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Part One:
We speak with Harold Cook, a friend of the brilliant Molly Ivins long before she became famous as a reporter and hilarious commentator on society’s foibles. We discuss Ivins’s unique gifts: her ability to understand the issues of the day, to explain them in a way that virtually everyone could comprehend, and to flavor them with enough humor to ease the emotional stress that often accompanies opinions that many people disagree with.
In addition, we consider the price that Ivins paid for being so outspoken. She was not afraid to speak truth to power, but power did not always take kindly to being spoken to with anything less than adulation (or at least quiet acceptance). As a result, Ivins suffered a great deal of repercussions. But she did not let that stop her from exercising her “critical thinking” skills and generously “sharing” her thoughts on every topic.
Part Two:
Our guest is Brian Lamb, the founder of C-SPAN and long-time host of TV shows on that network. He has put together a book called “The Presidents,” which shares the views of many historians in evaluating and “ranking” all of the men (!) who have served as President of the U.S. We discuss the qualities that make for a good president and which presidents best displayed those qualities over the centuries of our country’s history.
C-SPAN was concerned that its reliance on historians might skew the results because C-SPAN perceived most college professors to be liberal or progressive. But it turned out, that the rankings of the presidents didn’t change a great deal regardless of the political philosophies of the people who were evaluating them. (We note that one president, John Adams, so enjoyed telling folks what he thought that many people repeatedly advised him to “sit down and be quiet.” Perhaps Molly Ivins was descended from Adams.)
We ask Lamb about the creation of C-SPAN and what made it so successful. He cited all those who helped him build and maintain that public service network, as well as C-Span’s philosophy of *not* expressing its own opinions but rather placing a camera in front of all decision-makers and policy-influencers, and letting the American people decide for themselves.
Because today is the anniversary of 9/11, we asked Lamb for his long-term perspective on how those tragic events changed the course of history, for the U.S. and the world. Lamb’s answer surprised us: He believes that Vietnam was the single worst thing that ever happened to our country in his lifetime. We may never fully recover from it. As for 9/11, he speculated that Osama Bin Laden might look back on the bombings and think that he actually achieved the goals for which he was striving: namely, bankrupting the U.S. and semolishing its global hegemony.
