The facts are we have to fixette. There is an extra trest yell doing it to us i guess. Someone somewhere has to take responsibility for this. That was ross perot during the second of three president ial debates talking about one of his favorite issues the u. S. Debt. In that election, the texas businessman won 19 of the popular vote. He ran a second president ial campaign in 1996 and tonight he is our focus on the contenders. Gooned good night and thanks for being with us. Were doing this series as a way to look at American History through the lens of president ial candidates who failed in their quest for the white house but have an outside impact on American History. Ss perot is our final of 14 people that were proniling this series. Tonight joining us is Doug Brinkley. He is not politics as usual. He is less interested in money and politics than doing right for our country. I believe this comes out of his Naval Academy background. Looking for p. O. W. s and m. I. A. s during vietnam
President . Arthur called me on the phone and said youre in tennessee and james k. Polk is a tennesseen. And he said i want you to do one thing. He said allen evans has done a paper back that excerpts his diary, his president ial diary. Just take a weekend and read it and tell me no. And i read the excerpts from the diary and i could say no. I was fascinated about the man. Did you know much about him before this . I knew his grave was behind the capitol. There is no marker in nashville except a plaque on the side of a dirty motel wall. His old home place in columbia is preserved and ive been there many times and ive been there since. But i knew virtually nothing about him and almost nothing that was good. Result of what was done to him during his presidency over the mexicanamerican war left him a bad reputation. A reputation as a warmonger, and the attacks on him in congress in the latter days of his administration reminded me a great deal of the attacks on Linden Johnson at the end of
Here, and after, shell answer all of your questions after this presentation and well have a little table set up for her here to answer more questions or even sign one of the books if you purchase one here today. All right. Well, were going to go ahead and get started here. Again, thank you for coming and thank you, charlotte wasteman f for being here today. [ applause ] its great to be with all of you and thanks for many of you who nn coming. Its great to have that smiling audience right in front of you. I was asked to talk about women of the west and i was told, you know, to talk 45 minutes and take 15 minutes of questions. So i have a timer for myself, and i will start it. And i will stick to a script so that i can stick to time, because those of you who know me know that i also could just talk forever and i dont want to do that. Now, since you probably have other things to do as well today, we are having this filmed, so its very exciting. It will be on cspan3, i think. Yes, yes . Cs
Historians. Mr. Poke ranked 14th in cspans story of president ial leadership. John seeingigenthaler, autho james k. Polk. How did they talk you into doing a biography of this president . He called me and said youre a tennessean, james polk was a tennessean. Why dont you write a biography for the series on the president s. I said, arthur, i dont have time. Im retired. He said i want you to do one thing. He said allen evans has done a paper back that excerpts his diary, his president ial diary. Just take the weekend to read it and tell me no. I read the excerpts from the diary and i couldnt say no. I was fascinated by the man. Did you know much about him before you started this . I knew he was a tennessean, im a tennessean. I knew that his grave is behind the capitol. There is no marker in nashville except a plaque on the side of a dirty motel wall. His old home place in columbia is preserved, and ive been there many times and have been there since. But i knew virtually nothing about him
Brian amity shlaes, why do we spend so much time in this country, and on our network, and in your life, talking about president s . Ms. Shlaes thank you, brian. Im glad to be with you and with harold. We talk about president s because people understand People Better than ideas. And we eventually want to get to ideas, but we get at those ideas through people, our president s. Brian dr. Holzer, im often i often want to call you even though youre not a doctor. Mr. Holzer thank you for that mixed introduction. Thank you for having me on the show, and welcome to Franklin Roosevelts home, from which we are broadcasting tonight. Why . I think amity has it right. I also think that we were blessed to have a first president who was a National Hero before he became president , and was a touchstone and an icon and created a presidency that was centered on both personality and ideas, but in large measure, personality. Everyone since has been measured against George Washington. And we look for extra