The Ricochet Podcast - Listen Up

Episode Date: June 7, 2013

Lots to talk about this week, and we have the guests who are more than up to the task (Troy Senik is sitting in for Peter): Michael Barone, the dean of American political journalism, joins to discuss the scandals, the state of immigration, Minnesota politics, and, yes, even 2016. Then, our pal Claire Berlinski (follow her on Twitter here) calls in from Istanbul to give us a boots-on-the-ground... Source

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It's the Ricochet Podcast with Rob Long and Troy Senec sitting in for the vacationing Peter Robinson. I'm James Lylex and we have a sterling lineup for you. Michael Barone, the Dean of American Political Analysts. And live from Turkey, it's Ricochet's own Claire Berlinski. What do beer and kissing have to do with the protests over there? Let's have ourselves a podcast and find out. Yes, indeed, this is the Ricochet podcast, number 171 if you're making a bunch of hash There you go again. Spoken audio information to entertainment for your ears, non-comporeal. And you can listen to these things anywhere you want, and you can get it free at audiblepodcast.com slash ricochet. audiblepodcast.com slash ricochet for a free audio book and a 30-day trial. This concludes our paid announcements. We now bring you the regular Ricochet panel, plus one and minus one.

Peter isn't with us, but Troy Sinek is. Troy, Rob, how are you today? Hey, James, I'm fine. Yeah, Peter, we should say, is not with us. I think he's on his annual camping trip with his family. There's a reason why he has that giant family. I think they have survivalist exercises in the wilderness. That's an elaborate euphemism that we have. We can be honest about that. That's the most natural thing in the world, imagining Peter Robinson camping.

Yeah, I know. I mean, I see him in loafers and a button-down shirt. Yes, and the sweater tied around his neck. No, I think that happens, and he sort of directs the children to sort of make camp as he reads aloud from Gibbon or something. But I think that's the whole point of having the children,

that it's free labor. Hey, Troy, welcome. Thank you, sir. Where are you? I'm glad to be with you. I'm in Los Angeles. I've recently against my will been returned to California from Tennessee. I'm one of many Californians who at this point is trying to shoot my way out of the state, and it's becoming

more and more difficult. How did they get you back? I wouldn't leave Tennessee for California for anything, especially this time of the year. Well, I mean, it's a complicated story, but I'm actually trying to move to Nashville at this point. It's not working out, but I did have the best experience one can have in Tennessee over the last week, in which I actually spent Sunday at the Jack Daniels Distillery in Lynchburg,

Tennessee. It's a dry county, isn't it? That's the most interesting thing about it is in Moore County, Tennessee, where Lynchburg is the only city there, and it is in fact dry. But Jack Daniels, being essentially the only industry in town, has constructed an elaborate workaround in which they can say you commemorative bottles, which come with something in them. Right. It's like the Vatican City inside of Rome. It's a principality with its own rules. Yes, precisely. It's better than giving you some blotter paper that had been dipped in bourbon that you had to

sort of soak in your mouth. So how much history is actually dripping from the play? Does it look like an old bourbon distillery or does it look like a modern facility? It's not bourbon. It's Tennessee whiskey which they have actually moved legislation in Tennessee that it's the only thing that's classified as Tennessee Whiskey. They have worked that into the law. It's a beautiful facility, and they've got all of these huge warehouses there. All the Jack Daniels production in the world comes from this one facility in Lynchburg, and they have made a veil of the political system in Tennessee over the course of the years. When prohibition was repealed nationally, there was still prohibition on the books in

Tennessee, and actually Jack Daniels himself was childless, Jack Daniels, and his nephew took over the facility, and when they could not produce it even after prohibition was repealed, he did the good American thing and got himself elected to the state senate in tennessee right and overturned the law and that is the legal basis on which jack daniels ended up operating now that's how you get things changed you uh you get elected and change the laws and you for something useful like your whiskey business benefiting your own corporation yeah exactly well all i can say is that it's good bourbon, and I'm saying that just to irritate people. As much as I love the darker spirits,

sometimes the whiskey versus the whiskey with an E stuff just gets a little bit tendentious. But no, it's fine stuff, and we wish you godspeed in getting back there. I remember the one time I was in Nashville, I was astonished to find that they had built, for no reason I could see, a replica of the Parthenon. You walk into a park, and there it is, a Greek temple, not painted the way the Greeks did, white, classically beautiful, shining in the dark. And why exactly? I'm not sure. They considered themselves the Athens of the South, and hence they needed the architecture of.

Yes, that's right. Also, Memphis has a pyramid, so they figured they needed something. And they call themselves the Athens of the South mainly because there's a huge higher educational presence. There's about 24 colleges and universities in Nashville. And for anybody who's ever there, if you go to that

replica of the Parthenon, I don't know if you saw this, James, but actually the thing that's most striking about it is you have to go inside because they have a perfect to scale replica of the statue of Diana in there, which is done in the gold leaf and everything else. And you can't see it until the second you walk into the room. And the thing is just enormous. It takes your breath away. Well, especially since it's Diana, but they use Dolly Parton, actually, as the model for it. I mean, it's an incredible piece of work. Right, the proportions are quite breathtaking.

Yeah. So, yeah, 24 colleges, that's preposterous. We all know it's nothing but a bunch of yahoos, mouth breathers, and snake handlers, and children pouring types down there. The elites, the smart people, of course, live on the coasts where you are now, Troy. Well, we will get to other cultural matters, including my review of Star Trek,

which I know everybody is absolutely waiting to hear breathlessly, probably at the end of the show, but of course, this being the Ricochet podcast, politics and the politics of the day comes to the fore. Let me ask you, Troy, do you think that as we look upon the scandal palooza, the scandal ranch that's going on, is it gathering steam and momentum, or is it dissipating? Well, I think it's gathering a sufficient amount of momentum that it's actually crowding out the number of scandals that are actually there. I mean, we've got now this morning, I guess late last night,

the story from The Guardian about the NSA collecting phone records for basically everybody who's a Verizon user. That's going to be the next step in this. And a story that hasn't even gotten traction as a result of all the other stories that are out there is this issue with Kathleen Sebelius, the HHS secretary, actually hitting up private companies to donate to this nonprofit, which is essentially a part of the Obama organization trying to promote Obamacare. So you've got the HHS secretary on the phone leaning on companies that she regulates in order to get them to donate millions of dollars.

I mean that's barely getting any coverage as a result of everything else that you've got going on with Benghazi and DOJ and the IRS. Troy, isn't it – I mean the late-breaking Guardian story about the Verizon sort of – what is essentially is a gigantic data transfer. This huge – just a massive amount of data given over to the federal government to sort of sift through and mine as it wishes. I mean it isn't news, right? I mean this is all part of the FISA authorization from December. So, I mean, whether we like it or we don't like it, and it doesn't sound very good to me, but it is something that was authorized. It's not...

Wasn't this authorized in 2006? I mean, wasn't this a renewal of something that they've been asking for Verizon for some time? Yeah, it is something that was re-upped, and then re-upped in, I think, in December. So it's not... You know, it's one of those things where, when I read it, I thought, oh, wait a minute. I mean, whether I... I don't like it, but it's not new,'s not – it's one of those things where when I read it, I thought, oh, wait a minute. I mean whether – I don't like it but it's not new and it does seem like one of those things that does – is going to crowd out what I believe is a very, very troublesome sort of larger story, which is the continuing unfolding of the IRS as a political arm of the Obama administration in all of its forms.

I mean, it is remarkable how politicized the one agency that was supposed to be completely impervious to politics has become in the past seven years. And it's amazing that they did this by themselves, knowing how much the president would disapprove of them if he found out what they were doing yeah i'm occasionally wandering over to the various sites that have that are about technical stuff mac you know software but but will veer drunkenly leftwards into politics now and then to remind us how brilliant the author is and how much of a better person he is than the republicans daring fireball is one of those it's a place I usually go to pick up some Mac links, but occasionally he will do some politics to show that he's much of a DB tonally when it comes to that as he is

when he talks about Mac software. He quotes the Glenn Greenwald piece in The Guardian about how the NSA was collecting all this stuff, and then his own comment is brutal and especially galling from a president who was a constitutional law scholar. You just have to do a taranto, you know.

Slap your thigh over and over and over again. Yes, who could have seen that from a constitutional law scholar that he would do these things? Well, listen, there's so many out there. And Rob's right. The IRS scandal is incredibly important. And to talk about it, let's get somebody incredibly important and incredibly smart. Michael Barone. He's the dean of Washington Journalism, senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner,

co-author of The Almanac of American Politics, and a contributor to Fox News. We welcome him back with pleasure and pride to the Ricochet podcast. Good day, Mr. Barone. Hey, it's good to be with you at Ricochet. Always so. Well, we were just talking about the 478 scandals consuming the Washington Beltway right now. Which of these do you think is the most important? And what do you think the likely outcome on the electorate, say, by 2014 might be?

Well, I think, you know, substantively important, I think most important is the Benghazi scandal, because that was an attempt to mislead the American public about an important national security issue with during the presidential campaign and one that had an important bearing The one that I think probably is most politically damaging, and I think the polling subst the shrewder Democrats like House Ways and Means ranking Democrat Sandra Levin have condemned it pretty unambiguously. And the IRS is something everybody knows. The word audit sends cold chills down the back of most Americans they they they have some understanding of what political manipulation of this agency could mean michael this choice and a couple weeks ago to that topic uh... lanny davis the former clinton aid said that the the i r s scandal made him

very nervous and made him think that it might be impossible for a democrat to get elected to the White House in 2016. Now, that's a long way out to be nurturing fears that large. Do you see any signs that justify panic on that level for Democrats? Well, I've sort of taken a sworn oath not to talk about 2016 presidential race quite so soon, but Lanny Davis is an old friend. I overlapped with him at Yale Law School back in 1912 or some such date, and I think he's right. I think that it damages the democratic brand because it suggests that there's a liberal tendency to misuse important agencies of government, agencies with great power, to harass and discriminate against political opponents.

That's not a strong positive record, and I think it could be a problem for the Democratic Party. It undercuts the case. It also undercuts the case for the more government party, doesn't it? Because the case for more government is we'll create more government. This will help you out. It will get you through difficult times. It will provide a security for you. You can rely on it. It will work competently and honestly. And between the

IRS scandal and the at least possible glitches and bumps in the road, I think the president called it the rollout of Obamacare. Those things tend to undermine the case for big government. Hey, Michael, it's Rob Long in Los Angeles. How are you? Thank you for being here. Oh, I'm well. Good to be with you. So can we talk a little – I know you've taken a sworn oath, but I'm going to have to ask you just to break that oath because let's be honest. We all started talking about 2016 right around November 7th of 2012. That's particularly true when you've lost the last election. That's exactly right.

There's only one thing to talk about, and that's the future. Chris Christie is facing a choice. He's got to replace Frank Lautenberg, and he's got to do it in a way. He's losing support from the Republican Corps. People think that's fatal. Some people think it's fatal. Some people like me think it's not fatal. Some people like me think he's not even going to run. What do you think? What are the things that Chris Christie's weighing right now?

Not what he's weighing, but what is he weighing? He's weighing considerably over 200. Yeah, that's right. Softball. Softball. Yeah, you know, I think he's weighing a number of things. His decision to have the special election in October rather than in November, you know, has an obvious political merit for him because the likely winner of that election is Cory Booker, the Democratic mayor of Newark, who's got, you know, not only strong support from black voters. 50 partner organizations worldwide, we bring together unparalleled expertise to serve businesses like yours. We can help you discover partners in new markets,

advance your digitization and gain valuable insights into EU funding opportunities. Take advantage of free expert advice and innovation resources. Visit een-ireland.com and take your business global today. But it's got generally a record that appeals to a lot of people who aren't necessarily hardcore

Democrats. And that's in a state where, you know, which is basically leans Democratic. So that's it's a help to Christie to have a special election there. Perhaps the turnout will be low enough to help a Republican. But the likelihood is that Cory Booker is going to be elected. And Christie evidently didn't want to take advantage of what some consider to be the ambiguities in the New Jersey election law to postpone the special election until 2014, presumably to be held at the same time as the general election in November. That would have given the Republicans, presuming he nominates a Republican, and I presume he will, that would have given the Republicans an extra Senate seat for the next year and a half. This looks like they'll get an extra Senate seat for about four or five months.

So what do you think, when it comes down to that, I mean, if you're the governor of a state like that, what do you do? I mean, people are saying, I mean if you're the governor of a state like that, what do you do? I mean people are saying Robbie George, the professor at Princeton. What do you do? Do you pick some kind of – a classy guy from a fancy pants university? Do you look for a mayor who might actually make a show of it in October? Or do you pick an old line? You know, Tom, I mean, the people who talk about Tom King come back by Christy Whitman.

Do you pick an old line name that might actually have a, still have a political operation in the state? I think, well, you know, not very many Republicans have much political operation. That's right. That's right. At this point, and you wouldn't, you know, you really don't want to look under the stones of the Democratic organizations and find out the kind of maggots that are running around. It's a right. John Corzine, when he was senator and governor, had a habit of giving, you know, half a million dollars to county New Jersey political organizations. And considering the way those guys operate, I always thought that was a little dicey way to spend your money.

Sopranos was the nice version of that state. Yeah, I think at least a process argument can be made for the proposition. Appoint somebody of some distinction outside of electoral politics who could make a contribution as a senator in an interesting way. I mean, this has been done in some other states. I mean, when Joe Biden's seat came up for a vacancy, the governor of Delaware appointed his former aide, a guy named Ted Kaufman, who made an interesting point of coming out against the too-big-to-fail banks in the debate on the Dodd-Frank law.

He was a guy with some expertise. The last time there was a Senate vacancy in New Jersey, I think, Governor Tom Keene appointed Nicholas Brady, an investment banker who later became Treasury Secretary in the first Bush administration. That was a guy who had achieved distinction in some other field. I sort of like the idea of Robert George, Robbie George as we call him, at Princeton. I mean, he's a conservative. He's a principled conservative. He's a very strong opponent of abortion rights.

He's also written eloquently about oppositions in opposing same-sex marriage, an issue on which I'm on the other side. But he's a very serious constitutional scholar. You know, he got this chair at Princeton and has set up an institute there that studies the founders, studies the basics of the American system. I've actually talked to one of his classes on one occasion. And of course, the Nation magazine wrote an article saying, there's a conservative at Princeton.

We've got to stop this. There can't be even one, you know, and so forth. These are the people that value diversity, openness, and tolerance. But the idea that there's one conservative at Princeton, I say if Robbie George scares the nation, maybe he'd be a good addition to the U.S. Senate. That's right. Only one way to get him out of Princeton is to send him to Washington, I guess. Well, so do you think, so I know you've sworn this oath, so I'm asking you to break it. Is this – I mean is the continuing sort of since – I will have to say since Sandy, is the continuing trouble with the strife between the Republican base or the – we'll say the hardcore conservative base and chris christie is this is this fatal to whatever his ambitions are in 2016 or is this one of those those things that when he wants to

put together an operation and start running he's going to kind of steamroll over uh well steamroll or again unfortunately all right your head when you're talking about chris christie but you know he could steamroller you if he got on a tricycle. That would be some tricycle. But it's fatal. You know, you're looking at polls now where the Republican, you know, potential Republican nominees and they're getting and you see 16 percent, 15 percent, 14 percent, 13 percent and so forth. What that says to me is that nothing is necessarily fatal. Remember that in the 2008 cycle, Rudy Giuliani was for a long time in the lead in polls among Republicans,

despite the fact that he's pro-choice on abortion, which many Republican voters consider a violation of a litmus test, despite his views on some other issues. And I think it's a mistake to say that Republican voters are necessarily conservative with litmus tests. What I think is happening in the Republican Party now is that ideas are changing. For a while, a lot of Republicans you hear talking, we're going to have a tax cut like Reagan. We'll have the defense build up like Reagan did. Well, we're not in the 1980s anymore. Different issues face the country.

You've got a lot of firmament around the ideas of people like Ross Douthat, who writes in the New York Times, and is a really smart conservative that we've got to do more in tax policy, less to incentivize entrepreneurs, and more to bolster family formation. I think Rand Paul is introducing a new set of ideas to the Republican Party. So how those ideas will play out, I don't think any scenario is inevitable. Therefore, I think that I'm unwilling to say that taking this stand or doing this political move is going to be fatal for a Republican candidate, including Chris Christie. All right. Well, I accept that you have not yet fully broken your vow. Michael, let me ask you to break vows. God, yes.

Who are you, Obama? Go ahead. Well, let's get you away from that. Let me ask you a question about 2014, because earlier this week there was a there was a story in Politico that Democrats have decided that they're not going to run away from Obamacare in the midterms. In fact, they're going to embrace it, I guess, on the theory that some of the benefits are now going to be more tangible and they think it will thus become more palatable to the public. Do you see any evidence that that approach can work for them? Well, it can work for them uh... well it can work for them at democratic constituencies but you know

obama care continues to paul negatively uh... it could pull even more negatively depending on what happens with the role of what happens with what we you know what people observe between now and november two thousand fourteen i don't feel i'm sure that in the world is going to be a disaster. But when you get the president talking about glitches being inevitable, I think that it could easily be such.

And, you know, the Democrats don't have much choice. Every Democrat in the Senate who was in the Senate in 2010 cast the deciding vote to pass Obamacare. Just about every Democrat in the House, given the very narrow margin, can be said to have passed the deciding vote for Obamacare. Just about every Democrat in the House, given the very narrow margin, can be said to have passed the deciding vote for Obamacare. There were a few that voted against it, many of which are gone now. So they're stuck with Obamacare one way or the other. Some of them, I see a strategy by some of them, like Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, who is embracing Obamacare, who is making a big thing of supporting the president. She's looking at an electorate that has got the second highest black percentage in the country in Louisiana.

And I'm guessing that she's hoping for a big black turnout, for a lot of black voters to turn out and vote for her, to be enthusiastic because she's supporting the president. And then she hopes somehow she can scrape together just enough white votes to win with, you know, on the market with about 52 percent as she has won her last three terms. That's a gamble. And if I was playing the odds, I would bet against her. But I think that's the strategy that she's doing. And as they might say in Louisiana, it's kind of a folk to muse strategy. I mean, this is a state where Obama got less than 40 percent of the vote. So and he's in the White House. He's defining the

Democratic Party. So if you're a Democrat, you've got to take some risks. Michael, James Lilacs here in Minnesota, where we've had a couple of earthquakes. We had Michelle Bachman, who's announced she's not going to run again. Well, you've got two serious senators, one of whom has a good sense of humor and the other of whom is a professional comedian. I was just going to bring him up, as a matter of fact.

Everyone seems terrified about running against Al Franken, and I'm wondering what sort of power possibly gained from a radioactive spider, as he demonstrated in Washington, that makes people think that somehow he's unbeatable. Well, I think the primary reason people may conclude that he's unbeatable is that, hey, it's kind of a democratic state. You elected Mark Dayton governor, didn't you? And, you know, Amy Klobuchar, one of your two senators that has a good sense of humor, won easily, overwhelmingly. You know, so it's, I think, you know, the Republicans in the last couple cycles have not really run strong candidates in Minnesota.

And nobody seems primed to run there. None of your House members seems to want to take the risk of going statewide. So, you know, Franken will be well financed. He doesn't seem to have antagonized voters a whole lot. There are some political insiders, like my AEI colleague Norm Ornstein, who think that he's actually been a pretty competent senator. Now, Norm, as he will tell you, is a friend of Al Franken's from high school. But he's making the case for him.

So I don't think Franken has made the kind of mistakes or gaffes or things that would disqualify him from winning in a Democratic state or turn off and antagonize a lot of people who ordinarily vote Democratic. Yeah, it's pretty safe that he'll get back. Pretty safe. Happy now, James? Now you know. Yeah, I'm thrilled to death. All hope is lost. Well, you don't live in the District of Columbia. Come on.

That's true. No, and Michael's right. I mean, we elect. Here's the thing, though. I mean, not only do we elect a very liberal Democrat to be our governor, it's the legacy of these names that we can't shake. Amy Klobuchar, her father was a famous newspaper columnist. Mark Dayton comes from the family that ran the department stores that everybody who's over 50 knows about. And I'm just afraid that some Franken dynasty is going to be founded here and that if I went into cryogenic

sleep and woke up in 100 years from now, we'd still be ruled by the same people. It's almost like looking at the modern political landscape and seeing nothing but Bushes and Clintons. Well, hold on for a second. Well, let's go to that. Let's take a look about Hillary Clinton. She seems to have, we'll let you go with this, Michael. Hillary Clinton seems to have stepped aside from the national stage. We're not hearing much about her. Is this part of a strategy to lay low so there's no Clinton fatigue and she can burst out and we'll be all hungry to hear what pearls of wisdom drip from her lips? Well, that may be. I mean, I heard someone, an evil-thinking Republican,

note that Hillary Clinton actually has a financial advantage over all their candidates because they have to get around on expensive jet aircraft, and she can get around on her broom. But, you know, Hillary Clinton, you know, she appeared yesterday at the funeral of Senator Frank Lautenberg. She was at Henry Kissinger's 90th birthday party. And apparently it looks like she's lost a lot of weight and looks a lot better than she did in her last month as Secretary of State, where she looked frazzled. She looked as if she's aging, I mean, I know you're not supposed to talk about the appearance of female public officials, but she looked and then she had some possibly serious health problems,

which led me to think that she might not run in 2016. She may have taken this opportunity to get her health in better shape, and I guess that would be one move towards running. Also, this disentangles her from the record of the incumbent administration if there are more foreign policy problems, but she's got a big problem right now called Benghazi. And, you know, what difference at this point does it make, she said at that Senate hearing in response to Senator Ron Johnson's very reasonable question. Well, the answer is it looks like it's made about 15 points difference in her poll rating for the American people. And instead of having,

you know, 60 plus percent approval, she's down around 50 now. So the idea that she's an overwhelming favorite to win doesn't seem to me to be justified. And it's interesting, the Democratic Party, so many of its leaders looking toward that presidential election or, you know, in their key state of California. They're all in their 70s, just about, and they've, you know, they've been in politics since the early 1970s. I mean, Hillary Clinton, her husband's first campaign was in 1974. Joe Biden, his first campaign statewide was 1972. You know, you look at California, Dianne Feinstein was on the San

Francisco Board of Supervisors in the 1970s. Barbara Boxer got her start on the Marin County Board of Supervisors, bless her. Jerry Brown was first elected to statewide office in 1970. They're all over 70, and Dianne Feinstein is about to turn 80. So there's a kind of antique air about the upper reaches of the Democratic Party. It's unusual in American history to have a series of national and prominent state leaders who've been in the business for 40 years, but that's the situation with the Democratic Party today. Michael, I'm sitting in for Peter Robinson today, so I'm going to do my best, Peter, and tell you this is the last question. But I have to ask you, for anyone who's listening to this

who doesn't know, you put out every two years the Almanac of American Politics, which is the most indispensable reference guide for anybody who's interested in campaigns and elections. You profile every congressional district, every state, all the governors and the federal elected officials. Yeah. And I'm just the co-author and I'm writing less of it than I used to. But that's correct. Yeah. Well, at the beginning of every state's chapter, you have these opening essays of several pages. And I just wanted to ask you, after assembling that book for so many years, is there any particular state or states, the politics of which just confound you? I guess what I'm asking is what do you regard as kind of the quirkiest or the most idiosyncratic states in the country in terms of their politics? Well, I would nominate at least one level, the state of New York, which New Yorkers pride themselves on being the, hey, we're the national leaders, we're the smartest people around

and so forth. They've got a physical infrastructure around New York City, which is America's most modern and up-to-date as of 1959. I mean, James, you're an aftestian auto of that era. And they've got, you know, they have state budget. And the big decisions are all made by three people, the governor, the speaker of the assembly, and the president of the state senate or the senate majority leader.

Most state legislatures around the country, you know, there's a certain amount of give and take. There's party discipline, but there's also some people that are independent. There are, you know, different ways people can exercise power in different situations and on different issues. There's a lot of give and take. In New York State politics, a state with 19 million people, the state government policy is made by three people sitting around a table.

And I think that's pretty weird. It is weird. I mean everyone has their favorite weird state. I mean I was once told by a political consultant that the great thing about – the weirdest state is South Carolina where it's really a one-party state, but that party is a blood sport. And then someone once told me that Rhode Island can't be – tiny state, but cannot be discounted for secret violent politics. Well, we had a Doors Rebellion in the 1840s.

It was a pitched battle for control of the state government. And you had Theodore F. Green's coup in 1936, I think it was, when they basically had the state Supreme Court rule that the Republican state senators weren't actually state senators, and they voted in a whole new majority, a whole set of laws for the Democrats to run everything. Yeah, you have a lot of things. And then you have the role of genealogy in Illinois. You know, you've had the two mayors daily being the most prominent figures in state politics for something like 57 of the last 71 years or something in that order.

You have the current leading candidate for the governorship on the democratic side is the state attorney general lisa madigan who is the daughter of michael madigan who has been speaker of the state house for will have been for thirty of the last thirty two years uh... there was one two-year period of Republican control. You have alderman seats in congressional districts that are passed down from father to son. You know, Francis Fukuyama, in his latest book on political order, says that state formations, you know, start off rather primitively with families ruling, and then you develop systems of law and politics and social relations

and subsidiary institutions. Illinois is still there with family rule. So, Michael, before we let you go, I do have one last question. If you could do this job, your job, at any time in American sort of political – at any American political era, what would be your dream time? I'd like to be able to do it for 20 more years. Well, we would like that too. Yeah, well, I would like to – I'd like to go back to the controversy over – in 18, I think it was 18, 18, 18, 19, in which John Quincy Adams was the sole member of the president's cabinet to support Andrew Jackson

after he executed two British subjects in Spanish-ruled Florida. And John C. Calhoun was undercutting Jackson behind the scenes. Calhoun was later vice president under both Adams and Jackson. That was called the era of good feelings, which of course was a misnomer. That's a period that I'm going to be doing a little reading about this summer. Well, can't wait. Can't wait. There you have it. All the reasons past, present, and future in encyclopedic knowledge of. Follow Michael Barone at Twitter. That's

at Michael Barone, and get more of what you just heard here in the podcast, or of course, read him online, see him on television, and then wait for him to show up on Ricochet again and delight us as he has for the last 20 minutes. Thank you, sir, and we'll see you again. Thank you, Michael. See you soon. Thank you, Michael. Good being with all of you. Thanks. Ever a pleasure. Well, you know what? And we'll see you again. Thank you, Michael. See you soon. Thank you, Michael. Thanks.

Good being with all of you. Thanks. Ever a pleasure. Well, you know what? Because we've got another guest coming on, I'm going to grind all the gears without a transition and segue and say this is brought to you by audible.com. Oh, man, that hurt, actually. Oh, it's good. I like to do it a little smoother than that.

That one chafed. Anyway, you know the drill, right? Audible.com is the leading, the only place, really, that people go to find an audiobook online. And because of the WhisperSync technology, you can keep all your little devices synced wherever you go. So you needn't worry about having left the Kindle back there or the phone there or where did I pick up this thing. I know the difficulties of modern life have been solved completely by Whispersync.

And you can now get a free, free trial. If this is your first time listening to the podcast, well, welcome aboard. But also welcome to this fact, free for our listeners because of Audible. So audiblepodcast.com slash ricochet. You can get your free book. And we're going to maybe think about maybe what Troy wants you to read. Troy, your selection. I know I'm putting you on the spot here, but I'm doing this because I don't have one and I can just throw it to you.

Well, actually, it works out quite well, James, because I've become extremely dependent on Audible because I drive back and forth between Los Angeles and Nashville about twice a month. So Audible has been my lifeline. I would recommend the books that I actually just listened to on my most recent trip. I made the discovery a couple of years ago when I got on a short airplane flight and only took a copy of The Economist that certain things are too heavy a lift for travel. I mean that's like eating pure fiber. It's just – it's not good on the front end, even less pleasant on the back. And so I listened to both of Adam Carolla's books. The first one's called In 50 Years We'll All Be Chicks. And the second one is called Not Taco Bell Material. The interesting thing about

these, I actually didn't realize this until listening to the first book. Adam Carolla, thanks to the Los Angeles Unified School District, never learned to read or write particularly well. So he actually dictated these books. And rather than reading the transcripts for the audio books, he just sort of riffs off of them in the style of his podcast. And, you know, if you're if you're interested in somebody who actually has a fairly conservative take on things after a fashion, I mean, he's a self-avowed atheist and he's a little bit more libertarian on some things. Kind of pretty salutary. They're both very, very good titles.

So either one of Adam Carolla's books and it's a light lift but you'll enjoy it. Earl Stanley Gardner used to dictate his books as well. He wasn't very much of a writer but he would stand there with his little dictaphone and bark out the Perry Mason plots and people would transcribe them and turn them into millions of dollars. Anyway, Rob, we'll get to your pick a little bit later perhaps. Right now we want to get as soon as possible to somebody who's in the epicenter of something going on. If you follow Claire Berlinski on Twitter, you know that she tweets now and then in Turkish, which requires you to take them out and slap them into a Google translator and figure out exactly what's going on. But it's real-time information. And everything that I've learned practically about what's going on in Turkey comes from her.

And now you get to hear it too. In case you didn't know, Claire is a Manhattan Institute scholar, Thatcher biographer. We've had her on about that subject. And by her own description, the least qualified martial arts expert on the Internet. Also the most qualified and expert person on the planet to tell us what's going on there right now and whether or not this is about beer and public kissing or something else. Live from Istanbul, welcome Claire Benesky. And we should say welcome Claire.

You are also one of the early founders of the Ricochet community and we are thrilled to have you back. I was waiting to hear that. We are thrilled to have you back. You went out there to remember me? Yes, of course. And we want you back too, so we need you back. You're thrilled to have you back. You went out there to remember me? Yes, of course. And we want you back, too. So we need you back. So you stay safe there.

You know I can be bought for money. Well, there's a little question of the cash in the tin. Well, all right. So fill us in. What's going on? Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames.

Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames.

Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames.

Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames.

Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames.

Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames.

Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames. Turkey is in flames. Turk berserk. The judge headline was perfect. You know, we have been getting tear gassed nonstop for about a week. It's been actually a lot better in Istanbul for the last 24 hours, but it's terrible now in Ankara and Izmir. I don't know if you know the geography of Turkey well, but the extent of the police violence

has been so shocking. It's been so shocking. And what's almost as shocking is the denial of it during this entire time. And this tells you how completely out on has gained control of the media. The media was showing documentaries about penguins, incisive commentaries on liposuction.

And this is while people are being not only tear gassed, but beaten by the police, taking terrible injuries from direct hits from tear gas canisters, losing eyes, people, at least two confirmed deaths, probably many more. All of this is happening. Every Turk's protest by banging pots and pans, the entire city is alive with the sound of pots and pans and people screaming Taip, which is a rude way of saying Erdogan because it's his middle name. It's not like

saying prime minister. They're screaming Taip, resign. And we're seeing documentaries about penguins. So tell me, what's the heart of the matter? The people are protesting what and he is trying to preserve what? I want to try and put this in the simplest way possible. There's been an accumulation of grievances over years and people have very patiently put up with a lot of things. But as I've been trying to warn people but because people aren't that interested in Turkey, have not succeeded in getting people very interested in it, I have felt for a long time this is going to explode. It's just going to explode because people can't take being tear gassed on a regular basis.

It can't be used the way, you know, I mean, there are so many jokes about it. They use it the way traffic cops use their whistles to direct people. Everyone I know has a story of being tear gassed for no good reason. They can't detain students for holding up posters saying they want free education, even though that's not a political opinion I agree with. I don't think you can arrest someone and put them in jail for a long time for it. And Turks know this. And then recently there was a series of events that just were egregious. First, they've been arresting people for blasphemy on Twitter.

This is really, really going a step too far. Right. I mean, first, some famous people, but also some people no one has heard of, and I wish those people would get some attention because famous people, they have, they're sensitive to public opinion, and famous people tend to get treated a little more lightly. But there are some, you know, poor schmucks who are going to be in prison for a long time

for having said things that were offensive to the sensibilities of a religious segment of the public. And that's the official law. You can't say something that's offensive to the sensibilities of a religious segment of the public. It actually is a law that at one time made sense when it was designed to protect minorities. This isn't the minority we're talking about. This is not like the Alevis who were slaughtered in large numbers. This is the people who are now in power.

So, but, you know, I'm trying to fit it into the context of the region, right? So, this is nothing like, I mean, you know, Turkey's a democracy. The president, the prime minister is elected. They have fairly free elections. Free and fair elections. The prime minister took 50% of have fairly free elections. Free and fair elections. The prime minister took 50% of the vote in the last election. He's had enormous support because he hasn't screwed up the economy that badly. Now, when I say that, I say it in a very particular way because the way it's been described is Turkey's economic miracle, vaulting economic growth, blah, blah, blah. No, what it basically is is your normal growth pattern in a developing

country where people are not screwing up the economy too badly. A lot of it is not as solid as people think because there's a lot of hot money running around here. And the second people get whiff of this kind of disturbance, they pull it out. Some of it has been invested in ways that are very unwise. I say this as someone who has been thinking a great deal about the unwisdom of making people expect Social Security programs that will go on forever when your population numbers are actually growing lower. Yeah, heard about that. Yeah, yeah. We heard a little bit of that over here, yeah.

But it's been hugely popular, the idea that you can get great health care in parts of the country where you couldn't have health care before at all. And many people have been – I'm just trying to get to the heart of it. So – Hold on a second. Is it the young people who are secular? This is the revolt of the yuppies. Of the yuppies.

And what they're worried about. This is the revolt of the yuppies. And they are. Are they worried about it turning to slightly more conservative, slightly more religious? One of the really notable points about this is the heterogeneity of the protesters. There are some who are concerned about that. There are some who are just infuriated by not being consulted on things that affect them, like where bridges will be built and where parks will be destroyed, and feeling that the prime minister's attitude is, I got 50% of the vote and the other 50%, screw you.

I'm sorry, is that an unladylike way to put it? The other 50% of the vote. But that is so exactly what his attitude is. His attitude is what democracy means is, I won an election, therefore my job is to serve the people who voted for me. The rest of you, you lost. Forget it. You don't get consulted. You don't get consulted. We don't care what you think. We're doing it our way. Well, this is the most possible timing, right, for this country.

Right at the beginning of the summer, you mentioned Izmir, and the whole west coast of the country is a major tourist attraction for all of Europe. I mean, the coastline is beautiful. The beaches are beautiful. It's a huge destination, not just the Aegean coast, but the Mediterranean coast. Is there any concern there that this is going to be a huge financial hit? Oh, people are absolutely terrified of this.

It's one of the first things people are saying. This is going to affect the tourism industry so badly. It's going to affect the market so badly. After Edwin spoke today, he's actually out of town. He skipped, scampered off on a North Africa tour, get out of the way and let more diplomatic subordinates try and handle it. But he spoke this afternoon and his tone was so oblivious and so outrageously obnoxious. The markets immediately nosedived. It's a big concern. And, you know, investors just don't like instability. And there was a lot of excitement during these so-called PKK talks where people were thinking, well, maybe Southeast Turkey is

going to become a place where we can safely invest because that would be great. And it would be great. But no one really understands what those talks are about. No one. And that's part of this, too. There's a large segment of the population here that's just extremely disconcerted by this, because you have to remember the 40,000 people here have died in this conflict. And to be told, OK, don't worry. We're fixing it, pieces at hand, but we're not going to tell you the details of it. Just to clarify, when you refer to the PKK and that conflict, you're referring to the conflict in southern Turkey with the Kurds. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean it's a tough neighborhood they're in. They're in a very, very tough neighborhood. To the far east, they have – there's obviously a long simmering problem. Iran, Russia. And you know, they don't get along well with Greece either. It's one rough neighborhood and one hell of a time to be having problems like this, especially, especially, and people keep forgetting this, 20% of their most qualified serving generals and admirals are in the clink. What are you doing there, Claire? Why are you there? Oh, you know, if you've been a freelance journalist in Turkey for 10 years, I think it's going on 10 years now, and you've been desperately trying to get people interested in the place and something like this happens and all of a sudden you're getting all

these requests for interviews and articles. You think, oh, finally, finally it's happened. People are finally interested. But the fact that people are so surprised by this in the U.S. is a tribute to how bad our foreign news service coverage has become. And the amount of AKP, the amount of sycophantism that's been, it's been pure AKP propaganda. It's been done, you know, all the commentaries. AKP is the ruling party. Yeah, sorry.

I forget that not everyone's living here. Yeah, we'd all live in Istanbul. The AKP is the ruling party. Yeah, their symbol is the light bulb in the popular graffiti here. I can't even translate this. I don't think for a Ricochet audience, but it involves inserting a light bulb somewhere where the sun doesn't shine. Claire, it's... Go ahead, Troy.

Claire, it's Troy. Hi, Troy. Hi, how are you? Speaking of the coverage, particularly in the West, you're already seeing a comparison in some Western outlets, probably because the way the protests started and the government's reaction to the protests and the use of social media

to what happened elsewhere with the Arab Spring. Is that a facile comparison? Yeah, it's an interesting difference in the way social media is being used. At least with Egypt, a huge amount of that social media usage was outside the country. People were not in Egypt and they were using Twitter and Facebook to tweet the revolution. Now in Turkey, 90% of this is inside the country. So it is really a very different thing. It's not clear to me.

Facebook penetration here, I think, is higher than in most OECD countries and it seems as if I mean they people are paranoid enough to think that the government is shutting the internet down but I think it's actually just system overload um so I think it certainly has played a role especially because everyone knows you can't get any news whatsoever from television everyone knows it's been censored. People can see outside their own windows that there's smoke, tear gases flowing down the street, rioters, protesters, cops are chasing them down, and you've got penguins on your television.

So you know, okay, something's up here. I can't get the truth. But Twitter is proving to be a very effective medium for people to communicate and also communicate very important emergency information, like, you know, where the hospitals are, where the emergency lawyers are, what streets to avoid, where the cops are. So, yeah, it is important.

Now, one thing that it makes it very different from the Arab Spring protests first is that you've already got an Islamist government in power here, right? So you're not worried that this is going to result

in getting an Islamist government in power. But this is not going to be a game changer in terms of Erdogan resigning. And even though everyone's chanting Erdogan resign, no one resigns in Turkey. No one is not even a tradition here, even after the Van earthquake, which in terms of numbers makes this look like, you know, a little pinky boo-boo in terms of deaths.

There were no resignations. And Tayyip Erdogan is not going to resign. But it might really, it will put, I think, it will put an end to his presidential aspirations, which is a good thing, a damn good thing. And there may be internal revolt within the party. A lot of people are speculating that President Gil, who's on the surface a much more conciliatory diplomatic man,

might make a grab for power at this point. We don't know. What people should understand is, and this is going to be complicated to explain, is that Gil is a lot closer to the Gilene movement, which is a religious movement here that has a lot of power. And the question of which way is the Gilene movement going to go is very important. President Gilene might seem on the surface to be a much more acceptable person, but I have a lot of concerns about the Guillen

movement in general. And we're not going to see an opposition party defeat the AKP in the next election either, because the opposition parties are hopeless. They are absolutely hopeless. In fact, they are as much to blame for this as the AKP themselves. I have no idea why they have been unable to mount a successful challenge to them because there's a lot to challenge. There's a remarkable story. James actually referenced it in introducing you in your City Journal piece about the kissing incident on the subway. Can you just explain what that was? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There was apparently, I wasn't in Ankara, so I'm, I, I'm hearing this from press reports just the way you are, but, uh, apparently in Ankara on the subway, there was a couple kissing and of what

they were, they were seen on the video cameras that monitor the subway and a voice came out of nowhere and said, stop that. We can't have immoral behavior on the subway. And this racked them off. It's our business whether we kiss on the subway. And therefore, since it annoyed a lot of people, a number of people showed up for a kissing protest outside the subway. Kind of a sweet thing to watch is all the videos. I could see these guys who were thinking, gosh, I really like this kind of protest. I hope that maybe we could turn this into something even a little more sexy tonight. And in fact, one of the other things to note is that it wasn't just men and women. There were also homosexual couples. And maybe this is what drove the Islamist crowd just absolutely berserk when they saw this. Now, I don't know whether the report of a stabbing is true.

That could choose to be a crazy rumor. But it did just fly out over Twitter that the group of nationalist Islamist nutters had stabbed someone. They certainly threatened them. The police separated them. But the whole thing was ugly. And while it can't be said that Erdogan was responsible for this policy, it can certainly be said that he's responsible for setting the tone that might have led to this, that might have led a subway official to decide that it would be something that Erdogan might like, that he stopped people from kissing on the subway.

And then subsequently, when asked about it, rather than saying, of course people have the right to kiss on the subway, Erdogan said, no, no, we have values. We can't allow people to be insultful of people's values. And what you should know is that people kissing in public is not a normal thing here. I mean, people being affectionate in public just, it isn't. It's a conservative country. It's a conservative country, but people hold hands in public and they kiss in public. And it's not considered an outrageous thing to do. So, especially not in Ankara, right?

So this was a very strange incident, but there were other things that happened in the recent past too that were also very strange, including this alcohol bill, which was presented as we're just bringing our ordinances in line with the EU and the United States. I mean, there are plenty of places in the U.S. where you're not allowed to buy alcohol up to 10 o'clock too.

But the thing was, they wanted to zone it so that you couldn't sell alcohol within, I think it was 100 meters of a school, perfectly reasonable, or a mosque. And then if you actually mapped it out, that meant you pretty much couldn't sell alcohol anywhere. Right? Right.

So you mentioned the yuppies aren't happy because they can't kiss, they can't have a drink, and there's something else is that when you get a certain class of people, they look around. And they don't like being tear gassed. They don't like being tear gassed. That's high on my list too. But they also want to live in a nice place,

and they want a place that has a sense of history as well that makes them feel cosmopolitan and sophisticated. And what I understand, some of the protests behind the general unrest is the idea that historic, beautiful Turkey is being bulldozed in favor of charmless shopping malls. So can you tell us a little bit about that? Absolutely. In fact, I've got a huge piece about this coming up in City Journal about what they're doing to a city in the southeast called Hasenkaf. The contempt for this country's heritage, and remember this is a heritage that goes back 12,000 years. The contempt for all of this archaeological,

I would almost say, I'm not even sure how to describe it. This is ground zero for archaeologists, for this incredible legacy of architecture, and for living spaces that are livable, that have trees, that have parks, that have appropriate facilities for places you could take your kids to play. They're disappearing. They've just disappeared in this huge construction boom.

Now, I don't have anything against construction. I'm a capitalist, but we all know that the construction companies are not, they're not, the tenders, the grants, the permissions are not being granted in a fair way. If you're close to the government, you get them. If you're not, you don't. And they are not given on the basis of is this building supposed to be in this neighborhood? Does it make any sense here? And earthquake safety, don't even get me started on that.

I was just going to say, at least we know that all of these structures are up to the exacting specifications that will allow them to withstand any sort of geological movement. Well, to be honest, I think they're probably better now. I think since the earthquake safety codes, I think, were passed in 2001, I think that they have at least cut down on the amount of things like mixing sand with cement. I would be surprised if they were building things absolutely comifo, but I think they probably are building stronger buildings than they used to. The problem is that they're building horrible buildings. They're building Istanbul's skyline. I don't know if for people who haven't seen pictures of it or haven't been here is the most magnificent or was the most magnificent anyone has ever seen in the

world. I challenge you to find more beautiful skyline. First time I saw it, my jaw dropped. And these ridiculous, these absurd high-rise construction building. What's the word for it for a high-rise office building? Going up right behind the skyline, like upright coffins above it. And people are looking at this and thinking, what is going on? How did anyone get permission to do that?

But they banned it. Didn't they tell one of them that it's got to come down because it ruins the view? Erdogan saw one from his office and was displeased by it and said, that one's coming down. And all of a sudden construction was halted. And, of course, the guy who was constructing it was most displeased. And now they're half-constructed, which doesn't look any better, I assure you. I mean, it's just surreal when you see it. But other things, too.

There's tons of proposals to build grandiose projects, like the, I don't know if you've heard about this, the Crazy Canal Project to build a new canal, which is in fact in some ways a good idea because I won't go into the history of this, but Treaty of Montreux makes the crossing of the Bosphorus something that the Turkish government doesn't have a right to legislate properly. And so it's therefore very

dangerous because you've got all these drunken Ukrainian skippers coming down and it's a very hard thing to navigate. Well, it's cross currents. So there is some, the project idea is not unreasonable, but again, it's one of these things where the prime minister has just declared, we're going to do it. Not going to be any consultation. You're not going to know how we're going to do it. And probably we'll be tipping off the people who are going to benefit from it economically beforehand. But we're not going to tip off everyone. You know, it's sorry. A final question, although I'm always hesitant to move it on from drunken Ukrainian skippers. Move this story forward for us. What do the protesters have to do to be effective?

How can they maximize their impact going forward? What are kind of the pratfalls they need to avoid? This is the question. The worst thing that can happen to them is if they fall into the trap of allowing – with every group of protesters, there are always tailgaters, marginal groups of professional protesters who want nothing but to cause anarchy and chaos. And Turkey has zero tolerance for that. It really does. I mean, we know this. And if they allow themselves, I mean, they're very proud of how inclusive they are.

They're saying, look, we've got veiled women with us. We've got people from all segments of society with us. We've got Kurds. We've got Alevis. This us. We've got people from all segments of society with us. We've got Kurds. We've got Alevis. This isn't about secular versus religious. This is about wanting more democracy or more liberal democracy. But if these Marxist groups and the anarchist groups start spray painting everywhere, which has already happened to some extent, or if it gets really violent, and it already has gotten really violent,

but if the protesters start fighting back or with each other in gets really violent, and it already has gotten really violent, but if the protesters start fighting back or with each other in a really violent way, the country will turn on them. They're not going to be effective in getting the prime minister to resign. That's not going to happen. They may be effective in achieving some of the more modest demands, among them the one that began this, that the park in question not be turned into a shopping mall, but also that more consultation on matters of urban development take place. President Gild just today hinted that he's going to veto that alcohol bill. But that might be, I mean, you know,

it's so hard to know in Turkey what's going on. He also may be thinking, hey, now's my chance. I'm going to get rid of Erdogan. I'm going to be the prime minister. So I keep looking for signs. What this protest movement needs is organization, leadership, and to be for something rather than just against something. I don't see that emerging. That doesn't mean it can't happen. It doesn't mean it can't

happen. I mean, I keep reminding people before Yeltsin jumped on that tank, no one thought he was anything other than drunk. Right. What's the likelihood that we're going to watch, we're going to be watching Fox News or CNN and see at the head of some marching protest Claire Berlinski? Not really high because I think the real value a journalist can provide here is not getting tear gassed. It's going to the hospital the day after and getting the casualty reports.

And that's kind of hard work that a lot of journalists don't like to do but is actually much more useful because you get the real numbers and you find out what really happened. And let me tell you, that's a grim task. There are some horrible things that happened in this last week just here in my neighborhood. Kids lost eyes. If you do end up leading that protest, though, please wear some ricochet swag while you're doing it. Yes, wear the ricochet swag. Claire, all right. You know my photo for the right price.

Okay, that's right. Now listen, so you'd be safe here, but every now and then, you know, if you've got a couple pictures on your camera phone, post them. We miss you. Oh, you know, I'm on Twitter. Follow me on Twitter. That's right. I'm on Twitter, and I'm posting so many photos that – and also there have been some great protest videos made, some that are so clever, and many of which have English subtitles. And they should really – they will really give you a kick if you see them. I mean, the yuppie part, the revolt of the yuppie part of Turkey is very sophisticated.

And they could go mano a mano with anyone, with any, with, I'm out of touch with American culture that i don't even know who they who i should be saying here who would i who's the example of a sophisticated they're as cool they're as hip and as cool as the hippest and the coolest you know yeah but one thing one thing to really watch out for you know americans love the photos of the hip and the cool people but there are a lot of people in turkey who aren't hip and cool at all they're called the base they're called the base. They're called the 50% who voted for him. I mean, not everyone who voted for Erdogan voted for him for unhip, uncool reasons. They were pretty pleased the economy was doing well and they didn't trust the opposition parties. They didn't have anyone else to go to. But the real question to me is not what's going on in Istanbul, it's what's going on in Konya. And I don't think there's a single journalist reporting from there.

I would do it in a heartbeat, but I can't afford to, so you know, that's the kind of... Stay safe and stay un-gassed, and if they start to draw the chain across the golden hands... That one's not realistic, but I will stay safe.

Alright. We'll talk to you again down the road, and everybody follow Claire at Twitter. That's the Twitter address is in the little preces for this episode. And you will find out more than you're going to find out by reading your newspaper or even looking at CNN. We may not run the Penguin stuff, but it's damned close. Thanks for being on today. We'll see you later. It was great to speak to you guys.

Thanks. Thanks, Claire. We could have had her on for another 35-40 minutes and we would have learned more, as I said, than we got from any of the other media sources. Fascinating country. And just about all that I know about Turkey, as I said before, comes from Claire. And also comes from

things like 1970 Turkish parodies of, not parodies, actual out-and-out copies of Star Trek. I don't know if you've seen that on the web, but there's a Turkish Star Trek out there where they just slavishly go

after the original and create something that is so uniquely dreadful. Once you start to explore 70s... This is Turkish Jeffersons, though, you know. This is Turkish Jeffersons. It's though you know i'm kidding there really is there really it's it's actually pretty good i mean you know i don't speak turkish but it seems pretty good once you start to explore uh turkish television and uh and movies in the 70s you find a uniquely

awful variety of entertainment. And you don't know if it's because they lacked a Rob Long who would come in and whip them into shape or if they just couldn't produce anything more interesting than that because it would fly so far over the head of the guy who's just gotten a TV out in the boondocks. But still, imagine that you're that guy in that village and you plug in your television set and the broadcast comes for the first time and what you get is turkish star

trek that must have seemed like you were actually living in that future yourself that perhaps they wondered if uh if turks were not indeed flying around the universe in war power chips well often you know often you find that people get i mean actually the guy who did – Phil Rosenthal who created Everybody Loves Raymond was – as a lark, was hired by this Russian company to go to Moscow and to do the Russian version of it, which he did. And he made a little movie about it and it's pretty funny, pretty interesting. But you find a lot of times sort of writer and producer TV guys here will go abroad and set up the foreign version of their show. And it's very freaky when they do it. They always come back kind of disoriented and kind of forgetting who they are. And the problem, of course, is just that you don't have the same setup.

You don't have the same staff. So no one is used to, no matter what country you're in, even in Britain, they're really not used to this, the level of rewriting and fixing that you do. They're just not used to that. They really, you write a script and then you do it. And, um, and no, no one wants you to fix it or rewrite it. So they kind of don't understand how many versions of something you go through, but there's an, there's an Afghan version of the office for heaven's sakes. There, well, the, the, uh, the, we don't have time today, but we can talk a little bit maybe in the future about the Afghan Media Project, which has got very interesting components to it. I've been talking to some people about it, and some of them are very dark components to it and some of them are very kind of fun.

Well, that's been a pop culture here to wrap up what has been politics and international affairs troy uh are you a summer movie blockbuster kind of guy who can't wait to go out and see the latest piece of extreme noise or are you looking for the more the more intelligent small crafted film with a fifty thousand dollar budget i i am the leech that the movie industry is is worried about who used to go regularly and now through the luxuries of Netflix and the rather large television in my living room probably have not been to the box office for five or six months. Wow. You know, I'm sort of the same way. I prefer to watch movies at home because it's more pleasant that way. I can control the environment. I can pause it. I can get up and get some popcorn, et cetera. But I have to tell you, there are a couple of movies that I had to make room for to see in the theater. And Star Trek Into Darkness is one of them.

And not just because I like big, loud science fiction space movies, but because I grew up with this show. I was watching color television in Harwood, North Dakota at my grandparents' place and saw the very first Star Trek episode aired. So this stuff goes way back intertwined into my personal dork DNA. And so I don't miss any of it. And I'm not one of those Star Trek fans who proves, as I said in my review at linux.com slash bleats, I'm not one of those Star Trek fans who proves his love of Star Trek

by hating 87% of everything that's called Star Trek. I mean, you have to have a rather elastic definition of what you find acceptable and what you find artistic. And you have to go into it knowing that this is space opera, that this is reflective of the times. It's always going to be changed and colored by the people that come along to take the mantle from the last. You can't be a purist. You have to love it because it's essentially about a great American story. It is about

the new frontier, the pushing out, the exploration, and all these essentially Western-slash-American values. So you go to this new movie saying, at the very least, if it feels like Star Trek, if it's got these old touchstones, that's going to be fine. If it's better than that, then I'm a happy man. So when I went to the theater, like you, Troy, not having gone very much, I decided to go see it in 3D IMAX in the middle of the afternoon when I had the place virtually to myself.

So here I am in this seat in front of a screen that is so large you cannot not see the movie. I mean it's that big. And the sound is such that it's like you feel as though you've gone three rounds with Mike Tyson after ten minutes of this. And the 3D itself at the beginning is so spectacular. And I read a couple of reviews that said, you know, no, it's silly. This is nothing. This is tripe. This has no story.

So I'm waiting for that horrible moment you always get when you say, yeah, I'm going to be disappointed. But I'm sitting there after 10 minutes of the opening segment with my jaw on my sternum, and I'm just almost weeping with fanboy happiness because once again this guy jj abrams who wasn't even a fan drills into it and pulls out the actual heart of the thing and polishes it and puts it back in and makes it come back to life and so the whole movie which is essentially one piece of action after the other which i loved i just sat there like an like a grinning idiot idiot because I had missed every single spoiler and avoided this and avoided finding out what was going on. Every little

shock and reveal hits me like it did when I was a young man watching Star Wars and learned for the first time before anybody else that Darth Vader was who he was. It was a great time. So if you want to read, go to lilacs.com slash bleats and go to yesterday and I've got a long detailed review about

why exactly this is a magnificent thing for the culture still to be producing and why it makes happy fanboys like myself happy. And I've got to tell you also, Superman couldn't care less. Previews looks incredible. Looks absolutely astonishing. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Let me – I missed that. Superman you don't care about, but you think the movie looks great.

You don't care about the brand. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, I couldn't care less about Superman. Yeah, you know, it's interesting about Superman. I mean I was just reading – I mean as you know, I'm not a fan of the Star Trek thing. But I was reading a little trade thing yesterday, and they were saying – the tracking numbers are really interesting. Tracking numbers are ways of predicting how – ways that they think predict how a movie is going to open. And they can be kind of accurate although the methodology is kind of suspect.

And it really just – it tracks audience awareness, intent to view, all sorts of things. And it kind of puts them all together in some kind of index they call the tracking number. And one of the things that Warner Brothers has been saying for a while is that the superman movie is tracking really well that people really want to see that movie um and and a lot of people have been saying they're crazy they're delusional no one wants to see that movie that that franchise is dead they need to bury it for the next decade um and and then I was reading yesterday, somebody saying, no, no, no, you don't understand. It really is doing well.

That's been a very, very, very smart, stealth marketing campaign. And there's a whole bunch of people who say exactly what you said. I do not care about the brand of Superman, but I can't wait to see that movie. That's exactly it. If they manage to pull that off,

that is quite a trick. The other movie we should just talk about just briefly, because I think that this this is – I mean whether we see it or whether I see it or not, it is a brilliant campaign. And I will be watching tonight actually. I think it opens tonight. And this weekend, the box office really closely is The Purge. And The Purge is a horror picture. It's someone's grim, dark, violent horror pictures. But it is a brilliant marketing campaign.

If you are under 20, you've been primed to be hugely, hugely excited about this picture for the past month. Their sort of outdoor campaign's been big. I think this movie's going to be giant. I think it could be the box office winner.

And that's the one where a society which is somewhat repressive allows people to go crazy every once in a while? Once a year, there's no first responders respond. Right, so everybody gets to have, shall we say, a festival, if they wish. Yes, exactly. Okay, and some people come from the valley to enjoy a festival in this town. And the lawgivers eventually come back and impose the will of Landru. That's a Star Trek episode, Rob.

So you who are not Star Trek, got to realize that it all does come back to that eventually. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I think it was something before with Star Trek. I don't think that Gene Roddenberry driving down Sunset to the Desilu studio to get notes from Lucy was coming up with the canon. It's called Return of the Archons in case anybody wants to Google it. Can I just say, I missed out earlier.

My Audible pick is what we actually did lose yesterday or today, depending on when you listen to this and depending on when he died and what time zone he died in. A great, great, great, hilarious comic novelist, Tom Sharp, wrote three or four of the funniest laugh-out-loud novels ever. Oh, God. Porterhouse Blue, Riotous Assembly and a few others, just screamingly funny stuff. Died, I think, in 80 or 90, an old guy. And his books are on – Did he just die?

He died like yesterday. Oh my – Yeah. Great, great, great – I mean not great that he died but great writer, wonderful writer, wonderful joke writer. I mean joke writer, I say that with great reverence. I mean the guy could write on the page words that make you laugh. Absolutely. You take

Kingsley Amos at his absolute best and you marry him with Peter DeVries at his absolute best. It's very British. God, are those the funniest things I've ever read in my 20s. And he died and his books are on Audible. And one of them, A Poor House Blue, which is very, very funny,

is written by Griff Rhys-Jones, who I don't really know. Is that the guy from The Planet of the Conchords? It could have been. I think you're right. Here's the best description of a British voice, incidentally. Benedict Cumberbatch. I'm just blowing his name there. What a fantastic name, though, by the way.

Right, the guy who plays Sherlock in the BBC episode is also the villain in the Star Trek movie. Somebody described his voice as sounding like a jaguar coiled in a cello. And while I don't know what it means exactly, it has the right amount of mellifluousness and menace. And we're getting menacing looks from the producer who tells us we have a quick... All right, good enough, everybody. Troy, thanks getting menacing looks from the producer who tells us. Yes.

Good enough, everybody. Troy, thanks for sitting in for Peter this week. Thank you, guys. And Rob, thanks as ever for being here. Thanks to the listeners who show up and listen to us to the very end and are waiting to see if we give these special numbers that will allow them to claim their $35 million prize as promised. Sorry,

that's going to be next week at the very end of the podcast. I'm James Laddick here in Minnesota, and we wish you all – Wait, before you go, we've got to thank Audible.com for sponsoring us. Sign up for Audible at audiblepodcast.com slash ricochet. And by Tiny Lies by James Lydics. $1.25, Tiny Lies, 150-plus small ads from the back of old magazines and newspapers annotated and commented on by our own James Lilacs with hilarious and very piercing wit. It's a very, very, very funny book. You can download it at his website,

lilaks.com. Very, very funny stuff. It's worth it. E-book of your choice. That's very, very true. I blush in your general direction guys thanks we'll see you next week hello how are you have you been all right through all those lonely lonely lonely lonely lonely That's what I'd say I'd tell you everything If you'd pick up that telephone Yeah, yeah, yeah Hey How you feeling? Are you still the same?

Don't you realize the things we did, we did Were all for real Not a dream I just can't believe We're all faded out of view Yeah, yeah, yeah Ooh, ooh, ooh Do what, do-de-do-do-do-what

Do I do like Blue days, black nights Do I do that? Look into the sky, the love you need ain't gonna see you through. And I wonder why, the little things you planned ain't coming true. Oh, telephone line, give me some time, I'm living in twilight. Oh, telephone line, give me some time, I'm living in twilight Ricochet

Join the conversation Okay So no one's answering Okay So no one's answering Why can't you just let it ring a little longer, longer, longer Oh I'll just sit tight How often mankind has wished for a world as peaceful and secure as the one Landrieu provided. Yes, and we never got it.

Just lucky, I guess. © BF-WATCH TV 2021 you