Im interim director of the galvin in journalism ethics and democracy. And im excited to welcome you all to the 2023 red smith lecture. Its great. See everybody here tonight. I want to start by thanking our speaker Carlos Lozada and, the Notre Dame Institute for advanced study, which is the reason why this event is possible tonight. Carlos is here this year as a faculty fellow and they very generously made this event possible as part of his very busy schedule. So very grateful for that. So that the lecture tonight had a timely element. This morning when i woke up this morning, there was a notification, my phone from the New York Times that said Carlos Lozada latest. And so i dont normally click through the notifications but i went to that one right away and the headline said this is his new column just today in the New York Times i the mueller ukraine and jan six reports as though they were one long book that didnt have to say so. You dont have to. So Carlos Lozada has been doing reading on our behalf since 2015, when he became Nonfiction Book critic for the Washington Post. That was right around the time that Donald Trumps first president ial campaign started when carlos the New York Times last year, the paper celebrated his arrival by saying he had revolutionized the form of Nonfiction Book criticism, bringing ambition, rigor and brilliant writing to his consideration. The ideas, arguments, dynamic mix and politics that animates societies and shape human condition. A few years before that, the Pulitzer Prize committee lauded much the same characteristics they presented him with journalisms highest. Much of his work up to and including todays column has necessarily focused donald trump and all volumes written about him and his presidency. Carlos even wrote his own book about all the trump books. Its called what we were thinking and youre invited to pick up a copy afterwards tonight. And he will be there to sign copies as well. Among the things that make his approach so revolutionary are that he doesnt read and review only books as todays column showed. He also reads government reports Supreme Court decisions, and he also treats them all not as standard works, but in conversation with each other, providing his readers a more complete picture of our time and the public figures who shape it Carlos Lozada his career is a testament to the value of deep and wide reading. Sometimes a mind numbing amount of reading as todays column also showed, and putting his own assumptions to the test by engaging in good with the full spectrum of ideas and points of view before drawing his own conclusions. So thats a great example, not only for journalists, but also for all of us citizens. And were fortunate be able to learn from him tonight. So join me in welcoming our 2023 red smiths lecture Carlos Lozada. I want to just play that on repeat and i that was a thank you, jason. It is an to be back in notre dame to deliver the 2023 read smith lecture thank you to the Gallivan Program for inviting me here tonight to the Notre Dame Institute for advanced study for hosting me this week. Any notre graduate who dares enter journalism is laboring under the legacy and the shadow and the exquisite or choices of red smith. And when i look back on the luminaries of my profession who have given this lecture over the decades, starting Scotty Reston 40 years ago. I feel that same combination of exhilaration, insecurity that i often felt in class at notre dame, i was not active in student journalism at notre dame. I not even thought of journalism as a career option for me, but it was a professor here who told me that i might have some ability to write and it here that i first began to truly read with a purpose and and thats what i want to talk about when i talk about reading and writing. Thats the sort of journalism that i do. I dont cover wars. I dont interview politicians, i dont dig up classified documents or meet, you know, sources and parking garages in arlington, virginia ive edited great teams of reporters, but ive never been a reporter myself. Instead, i read i read histories and memoirs and manifestos. I read, you know, centuries old and decades old, Commission Reports and Supreme Court decisions and congressional investigations. I read many books about politics, and i have to i read many books by polity since i read tell us by former white house aides. I read those Campaign Biographies that every politician writes when they, you know, aspire to high office. And then i read, you know, revisionist memoir. They write when they leave office trying to justify that they did. I read books by president s and Vice President s and senators and fbi director and chiefs of staff. Theres lots of books by chiefs of staff the way because everyone in washington either to be a chief of staff or have a chief of staff. I spent a decade or so doing this first as a book critic for the post and now as a columnist for, the New York Times. And sometimes when hear that ive spent all these years a book critic reading political rather than, you know, discovering the next Great American novel, right . I get a few recurring reactions. Theres Something Like this, wow you read that book so we dont have to. Aw, man, you really took one for the team there. You know, ive also gotten better. You than me, and that was from a fellow critic who couldnt believe the book i had reviewed for the Washington Post. Now, why do i get those responses . I get those responses. These books are generally assumed to be bad, right theyre selfserving, theyre ghostwritten theyre propaganda. Write the book by politicians. Why should you believe them . And reading them is thought to be bore and a chore. In fact, when i wrote my own book about the books of the trump presidency, i read about 150 political books about about that period when the New York Times reviewed my book, they fortunately give it a very nice review. They liked it, but even the reviewers felt compelled to that. My reading all those other books was, quote, an act, transcendent masochism, transcendent. So so thats what thats what even the times thinks about reading political books. Some people say this book shouldnt exist the Washington Post, my former employer published an op ed a few weeks ago titled does anyone actually read president ial Campaign Books . The question totally rhetorical, of course, because columnist said that these books were ranged from mediocre, spectacularly bad, and that no one should buy them, let alone them a years ago, the political pundit Chris Matthews wrote a piece admitting that a lot of washingtonians even dont really read these books. I mean, they have them on their but but they dont they dont actually read them instead they give this these books what he calls the washington read there are a few versions of the washington read right. One is to actually read the book right from beginning to end, like most humans. But why would you do that when can just go through the book . Right. Which means skim it and hopefully absorb some of that way. Another option is to read the opening and then pretend youve read the full book. And if were a real washington power player, you start in the back with the index, you look for your own name, you go to those pages, see how well youre treated, and depending on that, you may or may not continue reading the book. About a decade ago, the journalist leibovich wrote a really insider read dc Washington Book called this town and. He purposely published it without an index because wanted to force people to at least go through the book to find their names, to see they were treated. So i was an editor at post at the time and i tasked all interns to like, you know, divide up the book. You know the chapters and construct an index. We then published online with all the boldface names. Now i heard that the author not pleased. So yes, of course there are some real duds among political books. Right. But thats the case with any any genre of of of fiction or nonfiction i im here to make the case for the Washington Book believe in the washington. And i think that the relentlessly negative perception of washington misses the point completely of reading them. First, this disdain for Washington Books pretty hypocritical after all, even those very serious readers would never pick up, you know, memoir by trump. Second secretary of state or his third press secretary. They still want to know whats in those books, right . They want to know who these people criticize, who they suck up to, what scores they settle. When people ask me about these books, they dont say it good. They say, whats the news right. Theyre giving it the washington read. Worse yet, they want me to do the washington beat for them. I also they love nothing than seeing someone like me give a really harsh takedown of a book by a politician. They hate or to you bestow rapturous praise upon the book of a politician they admire. These books only matter them as sources of political ammunition. They rarely come to them with an open mind. But heres the real reason to read these books. And that is that no matter how carefully the politicians sanitize experiences and their positions and their no matter how diligently they present themselves in the best and the safest, the most electable light, they almost always end up revealing themselves in. These books, whether they to or not. They tell us who they really are. They can help it. Politicians love talking about themselves and eventually in these books they will share something, Say Something, or do something that is or enlightening or. Surprising something that helps us understand in a new way. They on themselves and when they tell them themselves, they often end up telling us Something Else about the state of our politics or the state of our civic life. Its rarely the sort of sexy, newsy material that is most revelatory. It might be a throwaway line here, a recurring phrase that they always use maybe something they randomly said to a low level aide who then wrote about it in their book book. Its sometimes the acknowledgment sections of these books. Its somewhere in there. And that means even these supposedly bad books can be enormously enlightening and illuminate and therefore exciting to read. Despite themselves. You dont need to do the washington read except to know how to read the Washington Book. Now ill start with the books by a politician who probably could have made his living as a writer. In fact, now he kind of does make his living as a writer. And thats barack obama, his 1995 memoir, dreams from my father is in my a wonderful written book and so much so that i think all the subsequent books kind of suffer and of obamas books have been vastly overanalyzed and discussed length, including by me. And so i just want to focus on a few specific lines. Theres a moment in dreams for my father when obama, in his early postcollege years, talks his aspirations for Community Organizing in chicago and he writes, because this community imagined was still in the making, built on the promise that the larger american community, black and brown, could somehow redefine. I believe that it might over time admit the uniqueness of my life. Hes writing about the challenge of fitting in in america and how america might change so that he who combines like hawaii and kansas, kenya and indonesia and chicago, you know, could feel a greater sense of belonging right now. You might about that line until you reread or rewatch his. Famous 2004 keynoted dress at the democratic invention in boston, where he held the promise of an america that not, you know, red or blue but united. And when he said that in no other country on earth is my even possible. All right. So now is less about fitting in than about embracing an america that made his life a reality. Right . Its a celebratory line and a celebratory speech. You might forget about that line into. Your read his 2006 campaign book, the audacity of hope, where obama writes that as a black man in america with what he calls mixed heritage, sometimes he feels like, quote, a prisoner. My own biography. So now obamas view of his life story changed again. Its not celebratory. Its confining. When i think about these three disparate lines in these three disparate texts, i start to understand why obama throughout, his presidency, constantly defaulted to discussing his own life as a symbol, a symbol of national aspiration, a symbol of national selfimprovement, a symbol of a nations unfulfilled promise. It was there, in his own words, before he ever got to the oval office. Now, if you happen, read the memoir by reggie love, who was obamas personal aide, his man during that eight campaign and during his first term. Youll see how obama tries to sort of refine Public Perceptions of his story. Reggie love recalls the timing. Obamas briefcase when were getting on a flight to go to a primary debate. And i mean, thats a big no no for the man. And so was going was get fired. But obama forgave and it was just a nice of little anecdote. But reggie love mentions one thing that obama said to him about why he was so kind of annoyed at the missing bag. Obama liked to be seen carrying things off the plane, he said to reggie, jfk carried his own bags. Now that one moment, that one little line, jfk carried his own bags is the thing i will ever remember from reading reggie loves memoir. But it says so much about how carefully obama cultivated, his selfimage, how wanted people to think about him in his story how maybe he thought about it himself. Youd never know that unless you were there, which i gather none of us, you know, had the chance to be there or unless you read. Reggie memoir. Now some politicians are a little less subtle when they when tell them themselves. When donald trump launched his 2016 his his campaign for the presidency in 2015. I decided read his various books or at least sampling of them. If read along with me, if you read the art of the deal and at the top and the art of the comeback and so many more. You would not have surprised by his presidency. You wouldve been shocked, but you would not have been that surprised. Heres what i wrote in july of 2015, and i, for the sort of selfreferential nature. Sitting down with the collected of donald j. Trump is unlike any literary experience ive ever had. Over the course of 2212 pages, i encountered. A world where bragging is breathing and insulting is talking, where repetition and contradiction come standard. Where vengefulness and insecurity erupt at random. Elsewhere such qualities might get in the way of the story. With trump, they are the story. Now, im not myself for like seeing it all coming. You know, i didnt i didnt think he would win. But i did read the books. And even though theyre not particularly truthful, even the ghostwriter of the art of the deal has disowned it in public now. You know, these books still reveal trump. For all his unpredictability hes nothing if not consistent. Trump wrote another book published another book in 2004 called how to get rich, which i also read. And there he drops one sort of bizarre passage that i think says a lot about him. Weirdly, its about his hair. The reason my looks so neat all the time is because i dont have to deal with elements. I live in building where i work. I take an elevator from my bedroom to my. The rest of the time, either my stretch limousine, my private jet, my helicopter, or my private club in, palm beach. If i happen to be outside, im probably one of my golf courses where i protect my hair from overexposure. Wearing a golf hat. Now, what does that passage tell us . Aside Donald Trumps sort of vanity about his main, they say that the white puts president s in a bubble. But judging from that passage, donald lived in the bubble of his own making long before he ever got to washington. And those words, trump reveals his his and very deliberately constructed isolation. And its the kind of isolation lets you spin and believe whatever story create about yourself. Sometimes a book reveals the central tension of, a politicians ambitions. And here im thinking of Hillary Clintons 1996 manifesto. It takes a village. In this book, which is published right in the middle of her eight year tenure as as first lady, you see to Hillary Clintons doing battle with each other. She combines very progressive tendencies, big social policy issues such as health care with surprising moderate or even conservative views on on cultural and family issues. This was a time, remember, when bill clinton was declaring the area era of Big Government to be over. And you see Hillary Clinton tracing her own line through the center in the book declares that she says, let us stop stereotype government or individuals as absolute or absolute saviors and recognize each must be part of the solution. She even writes that, quote of us would describe ourselves as middle of the road liberal some areas conservative, conservative in others, moderate in most. This was a tension clinton never seemed to fully resolve. Some of you may remember the 2016 democratic primary in a debate with bernie sanders, Anderson Cooper asked her so, are you a progressive or a moderate . Right. And what was her answer . Im a progressive, but a progressive likes to get things done right. There are many reasons Hillary Clinton did