The Ricochet Podcast - Got The Fever

Episode Date: January 10, 2013

This week on the podcast, new minted CNN Chief Washington correspondent Jake Tapper stops by to discuss his new book The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor as well as the politics of covering���politics. Then, our old friend Bill Kristol joins for a bracing conversation about no less than the future of the party and the conservative movement. Nothing like a little light conversation for your... Source

Activate program. What is it about right to work that you oppose so much? Get the f*** out of my face! You do your work, and we will do our best. Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Rob Long and Peter Robinson. I'm James Lilacs and our guests today are Jake Tapper from CNN and Bill Kristol from the Weekly Standard. From Afghanistan to Washington to California, if only you got frequent flyer miles for these. Let's have ourselves a podcast, shall we?

There you go again. Welcome, everybody. Here we are plowing into January. And what do we have for you? We have a podcast, a Ricochet podcast, number 151. And like many that came before, it's proudly sponsored by audible.com. Who are they? You know, the internet's leading provider of audio books with more than 100,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature, fiction, nonfiction, periodicals, you want it, it's there. For a free audio book of your choice, free, we like that word, go to audiblepodcast.com slash ricochet. Is everybody's ears perked up now, ready to write that down? Yes, audiblepodcast.com slash ricochet. And speaking of ricochet, we bring on its founders, Peter Robinson and Rob

Long in California. I'm James Lileks in windy, gusty Minnesota, of course. But guys, how are you? Rob, I hear that you're a little scratchy and perhaps under the weather today. I'm a little under the weather. I have, I think, with something everyone's got. So I'll be coughing and sneezing throughout the podcast for your listening pleasure. Well, if I may say so, this is just a reversion to the mean of justice. The last time we talked to you, you had just flown in from Paris. Yeah. Oh, I spent a week in Paris, a little wine, a little croissant. Let me tell you what makes a good croissant. Here I am in Manhattan where I've just got another delicious croissant.

I'm going to Russia to pick up my passport anymore. And now you're home and feeling miserable, and James and I are delighted. I'm not delighted. I'm not that sort of grim soul who takes pleasure in the misery. Well, I am, and I'm not a – Yes. Yes that sort of grim soul who takes pleasure in the misery of his peers. Well, I am, and I don't – I'm not a – Yes. Yes, correct. Shodden – isn't that the word? You're a shodden friend is what you are.

You're one of those friends who takes absolute delight in the misery of his compatriots. No, I feel sorry for Rob. We've got – we have a bad flu going around this part of the country, really bad flu. Actually bad only in as much as it's worse than the last couple of years. And it reminds you, we've had deaths of young people here, which makes everybody grab their teens and hold them close to their bosom.

It reminds you that nature just, the basic point of nature is to kill you, if not sooner than later. And then it comes up with these exquisitely engineered little things that get into you and lay you low. If you've been reading stories about the norovirus in Britain, probably not the best topic for the morning, especially if you guys are working on your own croissants. But something like one out of every 60 people in Britain at some point recently has had this thing. It's the cruise ship disease, which makes you almost think – it makes you think of England itself as this self-contained rocky cruise ship with half the population leaning over the railings in Brighton and Dover and the rest scrubbing it down.

Well, speaking of throwing up over things – But what can the government do about this? Well, nothing aside from make the bleach rain from the sky and force people to stay in because it's – Can I make a political point? It's completely irrelevant but just always bothers me. Please capitalize on other people's misery. Our side is always that we're anti-science, right? We're anti-science. And yet the other side is the one trying to tell their kids not to get immunized and not to get all the vaccines that are there. They're life-saving. And so something, you know, whooping cough,

what is it, Pitocin? Whooping cough has come back. We have whooping cough now in the country. We do, but for a variety of, but not exactly for that reason, as a matter of fact. I was talking to a University of Minnesota virologist about this yesterday, and while it turns out,

yes, that you do have the problem of parents, especially particularly parents in the immigrant community who don't see the cultural reason for vaccination, don't get it. You also have the fact that the vaccines are wearing off and the new strains that have modulated a little bit aren't exactly receptive to the vaccine. So it's not entirely the vaccination thing, but the fact that people aren't getting their kids vaccinated for a variety of other things, your dip, tet, and the rest, it is a problem. And you're absolutely right, Rob,

when it goes to the anti-science thing. We're always getting criticized for that. I did a column on this for National Review. I mean, we're the guys who are pro-nuke, pro-GMO. Right. Put down the pesticides because it works and it grows and it feeds people and shoot my kids full of those things because it keeps them from dying and and by god build an

immense power plant to keep the lights on in this country and we're the anti-science any science ones right specifically which means specifically because we don't want to harvest parts of human bodies that may contain a soul and perform grisly experiments on them. That's what makes us a nice science. We question the consistency of the data of glacier formation. These very small quibbles, which of course have

enormous policy implications, but the larger implications of it are like, yeah, I was arguing about nuclear power with a friend of mine and I said, what about Japan? I said, that's exactly the problem. That Japanese nuclear power plant was, what,

30 years old, 40 years old? I said, alright, you are now, if those are your standards, you are now condemned to live with the technology of 30 years ago. Enjoy your telephone. Enjoy the gigantic mainframe computer you've got.

Your 27-inch CRT, right? Yeah, exactly right. But somehow, we're willing to accept all sorts of things. A giant computer that has more processing power than it took to land a man on the moon in our pocket. Half the size of a deck of cards, and yet we're convinced that

evil Monsanto is putting stuff in the rice that they're selling to Africa to keep the kids from getting rickets. Molly Hemingway actually posted on this guy and I'm going to get it all wrong because I've been in a total haze for the past five days. But the guy who recanted his anti-GM – Right, right, right, right, right. His anti-GM – It's in Ricochet. We'll put the link on the entry here. But it's fascinating. His apology

is so moving because you never get that. It's like a movie. Nothing ever ends this way. But he abjectly says, I was wrong and I was stupid and it was a knee-jerk reaction. And I think the guy deserves a medal or something. Well, let's have Al Gore

pin it on him because Al Gore, now that he's got $100 million worth of dirty oil money, is probably free to do whatever people want to hire him to do at this point, the whoredom of the fellow being manifest to all. You know, I wanted to talk about something that is a matter of vital politics today

to this very minute, and that has to do with the anti-Semitic, homophobic, war on women supporter Chuck Hagel. And I say those things because his previous statements mean that he is anti-Semitic, and so we have to call him that frequently, and no amount of explanation or apology will wash that away, right? The homophobic part goes back to the statements he made in the 90s, which cannot be taken away, which revealed the essential essence of the man. And the war on women thing goes from the fact that he was against abortion in the case of rape and didn't support abortion in military hospitals. Now, all of these things, if they were ascribed to a Republican, which he is, but to somebody that the right wanted in a position of power, these would be the things that the left would hit every single day. So if we're going to talk about Chuck Hagel, we have to preface it with the homophobic, anti-Semitic Chuck Hagel. Are we clear on that?

Yeah, sure. Fine. Fine. All right. So what do you guys think of this nomination? Do you think that this is a head fake, that this is an expenditure of political capital the president could have avoided? Peter? I put up a post last night, late last night, because I was looking over the internet, read a column by David Brooks. David is a friend, although we haven't agreed on anything in years. And I realized that I agreed with every word David Brooks wrote on Chuck Hagel.

The homophobic anti-Semitic Chuck Hagel. Exactly. The importance of Chuck Hagel – The homophobic anti-Semitic Chuck Hagel. Exactly. The importance of Chuck Hagel is as follows. It is that he is fundamentally opposed, uncomfortable, opposed, doesn't like to the use of military power by the United States of America. Spending on healthcare is ramping up extremely quickly. We are now at the Mark Stein moment. Mark Stein said, look at Western Europe. The moment a country makes health care the national government's priority, it becomes rapidly incapable of any vigorous expenditures on defense.

That's what's happening here. The importance of Chuck Hagel is he's the first of many secretaries of defense who's going to be intent on cutting back the Pentagon to make room for more spending on healthcare. That's what's going on. And because although we on the right may not like him for this reason or that reason, he is a Republican. Obama gets to say that over and over again. And perhaps even more important, he's a decorated war hero in Vietnam. They'll be able to get to say that over and over again, and perhaps even more important, he's a decorated war hero in Vietnam. They'll be able to get to say that over and over again. The importance of Hegel is that he's going to the Pentagon to cut it. That's what I think. And that's depressing. Rob, hold your thought about the anti-Semitic homophobic Chuck Hegel. We'll get to that in just a bit. We have a queue

of things here that we have to get to, lest the podcast itself founder under all of the obligations and weights that we have we're going to talk to jake in just a second and jake's written a new book jake tapper and as you know there's a whole bunch of ways you can read books there's uh the old eye using reflected light and retinas and all that stuff that's old thing you can also listen to them and as you well imagine we have a way for you to do that here. This being the internet and the magic therein audible.com. I mentioned them before, and I mentioned that they had a hundred thousand downloadable titles, all kinds of stuff. And I mentioned that you can go to audiblepodcast.com slash ricochet audiblepodcast.com slash ricochet to claim your free book. But of course we have to ask Peter and Rob, what sort of book they would

like people to choose a quick pick gentlemen, if you like, before we have to ask Peter and Rob what sort of book they would like people to choose. A quick pick, gentlemen, if you like before we get to Jake and tell us what audible.com has for you. Jake's book. Jake's book. The Outpost. The Outpost. An Untold Story of American Valor by Jake Tapper narrated by Rob Shapiro. My first question for Jake will be why he

didn't narrate it himself. The Outpost. Brilliant book and it's available on Audible. I have to agree. It's really riveting and it's I hope it becomes a movie. It's exactly the kind of movie that I think, it's exactly the kind of

movie set in wartime especially a controversial war that people need to see. It's thoughtful. The book, it's not a whitewash but it's a book of heroism. It's great. Great gripping, too. Excellent.

So we've got two of you then suggesting that for audible.com. I'm going to throw in here and say, well, that would be a great idea. I was just poking around and found, of all things, a Tolkien novel that I'd never heard of before. And I advise you to go and read or listen to The Children of Huron. Just punch in Tolkien and you'll get this one. I've never heard of it. I'm not a Tolkien expert, but if you know Peter Jackson, you know that from this slender story will come at least 17 hours of movies.

And so this is what's going to come after The Hobbit. No doubt The Children of Huron, its elves and its dark hellish gates and its dwarves and all the rest of it. And if that really sends you a palpitating, then you ought to listen to this. It's narrated by Christopher Lee, too, so it ought to be good. It's The Children of Fury. You can get that at audible.com. And as we say before and mention it again and again and again,

so you write it down and you do it, audiblepodcast.com slash ricochet. And now to the guy who wrote the book that we were just talking about there, Jake Tapper. He's a CNN anchor and their chief Washington correspondent. Jake's reported on a wide range of stories, including the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the debate over Terry Schiavo, and the war in Iraq. And he has stood, of course, at the ABC News Baghdad Bureau. He's the author of the new book, The Outpost, an untold story of American valor. For an unprecedented three years in a row, the White House Correspondents Association has awarded Jake

the prestigious Miriam Smith Award for presidential coverage under deadline pressure. And as he tweeted last night, he had some sort of farewell dinner for his old colleagues. So we're going to allow him that maybe 10%, you know, the night before effect may be working here. We welcome to the podcast Jake Tapper. Thanks. Good to be here. I appreciate it.

How was the party? I almost tweeted you and said that, you know, don't have too much fun because you've got to be spry and sprightly for a week or so. No, no. It was just a dinner. It was just a dinner. It wasn't a party party. We were standing up in the photo, but we're all very well behaved. You know, it's a really great group of people. I'm sad to be leaving them at ABC News.

They're really just, like, very smart. Somebody looked at the photo, one of my many irascible Twitter followers, and said, how many of the people in that photo are conservative? And the truth of the matter is I have no idea what their political beliefs are. These people that I worked with for four years, they were just tough reporters who wanted us to do tough stories. And the truth is I have no idea how any of them voted. So that's probably the highest compliment you can give a reporter.

Jake, Peter Robinson, Dartmouth College, Class of 79. I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised that the dinner was tame because you were Alpha Chi. Is that correct? You wimp, you. I was. I was an Alpha Chi. What were you?

Tricap. Tricap. I'm really in no position to throw stones at the glass house of Alpha Chi. So The Outpost. Question number one is, how did you report that book? How did you find the time to report it? Just tell us the story of how you began reporting the book, how you got into it, and how you were able to do that while at the same time working as a television correspondent. I mean, it was very challenging, obviously, and I'm in no hurry to do it again. I started, the whole thing started when I was in the hospital

room with my wife and my newborn son, Jack. And this is October 2009, and I'm holding my son, and he's a day or two old. and I look up and there is this report about this attack on this remote outpost that I'd never heard of, combat outpost Keating. 53 U.S. troops facing this unbelievable assault from up to 400 Taliban. And the amazing thing was that this camp was in this horrible place located at the bottom of three steep mountains, just a few miles from Pakistan. And it was a poignant moment for me in a lot of ways, but one of them was just holding my son and hearing about eight other sons,

eight U.S. troops taken from the world. But it just set me on this mission, is the only word I can use to describe it, to find out more. And it just became this project that ended up tapping into so many parts of me, my intellectual curiosity, this mystery, why would anybody put an outpost there? And then also trying to understand, because I did not serve in the military. And, you know, when I graduated from Dartmouth, that was the year of the first Gulf War, 91. And it was not, you know, it's not really part of the world up there at Dartmouth.

There is ROTC, but it wasn't like for anybody, for any of my friends, no one was, you know, what are you doing next year? Oh, you know, I'm joining the military. Um, I mean, I'm sure there were a few, but I know of one guy, Jay Wilkins, who joined, but, but generally speaking, it was, it's not part of, it's not, not on, not on the minds of Ivy league students. Let's put it that way. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And, and so it's, it's a world that, that even though I cover it and even though Washington, D.C. is a military town, it's a world that's relatively foreign to me. And I've been covering the war, whether in Iraq, covering that war,

or also the war in Afghanistan from the comfort of the North Pole and the White House. But I covered it in the very Washington way, debates between the Pentagon and the White House and debates over troop levels. And, you know, ultimately, I came to see my own coverage as very insufficient. And so it just became something other than a book project. I originally signed the contract to write a book just about the battle and just about the squadron that served in that area in 2009. But then other troops heard about the book I was writing, and they reached out to me, they tracked me down, and they said, you know, you really should also write about

when we formed Combat Outpost Keating in 2006. Or then somebody else reached out and said, you know, we had a lot of successes when we served there in 2007. And it became a project that all these troops became invested in because they wanted me to tell their stories, and more importantly, the stories of their fallen commanders and their fallen brothers. And it just became something else. It became this labor that my wife, for whatever reason, God bless her, immediately understood how important this was to me. And I would go home and I would, you know, after we put the kids to bed, I'd work on it from like 8 o'clock until midnight or 1 in the morning.

And then on the weekends, I would tell her, okay, you know, I need to work on the book from 10 to 6. And she would say, okay. And she would leave the house with the kids. And she understood. And, you know, it was a great sacrifice by her, but ultimately it became a project that I was, I felt compelled to write and make it as accurate and as good as possible. Jake, the response to the book.

I mean the book is completely engrossing and I don't know whether you were on when we were talking about this, but Rob Long, who's also on it, although Rob has a cold, I'm sure he'll ask a question or two. Rob was saying he very much hopes it's made into a movie. It's that engrossing, that visual. At some basic level, you're writing about heroism. The respect with which – the affection, the regard with which you write about these American soldiers comes through every page of this book. And I am wondering if some if you've gotten some pushback on that in reviews, in interviews and so forth, saying, look. You're glorifying what is a very nasty business and something the United States should engage in only very reluctantly. And and you just shouldn't do that, Jake Tapper. You just shouldn't talk about this as if it's making heroes.

Do you get any of that? A little, but the book, I did. I wanted to be honest about who these guys are, and I do have great respect for their selflessness and their sacrifice and their willingness to put themselves in harm's way away from the people that they love. And I have tremendous regard for their families, too, what they sacrifice. But I also think that I made a decision, and it was not an easy decision,

but I made a decision that while I would respect the selflessness of these troops i was not going to flinch in describing their mistakes uh... their personal foibles uh... and then perhaps the the most difficult a decision uh... how graphic to be when describing their wounds or in some cases their death

uh... and this is actually a conversation I remember having with many journalists and many soldiers about, because I really had to decide how graphic should I be. Well, you get pretty graphic. Yeah, ultimately I decided to be pretty graphic. Hopefully not gratuitously and hopefully not in a way that makes people think, oh, that's cool, but in a way that, like, makes people think, oh, that's cool. But in a way that just really obviously describes, like, because, look, I did not know. And, you know, I was a senior White House correspondent for ABC News and reporting on the war, and I'd been to Iraq.

But I did not know what an RPG, what the effect of an RPG was on the human body. I mean, I knew what a rocket-propelled grenade was, and I knew it killed people. But I did not know that first comes the shockwave, which can, like, liquefy your insides. And then comes the shrapnel. You know, I didn't know that because we in the media don't cover it. We don't talk about it. We don't talk about it because it's horrifying and graphic graphic and people change the channel or don't buy the newspaper. That's what I meant when I said graphic.

It's graphic but somehow the way you do it, it's respectful because it seems – it's not gratuitous. It seems like it's real. So I was going to ask you, did you have trouble or what was the process of gaining trust from the guys that you were writing about? Was it a difficult process? Was it easy? Yeah. It was very difficult. It was very difficult.

Because, first of all, there's the level of who the hell are you? Right. Who the hell are you, TV guy, to – have you ever – it's not like any of them recited Nicholson's speech from A Few Good Men. Right. Ever stood point. But I mean there is that attitude. Like who are you? Why do you want to write about this?

And then it's like, oh, you want to make money off this, even though the compensation is fairly modest. But you want to make money off of this. And then it's just like, what's your agenda? Who are you, peacenik? Or whatever. Or the other way, the truth is, there were plenty of troops who are more liberal than I. I found that there were a lot more Democrats in uniform than I thought. And some of them were like, well, are you trying to glorify what we did? I mean, there was every form

of skepticism you could encounter. And I won most of them over, not all of them, most of them over by just being completely honest and saying this book does not have a political agenda. Nobody who supports war

is going to... I mean, whatever your agenda is, you'll be able to read the book and think and find support for your point of view, either that war is horrible or that it's important to fight wars and that we have great fighting men and women, whatever. But my point was just, I just want to tell this story. I'm just trying to tell these stories, and I have an ability to tell them. And if somebody else was going to write this book, I would support it, and I would buy it and read it, but no one's going to. And just through attrition, I won a lot of them over. Now, some of them I didn't, but I would say 95%. Did anybody flip after they read the book?

I mean, did anybody suddenly say, oh, I see what you're trying to do now? Because the book strikes me as extremely fair because it's extremely true. It just seems factual. Right. And did anybody – did you hear any feedback from them after the book was published, after they read the finished version? Yeah. There were people that got back to me and wished that their stories had been told, wished that they had cooperated. Not many, because most of them

I won over, but most of the people. And the other thing that I did was when I was writing it, I would send excerpts in draft form to people that I was

writing about to make sure I was getting it right. Because, first of all, you know, it's a fog of war situation. You have seven people describing the situation, and everybody has a different point of view. But then also, you know, I don't speak the language of the Army, you know, that acronym disease that they all have. And, you know, I wanted to make sure that I had everything. I was describing everything accurately. And look, you know, I didn't know the difference between a cavalry company

and an infantry company, all those, you know. I didn't know all those differences. And so they helped me through that. But when they read those excerpts, that also won them over and also encouraged different people to cooperate. So I got just a couple questions about Afghanistan, then I said a larger question. I mean why was Combat Outpost Keating placed where it was? What was the – I mean that's really the heart of your – the big mystery of the book, right?

Yeah. At the end of it, why did – what was the process of choosing to put it there and what could they do better next time? I mean I don't know if it will be next time, but you get my meaning. Yeah. I mean first of all, this was in 2006 is where they put the camp there, another one similar to it. And they put it there because at that point we did not have a huge presence in eastern Afghanistan. We'd been fighting the war for five years, but we did not have a huge presence in eastern Afghanistan. And there were not a lot of troops in Afghanistan. Most of the troops were in Iraq, so they had to do with what

they had. And they figured the best way to do it was smaller bases scattered throughout this area, Kunar and Nuristan. They put it in this location for a number of reasons. It was near, you know, to win over the local populace, it was thought you needed to win over this one tribe tried this one community uh... the column people and then they put it at the bottom of

these three steep mountains because for a number of reasons to be near the populace at the bottom of the mountain to be near this road because the idea with the book and stops uh... insurgents coming in from pakistan and bringing weapons and fighters to kill american south of there. And then also, because there were so few helicopters in Afghanistan, the only way to resupply the space was to do it through convoy. So they had to be next to the road.

Okay. And so ultimately, in this very mountainous part of the world, if you're next to a road, you're going to be at the bottom of a mountain. And, you know, it was the least horrible of all the world, if you're next to a road, you're going to be at the bottom of a mountain. And, you know, it was the least horrible of all the options, and that's why they put it there. I think that the big lesson, there's not a lot of military lessons that I conclude, you know, that I make, but the one lesson that I think is salient is that if you're going to send troops into places like this, make sure they have

everything they need. And they didn't in this case. They just didn't. They didn't have enough helicopters. They didn't have enough towards the end of the deployment in 2009. They didn't have enough men. They only had 53 U.S. troops there. And so, you know, that's really small for, you know, they were outnumbered seven or eight to one. Well, I guess that's the question of, like, not enough, because facing Afghanistan policy and Afghanistan choices in the future, the question is how, we're obviously going to draw down, how far are we going to draw down? And it seems to me that if you look at the combination of Secretary of State John Kerry, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, if that happens, and Barack Obama, we're looking in Afghanistan at a zero option, not a handful of troops there, but probably zero.

And if that's the case, would that be better? that this is, that Kerry and, theoretically, Hegel represent a turn to the left from Clinton and Panetta when it comes to international policy, foreign policy, and military policy. I don't think there's any question about that. And a reluctance to deploy troops. That Kerry and Hegel are both, you know, Purple Heart recipient Vietnam veterans is an interesting thing that informs them, I think, in some ways. Whether that makes them better at their job or not is another matter,

but it's certainly interesting. I doubt it will be zero. I think that it's probably right that it will be towards the smaller end of the scale i think without question that will be your troops there to a part of the special forces teams navy seals army rangers uh... i'm sorry green berets and other parts of the delete units uh... and you know for instance you know small

twelve person companies that that that uh... problems i think that i think that's possible you know, small 12-person companies, if that, squadrons. I think that's possible. It really depends on what they want to accomplish. If you want to, you can't do nation-building with, you know, 2,000 or 5,000 soldiers. You can barely do it with 100. But if you have just, like, special teams there who can go out there and kill bad guys at a moment's notice and make sure that Afghanistan doesn't become a safe haven for al-Qaeda-level terrorist operations, then I think you can do it.

It's just a question of whether the Afghan government – Are you hopeful that will work? I mean it seems to me that part of the – maybe I'm taking too much from your book. The part of the thing in your book is that you're either in it or you're not in it. And if you're halfway in it, bad things will happen. So the argument – I mean I'm actually not necessarily disagreeing with Hegel or Kerry. The argument that maybe it's just better just to cut loose and leave, that argument has some value to me just in sheer sort of how effective could you be?

What exactly would those special teams with a handful of forces do? How effective could they possibly be? What successes could they rack up at numbers so small? I don't know. I'm not optimistic just because by nature I'm not when it comes to afghanistan um but but i do think that um it really all just depends on karzai and the afghan people and what they want to do and what they want to accomplish and whether they think they're capable of it but i mean there is an argument to be made like um how much longer do they need to, before, you know, before the Afghan people,

and a lot of them have, there are hundreds of thousands of Afghans who have stepped up and tried to, you know, form a, you know, a government and tried to form a security force and police force and border patrols, and there are in this book, you know, the gamut of Afghans ranging from Colonel Shamsullah, who is a border patrols and there are in this book you've you've never gamut of afghans ranging from uh... colonel champs although with the border patrol guy and and often at his job and really dedicated to improving the life

at the afghan people there are others who work obviously caught in the middle local villagers who want afghan afghanistan to thrive but you know between the terrorists and the Americans, they know who's going to be there in five years, and it's not the Americans. And then there's the other side, obviously, the people who are the insurgents. I don't know. I mean, it will be incredibly interesting to see what happens. Well, that's why it's a great – I'm going to say it just for our listeners. It really is a great book because it kind of sets the table for what will happen in the future and you kind of feel like good news or bad news coming forth.

You're prepared because the characters are really vivid and I mean I can only – I think I learned more about Afghanistan just from reading a very close description of Apos Keating in your book than I have. The ten years we've been struggling there. Jake, Peter Robinson here one more time. By the way, I think you'd be proud of Dartmouth College because in recent years, the college has made a real effort to get some vets

to make it possible. Oh, I know. Oh, you're aware of this. Okay. Not only that, one of the guys in the book is there right now. Oh, great. The guy, Stoney Portis, who was a captain at the book, in the book at the very end of the book, there's a chapter about him called

Send Me. He is, he's a great character. He's there literally right now. I'll be in Hanover. I'll look him up. Is that right? Yeah, I'll look him up. Oh, you should. Okay, so listen. You can get my email after this, and I'll put you in touch with him.

Okay, I'd love to. He's taking graduate classes in writing. And as you know, our former president, James Wright. Jim Wright, yes. Is a Marine. I was going to say former Marine, but there are no former Marines. And he's a Marine, and he's done a lot to bring vets on campus. He's an incredible guy. I have a 20 year old son at Dartmouth right now, just an ordinary 20 year old kid, but two of his best friends at Dartmouth College are fellow undergraduates who are Marines

in their twenties. So it's, it's, Dartmouth is doing well. But here's the larger question. To have a handful of vets on campus at Dartmouth is a good thing. Still in all, when I contrast the culture of Washington when I was in the Reagan White House in the 80s with the culture of Washington you just described, the striking difference is that back in the 80s, from the president of the United States to the reporters in the press room, people had a feel for military culture. World War II, for that matter, wasn't that far in the press room, people had a feel for military culture. World War II, for that matter, wasn't that far in the past. Lots of the older folks that actually served in the Second World War, including a couple of the reporters in the press room. The Vietnam War, we'd all been through that. There was somehow more of a connection. I always felt people had a feel for military culture. Now we have a situation in which the culture of the coasts here in California, the Northeast down to Washington,

it just seems to me that there's much less understanding, much less actual tactile feel for what grunts do. You yourself said you were a White House correspondent for one of the three major networks in the United States and you had no real idea what combat was like, what an RPG is like. Is this just a kind of permanent problem the country faces that with all volunteer force and smaller military actions farther away, we just have to get used to thinking of the military as something that takes place on the periphery of national consciousness? Is there a way of, how do you, how do you feel, how do you grapple with that, that notion that still the biggest thing the federal government does is send Americans into combat. And it seems less and less that the people

who actually make those decisions and cover those stories actually know what combat is like? It's a great question. And I've wrestled with this a lot because I think it's unsustainable to have one or two percent of the population bear all the burden. And remember, it's not just the troops deployed. It's their sons and daughters and their moms and their wives and husbands. I do want to make one slight correction, which is a lot of the troops in this book are from California and are from Massachusetts and they're from Vermont.

And they, while I understand the blue state thing you were going for, they wouldn't look at it that way. And the truth of the matter is... Okay, I'm trying to make a point about sort of elite culture, but go ahead, yeah. Yeah, but this disconnectedness is in Missouri, and it's in Kansas, and it's in Alabama, and that's all I mean. No, no, sure.

It's everywhere. I don't know, because obviously, you know, it's not like I favor bringing back the draft, but one of the things a general said to me, and I put this in this book, because obviously, you know, it's not like I favor bringing back the draft. But, I mean, one of the things a general said to me, and I put this in this book, although I kept his name out of it, it was that he thought that, he hoped that the book would help, you know, people like me and the 98% who don't serve understand better what it is our troops go through, because he felt like the way that the country has evolved,

we're like the Romans hiring legionnaires. Like, they're were what what what the romans hiring legionnaires like that was completely separate population and they have nothing to do with anything uh... especially with the policy makers and you had for the first time ever tonight but with the wasn't this yet this was the first presidential election ever workable not acting forever but certainly in modern times where neither of the candidates had served for sure since the since the Second World War.

Al Gore had been in the Army, and George W. Bush had been in the National Guard, and obviously John McCain and Bob Dole, they had service. But this was the first one. George H.W. Bush was a World War II hero, and this was the first one where neither of them served. And it's a problem. I don't know how you remedy it, though. Partially, you can change the tone of reporting coming out of Washington. If you mandated and passed a law, which of course is impossible, that reporters cannot be married to somebody who works in government or is a lobbyist for, say, the chlorine industry.

Because when I was in Washington, everybody in journalism had a spouse who was either working for the government or was working for somebody intimately connected with extracting money from it. And that changes the whole tenor of the mindset you get. So Rob, you had one last question before we let Jake go? Hey, yeah, Jake. I just have a question. I mean I have to ask this because I really am curious and I am on the record here. I'm the resident total rhino squish ricochet and I hate all the – I hate any time people bring up on our side, my side especially, sort of the liberal bias in the media because I feel like it's whining and all that stuff. But I have to ask. Are we crazy on our side when we think that the media is tipping to the left? You know, it's a complicated question

because obviously, you know, the media is writ large. I mean, I see, you know, I see Fred Barnes wrote a column about how the White House, and the media gives Obama a pass, and the media does this, and the media does that,

and I think, you know, dude, I have not been giving Obama a pass. They're mad ate all the time uh... you know i i don't and so it's it's i think any kind of the broad brush you know you really it it it it really can make the mistake of unfairly

slapping people who are making you know efforts to be fair and impartial and proper quarters but you know in general you know i i think you know there are buying a few cultural biases that i think feed that that i think are part of uh... the media

in a lot of ways that um... are that we're there had been different ways uh... sometimes the assets that you can't imagine that anybody in, you know, for one, let's just say, like for one newspaper, you can't imagine anybody for that one newspaper voted for Mitt Romney. And I understand that. I understand why people think that. And I think there's, but there's also, there are other biases, I think, that beyond what a, you know, northeastern journalism center, you know, what biases might exist there because of the politics.

But there's also, like, for instance, a lot of people in media don't really cover poverty in this country that much. A lot of people in this country don't understand't understand uh... how capitalism works the make an effort to put the first early but they just you know they've never run a business uh... and and that kind of i think that informs a lot of the reporting and i think what's important for people in the media is to recognize their own biases

recognizing their own recognize their own shortcomings in their own deficits of knowledge and understanding. And while this certainly isn't a recipe for saying we should always have he said, she said journalism, even on issues like whether or not the sky is blue, I think that people need to be aware of those biases and make an effort to understand that people in Kansas do not necessarily have the same experience with people in new york city and that we should be trying to reach his men

appeal to as many people as possible the short answer is no i don't think you're crazy uh... after my long into their but i i i i but but i do think that it's it's overly simplistic because for instance i don't i really think that i at what i was white house correspondent and i'm no longer what s correspond for the two days but when i was really think that i made an effort so the people did not know

how i voted and did not know whether or not i voted for brocco bomb the truth is i don't vote for races like others so there's not even a mystery but like whether or not i would have voted for brocco bomb in two thousand eight or two thousand twelve uh... and uh... you know i think and i know colleagues that i feel that thing way about like i really don't know how major garris for example that the cbs news white house correspondent i have no idea how people i really don't and you know i keep that my living room

and we've got scotch together i really don't i have no idea uh... and uh... though i think you know i i i think that it's needlessly alienating to tar everyone if there are specific instances of bias that needle people. OK, well, so we're all right, though, if we limit ourselves to The New York Times and The Washington Post. We have your permission on that one? I'm not singling anyone out.

I'm not singling anyone out. Oh, we got to let you go. I'm told we promised. We promised. But why didn't you narrate the book, Jake? I promised our listeners that I'd ask you that on audible.com. Well, how come you didn't narrate it? Nothing against the guy who did.

How come you didn't? I didn't even know it was an option i mean they had a professional do with this um this guy rob who did a really great job and became really invested in the book and like uh has met some of the soldiers and is like he like he's a facebook friend now and he like he emails soldiers and their family members. He sends them messages and posts. And he became really involved. It wasn't even, I mean, I didn't even know I could do that. Well, that's all very good.

So the next time, you've just got to have Rob Long look over your contract. Because he will say, Jake, come on, there's money in this. You've got to do the narration. You never leave money on the table. Is there a lot of money in that? Did that other Rob make a lot of money doing it that I should have taken? I don't think so. It's a principle.

Well, we're going to miss you in the White House, but we'll see you now. We have a reason when we're in airports to look up at CNN, thinking that perhaps we'll see you there. Thank you so much for joining us. Well, hopefully I'll give you more of a reason than just an airport. Hopefully you'll say, hey, the Tapper show was pretty good. We should tune in on it. We certainly will. Thank you. And buy Jake's book, The Outpost,

The Untold Story of American Valor. Thank you for joining us on the podcast today, Jake Tapper. Thanks, guys. I'm big fans. Thank you so much. Take care. You know, I really enjoyed Jake. I mean, I think I've met him only once before. And I can't say enough about the book. I think the book is

it's the best thing I can say about it is I think it's a really decent piece of history where I think you'll read it as a primary source in a lot of ways and not – it doesn't have that constant drumbeat of somebody's axe to grind. If I can confuse all the metaphors. I was just going to say, you can beat the drum with the axe handle while somebody's actually grinding the blade itself. But I just – I like it and I think that – I mean it's one of those things where I wish – I would like to get a whole – it's funny. You get those guys to talk about media bias and they always give you the sort of basically the same answer the good ones anyway um and uh and but it always ends up at least having them say yeah it it it's it's an issue

um the honest ones always say it's an issue they never say no are you crazy uh they say they say we need to do better which is what he says they're're careful about it, but that's how it all ends up. Jake would go – I mean Jake was tenacious. He would – when you saw him in the White House press room, he would actually go after and not accept what Carney was saying. But you watch some of these people and it's like they've given up. The idea of extracting truth from Carney is like trying to whittle down a glacier with your incisor teeth. It's just – it's painful and it's not worth it and it's an immovable object. And the fact that they actually just sit there and take it

instead of framing these things with much more, shall we say, contempt isn't the right word, but with a little bit more energy. Do you ever get the sense that they're there actually to extract actual facts from this guy or just get the take that they're going to go back and say this is what the administration is saying? I think it's part of the problem is that – I mean obviously you do the job you do. But I think there was a growing sense, certainly on network news, of the irrelevance of what they do. Right, right. The audience wasn't there.

Nobody is watching ABC News. That's for sure. I mean nobody is watching Nightline. I don't even know if Nightline is still on. I mean nobody cares what these people say. So in a way, I mean I think he made a good move going to CNN, which is a much, much, much, much, much smaller audience. But he's got a shot at it on CNN I think at doing something interesting if he wants. I mean I've heard things about CNN and things about the new direction, the direction they're trying to take at CNN little bit of gossip is that Roger Ailes at Fox News is so smart that he signs up all the prominent conservatives to exclusive deals. So you can't appear on CNN. Charles Krauthammer, he'd be perfectly happy to appear on CNN and CNN to their credit would be perfectly happy to have Charles Krauthammer.

He's a smart guy. But they can't because Roger Ailes has bought up all the talent. All the talent? No, he hasn't bought up all the talent. There's lots of it. Oh, yeah. Well, pretty nearly all the talent and I can prove it to you. Are you guys under contract?

I am, believe it or not, a Fox News contributor. Now, it turns out that this – they haven't paid me anything in literally years. But it turns out I signed – I'm still a Fox News contributor. And there was – I was asked to go on MSNBC to comment something Reagan – and I got in touch with Fox. And the answer was no. You are exclusive to Fox. They're serious about it. This general notion that what Roger buys up appears on Fox, period, is certainly true.

Interesting. I wonder if there's somebody else we could talk to about Fox News and their contracts. Well, there would be Bill Kristol, perhaps. Bill's the editor of the Weekly Standard, of course, founded it with Fred Barnes and John Potthorne in 1995. And you see him on Fox News Sunday and the Fox News Channel. We're glad to have him here talking about the anti-Semitic homophobic Chuck Hagel. Welcome back to the podcast, Bill. I'm not going to get in trouble for being on this podcast with Roger Ailes.

I'm expecting the phone to ring. What are you doing on that thing? The contract prevents you from engaging in competitive enterprises, you know. No, buy it, Roger. But I'm risking. I want you guys to appreciate it. I'm risking my career, my future at Fox, you know, those precious moments on Fox News Sunday and Special Report to have this conversation with you guys. But it's my honor and pleasure.

Bill, Peter here. Watching you on Fox, of course, reading the Weekly Standard, reading your posts on the Weekly Standard blog site or website or whatever you guys call it. And what I love is that you're posting almost – It's probably internet, Peter. That's the thing. It's amazing what you can do these days really. where our side stands and what our strategy ought to be and who is reasonably cheerful about the prospect on the one hand. And on the other hand, you put up a post on the Weekly Standard website just yesterday, I believe. You had just been to the mass, the funeral mass for Judge Bork, and you noted that the program contained a couple of sayings that

were favorites of his from St. Thomas More, including this one, what you cannot turn to good, you must make as little bad as you can. Now, fine, good advice for life, but making as little bad as you can, that's what our side is supposed to do for the next two years or four? Well, that's not all we're supposed to do. That's some of what we have to do, I think, in those areas where the executive branch just has, you know, is dominant. Look, I haven't, I would not really claim, I really wouldn't claim to have thought anything much through. I think the only thing I've, I've realized that there is stuff that things need

to be thought through. I think to the degree that I'm perhaps ahead of some people, it's because I realize that this is a new moment. Re-elected president, and it was a pretty bad election for Republicans, losing 25 to 33 Senate seats, et cetera. I won't rehearse the grim result of that day, which means, I think, the need for fresh thinking and rethinking. I mean, fighting a president in his first two years in office well when republicans were in minorities are all over the place and then you both have some congress that was one set of strategic and tactical considerations fighting would you want a big election as as as well as didn't go over two

thousand ten that's another set of now it's a different situation where the next bag really in the sense of public hold the house had a bad election day i think it calls for a combination of, on some issues, not that many really, but I did think Texas was one, accommodation to the sort of yielding to the victorious president. He gets a little bit of what he campaigned on. But on other issues, I'm very much for fighting hard and resisting. And on other issues, I'm even for going on the offensive.

And I think there are actually real things that can be accomplished i do think keeping expectations down on among our guys is important i mean it's just not going to be a great two years and probably not a great four years for the country for conservatism for the principles we believe that we do in that respect have to uh... mitigate the damage that this president and this uh... senate will do and then and really try to

but try to win some victories and lay the groundwork for the future bill you know a lot of people on capitol hill what you know rob long and i sit here in california james leidlicks is in minneapolis what is easy to forget is that a guy like John Boehner is just that, a guy. And Paul Ryan and – these are human beings. And if the analysis is that this is going to be a miserably difficult at least two years and very likely four years and much of what we're going to have to be doing here is simply accommodating, mitigating the damage, looking for those relatively small opportunities where we can go on the offensive. You have just given a job description of a job that nobody in his right mind would want. How's morale up there on the Hill? You know, at the Belfort funeral, I think it was the second Thomas More quote I cited in that post was, I don't have it right in my mind.

I have it right in front of me. You must not abandon the ship in a storm because you cannot control the winds. So, you know, we do need to do our best on the stuff that's really important for the country. We should fight very, very hard. And I really believe that Chuck Hagel would be a very bad Secretary of Defense, for example. So I'm happy to try to really, and I am trying to get Republicans to unite against him, but also really get democratic senators who really think the country you know the future

that is important and we don't want to have a perfect defense to to to break with with their president that's up but yes it could be a tough job for the job they just the world companies but especially the last couple of i do think this fiscal cliff it was a kind of unique situation usually lose an election as you help you to be both improved your days and that what you basically losing party gets two three four months the kind of unique situation usually you lose an election as you help you to be both in through a few days and that what you basically losing party gets two three four months the kind of collected thought that and have some

accommodations of the circular firing squad for the usual and then that that the faith in actual legislative vote actual decision about what to do on a serious and you know matter of legislation or public policy for you know probably till February the next it's pretty unusual to have this fiscal cliff situation which required bainer in a lame duck congress to try to negotiate with obama the negotiate with the members uh... i think that was a particularly for bad tactical situation

i don't think that that's obviously now different without a new congressman they can't do a little more planning and uh... and hopefully avoid being having as a hand as I think he just sort of was dealt really in that case. Bill, one more question before Rob Long and James come in from Peter again. I asked about morale on the Hill. Here's what I hear a lot of in California. In fact, I had lunch with a couple of business guys out here in Northern California just yesterday. And they both at different points in this conversation said exactly the same words.

I've given up on California. I've given up on California. And I am hearing from people who in effect have at some level given up on the United States of America. I don't mean it as melodramatically as that sounds. But they said, OK, wait a minute. The demography is moving against us here. Republicans had a reasonably good presidential candidate. We could have had better candidates. Nevertheless, we lost badly. And the country has just decided against us. I, conservative that I am, am going to concentrate on my family,

on my business, and to hell with politics. How do we prevent that from happening? How do we prevent that from really taking hold among people on our side? Well, I think, honestly, fight some fights and win some fights. That's one thing. I mean, California is rough, and you really may have hit a tipping point where you get one and two-thirds of the Democrats in the legislature, and the ability to sort of pass. You do get into death spiral where, you know, there's no—they can pass legislation, all their constituencies, which ultimately is going to bankrupt the state.

I mean, at some point, reality does matter. But at the state level, you can go bankrupt, basically, and, you know, all the people can move to Nevada or wherever, and a few people are stuck in California and try to live their lives as well as they can. It's sort of the model you suggested, take care of their own gardens. You can't really do that with the United States. I guess you could in principle and go to New Zealand or something, but I don't think that would be very effective. Most of us don't want to do that in any case, and it's not really true in the United States. We do have 30 Republican governors.

We do have 30 Republican governors. We do have a Republican House. We have a lot of impressive young conservatives winning electoral victories, after all. Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Tom Cotton, others, Scott Walker, Paul Ryan, et cetera, et cetera. And look, in terms of everything trending in the wrong way, some of the demographic issues have to be dealt with. But it's not as if just empirically Republicans did better in 2012 than 2008. I mean, the pessimism is overdone. It was the case that a lot of Republicans hoped to win. They thought they were going to win. It's been a long time, honestly, since Republicans have lost an election.

They thought they were going to win as late as Election Day, you know, 08, 96, 92, basically. We all knew Republicans were going to lose, so in a way you adjusted ahead of time. I think some of the shock has been that we maybe talked ourselves into thinking that it was a closer race than it was, and so that's why a little bit of the excessive despair. But no, at the national level, people shouldn't despair.

Hey, Bill, it's Rob in L.A. I've got a question. So you said we're going to win some, lose some. What are the fights you think in the next, say, 12 months that we can win? Where should we be strategically putting down our bets?

Yeah, I mean, I think that's a very good question, and I don't know that I've that I had not, you know, that's what we all need to think about, I think. I was hoping you'd talk about it. You could just give me the answer. Yeah, I thought a little about it. Take it as my own.

A, you don't get – thank you, Rob. That's good. A, you don't entirely get to choose. I mean, there are some you just have to fight because they're really important for the country. At the end of the day, this country will survive 39 percent. You know, topic of tax rates instead of 35 will sacrifice a little bit of economic growth perhaps, but it's probably not going to be decisive. There are other things, you know, fundamental foreign policy issues, some fundamental issues depending on what people think about on some appointments and some matters of principle where you really need to fight

and try to prevent the president from making some decisions that would just be disastrous in our view for the country. So I think, one, you just have some you don't calculate. You just fight because you think it's the right thing to do. In terms of calculations, look, there are issues. I mean, energy policy or something. Is he really going to try to let the EPA stop these incredible breakthroughs that seem to be, that are happening on natural gas and that's a fight where the public is with conservatives.

It really would be good for the country. It really would help the economy despite all the burdens Obama's heaping on it. It's in accord with our principles, you know, free market principles. So there are particular issues where, I think it's a lot of the regulatory issues, actually, where the public is on the side of conservatives, and where I think the Obama administration would like to go crazy. But there, I think we could really win fights and get the Democrats to side with Republicans in the Senate. Well, James Lallx here in Minneapolis, you were talking early after the election that maybe we've got to raise taxes on millionaires.

We'll kill them. We just had a debate about that, and we're going to have another debate about it because Jay Carney says that revenue from those fat cats is still very much in the mix in the interest of, of course, fairness. Is this one of those lines that Republicans should just not budge on no matter how much rhetorical hay is made of their supposed defense of the plutocratic class? Or isn't it necessary for the Republicans to say, we are not the party of taking more property away from you and giving it to government, period? Yes, I mean, I think nownell's absolutely right uh... which are incredibly hard to say that uh... taxes i mean i thought obama ran on raising taxes on

the wealthy uh... like uh... you know they were able to get the number two fifty up to a four hundred or four fifty uh... and i thought that was lucky ran out of this is priority very hard to detect it going up for everyone anyway that was, look, he ran on it. This was his priority. Very hard to, the taxes were going up for everyone anyway. That was the key, of course, tactical advantage they had. And I thought they would have to concede on it, and they did. But that was it from my point of view.

He got his tax increase. The good news from a conservative point of view is it wasn't that much. He got, what, $600 billion, something like that, over 10 years. Not nothing, but it's $60 billion a year. It's not more. It's not enough to really finance the big liberal welfare state they would like to have now they can find out that with that you know for the they have been and they can do that for some period to come but they can't do that forever

so i think totally now i'm in favor of someone who was a favorite being it was a squish on taxes in december i'm not totally in favor say that was that you don't get to raise top rate and take away people's deductions uh... let's hope the economy can survive the tax hike that's already been imposed on us and no more tax increases. I think so. And I think Republicans are united on that. Bill, Peter here, one last question. I know we promised to let you go at a certain time and we will because as we've demonstrated in this conversation, really our side can't

do without you. So we'd better let you get back to work. But among – here's what I'm struck by. Again, this is the I'm in California,'re serving in Washington and prove difficult, frankly, for our guys to work with. Marco Rubio voted against the budget deal. I was sort of thrilled that Marco Rubio did that because now he'll be able to campaign if he does run for president, saying that he's pure. But there's this temptation now within the Republican side for the people in Washington who are there who have to do the hard work that you already described of making things as least bad as possible to play to conservatives in California and in Texas and actually grandstand?

What do you think of that? I don't know. I think there are plenty of temptations both ways. There's some temptation to grandstand and some temptation to just give in and get patted on the head by the Washington establishment, too. And obviously, there are plenty of Republicans who've been susceptible to that. I guess I would say, look, that I think what is needed is some tolerance, you know, among conservatives and among Republicans for each other.

People are going to have different, genuinely different views on some of these matters, substantively, different strategic judgments about where to fight and where not to fight, as we were saying earlier, different tactical kind of considerations, given what state they're from and that sort of thing. And I'm sorry for not, you know, imp impugning the motives either of someone who voted against, let's say, Bader on the budget on the deal, as Rubio did, or impugning the motives of people who went along with him. We shouldn't assume that everyone is acting in bad faith, that others are acting in bad faith. And look, some of this diversity is fine, as you just said.

The outcome wasn't so bad at the end of the day. Republicans avoided being blamed for everyone's taxes going up and those republicans who thought it was the right thing to do we're able to play out but i don't like this deal in our community was able to put against it but our friend tom cotton uh... was able to vote against the even the much smaller uh... sandy uh... relief bill in the house uh... last friday uh... after being a tourist credit stopped a ridiculous $60 billion giveaway.

So, you know, I think we'll have to expect that a little. I think this notion that Republicans are going to be in lock, I hear that a lot from people. Can't they be more united? Of course, it would be nice in a way, but in some ways there's a virtue to having a little bit of, having a little more of a latitudinarian sort of attitude to the

party right now and letting people kind of go slightly different ways. I don't agree with your conclusions or your reasoning there, Bill. So in the name of epistemic closure, we're going to have to let you go here. Excellent. I always like to close on an upbeat note. I'm now going to slink off wondering what have I totally wronged here. I'm going to have a crisis of confidence for days, weeks, maybe months.

That's okay. I'll just go off. The host will just smile at you and say, thanks, maybe months. That's okay. I'll just go off. Other hosts will just smile at you and say thanks for coming in, but we're just going to say we're very disappointed in that last remark of yours. No, actually, I love the idea of everybody coming together and mixing it up and having...

This is the time, actually, to have the intellectual churn, isn't it? To get this out of the way in this year before we start figuring out what to do in 2014. Anyway, uh, we,

we know you're busy there, so we'll talk to you later. We'll see you on Fox. Unless of course this little ricochet thing got you canned. Sorry. That could be the end. Well worth it. It's been fun.

Be well guys. Bill, take care. Thank you. Thanks Bill. Well, the, uh,

let's see. I'm looking here at the fact that as many times as I've tried to get everybody to say the homophobic and anti-Semitic Chuck Hagel, nobody said it. We haven't even talked about him. So I'm just assuming that you are thinking this is going to sail through and nothing bad will accrue to them because of it. Rob, you're the only guy to close this then who didn't get to say anything about Hagel. So go ahead. Well, you know, I guess I think this is all part of I think it is all part of

a zero option for Afghanistan, I think. And I think it's also part of what, you know, you need an unimpeachable pseudo unimpeachable Secretary of Defense to cut defense spending, right? You know, Nixon going to China and all that. So you need Chuck Hagel, who's a nominal Republican, and a Purple Heart winner to cut the defense budget.

I guess I would – I'm just surprised that the choice is so tame in a way. I would have expected Obama to pick a more way out name. I mean he's got a very strong hand and I would just – I would have assumed he would have picked somebody with a little bit more – who drive conservatives a little bit more ape. Kucinich you mean perhaps? Like I don't know. I mean I just – I think you – my political advice for Obama would have been for the first three or four months to make Republicans say no to everything, to make it seem like this gigantic, constant blocking of everything. All my nominees, they don't like anybody. They don't like any – I just force them to be saying no all the time and castigate them as the party of obstruction, I think. I'm not crazy about Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense, but given who this president is and given what this president wants to do,

I don't think it's the worst choice he could have made for us, for our side. I think he could have made a choice that would have far less friction going through. And I don't understand exactly why. And that's why I'm curious as to why he wants to spend the political capital on this when he could have got somebody to accomplish what he wanted to accomplish, a little bit more stealth profile. I don't know. That's what I think.

It feels to me like they must have been caught flat-footed by this, which is – I guess it happens to every president at least once or twice. Who must have been? The White House or our – really? You may presume more intelligence and strategery and brilliant foresight and long-term planning than I do. I don't think that these guys are actually – I think they think they're tremendously smart and clever. But I think that their self-evaluations exceed the reality. When you hear what Boehner has been talking – I mean the little quotes that have been dripping out from Boehner's negotiation with the president. You find a man who is fairly confident in himself, which is endemic to the breed I suppose, but to the point of parody, to the point of just a ridiculous amount of self-esteem. So I think –

Why shouldn't he have it? He won. I mean he won. Well, exactly. That's right and he won. But that – I mean if you extrapolate from the fact that you won, that doesn't mean then that you can also fly and walk on water because you've been on ships and in planes. I mean you can extrapolate from your victory things that aren't necessarily borne out by the evidence. And yeah, he won. But when the president says we don't have a spending problem and he's sick and tired of hearing that, there's an intellectual insularity there that I find stunning.

Maybe. But in a way, I mean I have to agree with Jim Patakoukis. He's basically right. In terms of discretionary spending, we don't because we have a Medicare problem. We have a healthcare problem, and we have a social security problem. But that's not really a spending problem. That's an entitlement problem. I mean it's a semantic difference, but republicans are always focusing on spending, discretionary spending. That's really – he's right. That's not really a problem. Our problem is that we have enormous entitlement liabilities stretching as far into the future as possible, and they will bankrupt us. And do you think that he sits up worrying about that? No, because he's going to raise taxes.

And you think that he believes that that's going to fix it? Yeah, because it is, because he's going to raise taxes on the middle class. He'll probably get Republicans who are always talking about this stuff to agree to raising the retirement age, making some adjustments, means testing social security, which he'll then plow into basically national health insurance, which is Medicare for everyone, Obamacare. And he'll call himself a success and he'll raise taxes on the rich and he'll raise taxes on the middle class and we'll all pay more in taxes and he's i had no doubt he doesn't think that's a problem i mean i i think it's a problem you think it's a problem but he doesn't think it's a problem and there's not that much evidence right now that the american people think it's a problem oh i know i know because we just had we had an election about vaginas i understand that and i know that he's going to declare victory on this. I am reconciled to no matter what, whatever happens, not only he will claim victory, but

history will lay at his feet the salvation of all of these problems. I'm absolutely convinced that that's the way it's going to look. Just as FDR pulled us out of the depression by the mere force of his will on a couple of acronyms, so it's going to be written down the road that Obama did this. And I don't care as long as it's fixed. If it's fixed, I don't care. I just want it to be fixed so that I have lunch. I mean our long-term entitlement situation, problems solved,

so that my daughter does not grow up in a third-world country with a power guttering off 12 hours a day. I want something that is going to ensure the continued financial stability of the United States of America. Okay, that's exactly his strategy. That's exactly his strategy because he's going to be able to deliver that to you. Your daughter won't grow up in a third world country. She'll just grow up in a slow growth.

Right. I care about the means. I mean when I say that I want it fixed, that's the first thing. I don't want to just shrug my shoulders and say it's all going to hell. It's a ridiculous socialist notion and goodbye. I mean I want it to be fixed, yes. But after that comes very closely, I want it to be fixed in the correct fashion that doesn't ensure that we turn into a European social slow growth kind of place. But you're already on his side.

You're already on his side by saying that you want it to be fixed. This is – he's letting – spending goes up first. Spending goes up first. He threatens you with becoming third world. You say, well, wait a minute. My first choice is to remain first world and fix this in the proper way. And Obama says, I'm sorry. That's not an option.

And then having staked out the Jamesames lilacs position you say well okay well okay then raise taxes i'd rather become i'd rather become belgium or the united kingdom and have my daughter grow up in in greece no don't call it the james lilacs position to raise taxes like belgium and greece and it's not and i'm not on his side i'm just saying i mean if are you saying you don't want it fixed no i i'm saying what do you want do you want it fixed. No, I'm saying, do you want it fixed? Not in the way that you defined it a moment ago. So that is to say, if you, if you make your primary aim, right? Financial stability, excuse me, the word that you use, James, that I consider very dangerous is stability because the other side will be able to give you financial and economic stability along with a gigantic welfare state, very slow growth,

limited economic and life opportunities for generations of Americans yet unborn, but still stability. They will be able to turn us into Western Europe. And let's face it. Life in Western Europe isn't all that bad. It's just that the Western Europeans have been able to spend the last half century relying on the United States to defend them and we have no one. The world will start to fall apart. But still, we'll be able to get our croissants in Paris and in Manhattan. 60 percent tax rate. So what you said – needless to say, I put this as provocatively as I could

because there's nothing lovelier than getting a rise out of James. But if you put it, if you say what I want first is stability, to me that's a terrible concession or it's a dangerous concession. It opens you up

to the blandishments of the other side. Well, okay. If you want to put it in those terms, which you just did, be my guest for the sake of making an argument. I didn't choose the word because it had any particular ideological

apparatus behind it. I was just essentially saying that what I kind of want is for there to be a United States in the future. And I realize that when I say that, I really am conceding to the other side all manner of nefarious means by which they can ensure it. Yes, obviously. But what I don't want is a United States that is manifestly different from the one that we know, right? And by that, I mean I don't want a servant class. I don't want the whole conception of nationality and

identity to be changed. I'm interested in preserving, hence the whole conservative thing that we got going here. But I got to say, I agree with you. And I think that's exactly the right way to put it. But I think in a way, we're fighting a rearguard action. And part of the problem with the action that we're fighting is that we have – it has nothing to do with Barack Obama. It has very little. I mean Barack Obama is batting cleanup at this point. It's really what's happened over the past 40 or 50 years in this country where we've allowed ourselves to drift away from our more free market, more individualistic, more pro-capital, more pro-business roots

into a kind of a pseudo almost European socialistic state but without really being honest with ourselves about it and when – now that we have this point where the bills are coming due or they're coming due in the future, we're freaking out about it. So it really – Barack Obama is almost beside the point. He didn't make this happen. He just kind of put the finishing calligraphy on it and we've got to go and undo a lot of stuff and return sort of – privatize a lot of things. And that's a hard thing for our side to do suddenly when our side frankly hasn't been all that good on this issue for 40 years.

We've kind of gone along with it and made little adjustments to it left and right. So we've got a lot of work to do. It's dispiriting in a lot of ways, but I don't know if it's impossible. I just kind of feel like it's hard because there's no groundswell. We have defined conservatism now so – in such a tiny way that there's no groundswell in the country to do the hard work, to do the really difficult stuff. Privatizing Social Security is going to be really hard to do. I can't imagine it's happening, but it's going to happen. It's got to happen because it's the only way out.

A more free market healthcare system has got to happen, but I don't know how it's going to happen because we were at a fork in the road a few years ago and we went left instead of right. All true. All true. I'm not sure. I mean Barack Obama is a symptom. He's not the disease. Oh, I'm not sure I can go with you that far. Yeah, sure.

I mean you can say that we've – our side has done a lousy job for two decades now and you can say that Tom DeLay – when the republicans were in charge of both houses of congress and the white house under the George W. Bush administration, we did a lousy job on entitlements. I grant you all that. But to say that Barack Obama hasn't made things dramatically, quickly and intentionally worse is I think to miss a large chunk of what's happened over the last four years. But if you strip away Obamacare, just take it away for a minute, we'd still have the same gigantic entitlement liabilities that we have. Oh, I see. Oh, OK. Yeah, right. Right. No, no.

Sure. True. That is true. Very important point. True. That is true. Yes. He's very, very cleverly forcing the Republicans to do all of the mean stuff. And and it's very smart. And he's very smart. He's smarter than us politically, for sure. OK, now, how can you say he's smart? He's he's winning. That's what's that's He's smarter than we are. He's winning.

We have not – we don't have our act together. We have not been – we have not laid the foundation for our arguments for 20 or 30 years. James, over to you to end the show on a high note. Well, I think we have been making the arguments. A lot of people have been making the arguments. People don't want to hear them because you've got, what is it, something like 47 percent? You've got a lot of people who just frankly don't see the particular attraction in working that hard. They don't see any downside to not working that hard.

And so far, as long as things keep spewing out of the wonderful economic cornucopia, then really what reason is there to change? What you need is about 100 more examples like you had last week when people were looking at their paychecks and all of a sudden tweeting about the fact that they really got a pay cut and they couldn't figure out exactly why this happened. Incremental instruction of people via reality. But I'm not one of those people. I know this is one of those things that makes Rob's mad. I'm not one of those people that says, well, things get really bad and then they'll turn to us.

No, they'll turn to a Huey Long or they'll turn to some other form of populist rabble-rouser. You know what? But these little measures of instruction coupled with better rhetoric, coupled with Glenn Reynolds' idea of some billionaire out there going and buying themselves some mass market magazines and trying to turn around the culture long term from within, that will work. But it's – there's no quick fix here. There's no fast thing. It's – Boys. Boys.

By 2014. Yeah. work but it's you know there's no quick fix here there's no fast thing it's more you know boys 2014 yeah boys i am never the one who ties the podcast up in a ribbon because you guys are both so much better at that than i am but this time i will be the one this time i will tie up this entire podcast with a ribbon ribbon it baby ribbon it okay so here's the ribbon. We began by talking about the reluctance of certain groups to get inoculations against various diseases. And Rob said that whooping cough is coming back. Isn't there a political analog to that very a very vivid memory of what it was like to go through polio scares every summer. And so, man, I got every inoculation that was going. Her generation and then my generation remembered how things could go wrong. And in the 80s, we had generations of Americans who still remembered the depression and more importantly, more immediately relevant, the terrible mess that the has virtually doubled in the last quarter century largely because of the limited government, low tax policies of Ronald Reagan. And we have two generations of Americans who simply don't remember how bad reality can be.

Well, they're about to learn. And on that note, that reality still matters, I toss it back to Jim. Now, didn't I tie that up in a nice ribbon? Very nicely so. So we're going to re-inoculate everybody. And I hope we use a particularly thick and blunt needle. In the meantime, we want to see all you over at Ricochet where, of course, things are happening. There's going to be new features, new design, new meetups, more live shows, all kinds of stuff. And we encourage you to go there and re-up. Just send your friend a link, re-up for a year, all of the wonderful virtues that can accrue to you

if you can keep Ricochet going. Our thanks again to Audible for sponsoring. And you know audiblepodcast.com slash ricochet. Audiblepodcast.com slash ricochet is where you can claim your free bit. Listen to what Jake wrote. Listen to it told wonderfully. And you can figure out what we've been talking about this show.

Thank you, Rob. Thank you, Peter. Thank you, me. And we'll see you all at Ricochet. See you soon. Next week, boys. Bye. Never know how much I care When you put your arms around me I get a fever that's so hard to bear You give me fever When you kiss me fever

When you hold me tight Fever In the morning Fever all through the night Sunlight sets the daytime In the morning, a fever all through the night. Sunlight's up the daytime, moonlight's up the night. I light up when you call my name, and you know I'm going to treat you right. You give me fever.

Ricochet. Join the conversation. Fever in the morning. Fever all through the night. Everybody's got the fever. That is something you all know. Fever isn't such a new thing. Fever started long ago. So if you're a youngster in Alabama, start getting the football out and throw it around the backyard with pops.