant investment on his part. They not only had to spend a lot of money to the read these books and to get these books, but they invested themselves in the books, and these books animated the discussions that led to the revolution from england and the revolution is aptly named because it was, indeed, a revolutionary act. Breaking from the monarchy was something not done before s. These people of found beers, they found solace in the work of previous people who had gone before them. Especially the roman classics writers, people like cicero who i mention this the title who john adams in particular was taken with, and cato, a play that George Washington showed to the troops at valley forge in that very difficult winter to try and buck up their morale. So these people had engaged with what had gone on with the roman republicans who were fighting against what they saw as the onslaught of tyranny. So the founders found ideas from previous generations that helped enlighten them, and they also looked to the current writings in the enlightenment to look for rationale for their break from england. Ask so you see the ideas and so you see the ideas of the enlighteningment in the deck la declaration of independence, and after they broke free from england James Madison can another founder and our fourth president reached out to jefferson who was living this france at the time and asked for him advice on what books to read as he was thinking about this constitutional project. And jefferson, remember how expensive books were at the time, sent him two cratefuls of books. And these books were about law and philosophy and history, all of the subjects that jefferson read so much and mastered. And madison took those books, and he read those books, and he wrote a memo to himself about those books, and he used that memo to inform his thinking on the constitutional con recommendation, the constitution convention, the constitution writing itself and then the writing of the federalist papers to defend that great endeavor. Of and so the founders, not wrongly, had this vision based on having dealt with a very literate populace, the population was a much higher Literacy Rate than in europe, and they obviously engaged in ideas, so the founders vision was of enlightened leaders presiding over an educated populace. That was the vision. Over the next two centuries, we would see that that vision was challenged, and it was challenged in two ways. The first way was in the second era i want to talk about in the 19th century. In the 19th century, i said there were two types of entertainment available at the time. The other type was live entertainment. And if a president wanted to get his message out, if he wanted to go and see and be seen, he couldnt go on youtube, he couldnt go on radio or tv, he went to where the people were. And the people were at Live Performances. So i tell the story of james monroe going around the country on a goodwill tour, and in each city he would go to, he would go to theatrical performances because thats where the people were. But theater is a very democratic, small d medium. In the theater people on the stage can react to the audience. When theres a film or something on tv, that is static. That does not change based on whos seeing it or how theyre seeing it. But the actors on stage in Live Performances can react to the audience, can interact with the audience, can recognize who is in the house that night and who is in the house. So i tell a story from 1824. There was a hotlycontested election between John Quincy Adams who i think was probably the best prepared person ever to be president based on his knowledge, his reading, his education, his previous experience in government. And he was up against Andrew Jackson who was not nearly as well read. In fact, he rarely cracked a book. And he wasnt even much of a speller, as people used to point out at the time. So they had this president ial race, and jackson wins a plurality of the popular vote, and he wins a literality of the electoral vote, but he does not win the election because henry clay throws his support to quincy adams. Clay is named secretary of state, and this is what became known at the time as the corrupt bargain. It was immediately unpopular. So not long after this happened, John Quincy Adams who was a theater buff goes to the theater in washington one night. And the actors, as i said, can react to whats going on in the house. Today saw that the president elect is in the house, and their reaction is to ad lib references to general jackson. And then the audience, seeing these ad libs, they applaud lustily at every mention of general jackson. And John Quincy Adams was so upset that although hed been a theater buff before, he significantly curtailed his theater going after that incident. And so the founders vision came up against the raucous and oftentimes bawdy and loud vision of these democratic theatrical venues. Democracy, they found, was much more openended, much more rabblelike than had been thought, and a man like Andrew Jackson who ended up winning the 1828 election and unseated quinn is si adams, recognized the appeal to the common man. How do we know this . I tell a story about Andrew Jackson going to harvard to get an honorary degree. This made quincy adams ap to to be protect tick that this person was getting a degree from his alma mater. But nevertheless, jackson goes and gets the degree, and hes expected to speak back to the students in latin which was the vernacular at harvard at the time. And jackson, seizing the moment, says the only latin i know is e pluribus you numb. And that showed that he had this common touch, this ability to reach out to the common man and that he wasnt going to be seen as one of these hoity toity harvard types, but that he was a man of the people. And what we learned in the 19th century is that you might be educated in a certain way to govern like a quincy adams, but you needed to have some general jackson in order to get elected and get control. And the person who i write in the book had the best understanding of these two countervailing tensions was Abraham Lincoln. Abraham lincoln grew up in poverty, in obscurity, and he read a great deal in his youth. Often to the disgust of his father who tried to discourage him from reading all the time. But lincoln read, and he read every book he could get his hand on. And im sure all of you heard stories of lincoln traveling many miles through the snow to find a certain book or to borrow a book from a farmer. And he didnt have the same kind of book selection that we might have today. It was very limited. And be, in fact, there were certain books that e read over and over and over again, and those included the bible, shakespeare, sops fables, life in washington and a history of the United States. And he internalized those books. And later when he was a politician can and he was running for office, he didnt cite books all the time, but he had internalized those books and expressed their vision in the way he commune candidated with people. So communicated with people. So he learned type of common language from the bible. He learned to use stories from aesops tables, and he learned patriotism there the books on washington and the United States. And he used those successfully in his campaign for president in 1860. And then again in 1864. But lincoln also was a man who loved the theater, especially once with he became president. And i write this the book about how he liked to attend theater so often that John Wilkes Booth planned to assassinate lincoln on the way to a different performance. And lincoln decided not to go that night because the show was at the old soldiers home, and wilkes booth changed his mind and eventually did assassinate him at fords theater at the showing of my american cousin. And wilkes booth used his knowledge of the theater to figure out his way how to navigate through the house and even timed his shot to a well known laugh line in the play. So in some ways lincoln went to the theater, and the theater expressed his democratic impulses, but in some ways he was undone by theater. And, in fact, i tell the story in the book that his son was seeing aladdin at a lay a few blocks away, and he heard someone come in and say they have shot the preside