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Parker Spitzer

Interview With Former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey; Interview With Doris Kearns Goodwin; ; Oliver Stone on Obama, Palin and Wall Street

Aired October 05, 2010 - 20:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


KATHLEEN PARKER, CO-HOST: Good evening. I'm Kathleen Parker

ELIOT SPITZER, CO-HOST: And I'm Eliot Spitzer

Welcome to "Parker Spitzer."

Kathleen, second show. Last night was great. Don't you think?

PARKER: Well, for those who may have missed it, we probably should reintroduce ourselves. So, you're a liberal New York City Democrat and I'm sort of...

(CROSSTALK)

SPITZER: Yes, it's a caricature, but I will live with it for now

PARKER: I'm a regular American from the heartland.

SPITZER: Yes, yes, pragmatic conservative, you said

PARKER: Pragmatic conservative from the South. That's right. We're going to have different ideas about things, right?

(CROSSTALK)

SPITZER: Agree sometimes. A lot of times we won't

PARKER: Yes

But, anyway, what we want to do on this show is talk about the most important ideas, events, people of the day

And tonight we have...

(CROSSTALK)

SPITZER: Tonight we have some of the most interesting people. Who are we starting with?

PARKER: Well, Dick Armey, who, as you know, is the former majority leader and also sort of the figurehead of the Tea Party. He's recently written a new book.

(CROSSTALK) SPITZER: That's right. Gee, we have a lot to thank him for, don't we?

(CROSSTALK)

PARKER: ... manifesto

SPITZER: Oh, boy.

And, also, a brilliant historian, Doris Kearns Goodwin, who has written more books about the presidency. You should read them. She got a Pulitzer Prize, really a brilliant woman. Fun to listen to. Great record, but she roots for the Boston Red Sox. I will forgive her, because, hey, my team, the Yankees, is in the playoffs. Hers is not.

(CROSSTALK)

PARKER: Now, what some people may not know about her is that she's the first female journalist to ever go into the Boston Red Sox locker room

(CROSSTALK)

PARKER: This was in the late '70s.

SPITZER: Anyway, what are we going to do tonight?

PARKER: But, anyway, we're going to talk about the midterm elections. This is the thing that is in the news

SPITZER: It is critical

PARKER: And the most important issue for us today, right?

(CROSSTALK)

SPITZER: These elections matter. Because if they go one way then President Obama has the Congress he wants to work with. If they don't, the Republicans win, take the Congress, then the president faces a very different dynamic

But it's also with four weeks to go, it's silly season. It's when that ads you wouldn't believe end up on the TV screen. Let's take a look at one tonight from Christine O'Donnell. You may remember her. She is the Republican and Tea Party candidate from the state of Delaware, candidate for the United States Senate. And you know what, a couple years ago, she said, I dabbled in witchcraft. So take a look what she's putting up on the air

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, CHRISTINE O'DONNELL CAMPAIGN AD)

CHRISTINE O'DONNELL (R), DELAWARE SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: I'm not a witch. I'm nothing you have heard. I'm you. None of us are perfect, but none of us can be happy with what we see all around us, politicians who think spending, trading favors, and backroom deals are the ways to stay in office

I will go to Washington and do what you do. I'm Christine O'Donnell, and I approve this message. I'm you

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SPITZER: Does the ad work for you?

PARKER: Does it work for me?

SPITZER: Yes

PARKER: Well, it depends on what you mean. It is Halloween, right? So, that's cool. No, I thought it was exceedingly creepy and weird, and no, she's not -- she says, I'm you. I'm thinking, not me, babe

So, what did you think?

SPITZER: I thought it was brilliant. I have got to tell you...

(CROSSTALK)

PARKER: Oh, my God. Here we go again

(CROSSTALK)

SPITZER: I was in the arena of politics. I think this ad touches the nerve that has made her appeal to the public. When she says, it's not the I'm not a witch -- let me finish the thought

(CROSSTALK)

SPITZER: It's not the, I'm not a witch. She is mocking the media. The media...

(CROSSTALK)

PARKER: Talk to me. Talk to me

SPITZER: She is basically saying, of course I'm not a witch. You know, we know that

PARKER: No

(CROSSTALK)

SPITZER: No, no, here's the line that matters. The line that matters is when she says, I will go to Washington and do what you would do. She's saying to real people, I know what you want to do to those folks. You can send people there with credentials. They have policy points. We're going to go take the place apart

Now, here's where I completely part company with her. I think that the Tea Party, I think that that piece of the Republican Party is vapid. It has no ideas. It will lead us down a dangerous road. Remember Herbert Hoover? Now, we don't remember him, president during the depression. That's where they're taking us. They're going to destroy our country, but that is an appealing ad

PARKER: Notice how politely I have been listening

No, I understand what you're saying, but she's saying that she's going to go to Washington. And, yes, she represents the angry people who are sick of the elites. What are we going to do now? Start burning elites at the stake?

(CROSSTALK)

SPITZER: No, but understand that's what the politics of the moment really is. And there is an element of truth to it. She's basically saying, look, all the people who are so smart -- I will use their line, this is a little tough for me -- all the people who went to those big universities and Harvard and Princeton and all that stuff, right? Yes, you're pointing at me

She's saying they haven't done so well, have they?

PARKER: Yes, well, she's really talking about you, Eliot, frankly.

(CROSSTALK)

SPITZER: I'm not taking it personally because I think the ad is an appealing ad. Now, I don't know if it's going to win. I don't think she will win. But it speaks to the public

PARKER: It's an interesting ad and it's one of Fred Davis' productions. And he's very, very good at tapping into the Zeitgeist and figuring out exactly what people need to hear. He did the morning in America ad that has been so successful

(CROSSTALK)

PARKER: And she is representing that Tea Party anger that we have been talking about

(CROSSTALK)

SPITZER: But there's also something much deeper going on here. and this is what really does trouble me

We are at a fork in the road. One direction is down towards the path of Hoover that she represents. The other path is of a smart government that believes in markets and competition, but a government that builds the foundation so we as a nation can compete again overseas

And that's not what she gets. And, frankly, when we have our conversation with Dick Armey, it's going to be interesting to see how that plays out, because I don't think the Tea Party has created anything meaningful so we as a nation can build jobs and compete

(CROSSTALK)

PARKER: No, no, I don't know if we can say all that. That seems -- that's a pretty broad statement. But I think what we can say is that when we spend our time talking about ads like this and we actually have a person standing up there saying I'm not a witch, you know, as you said, we have entered the silly season

(CROSSTALK)

PARKER: And unfortunately our politics have become sort of stereotypes, caricatures, on and on. Everything's either/or extremes. You're either talking about hating all government, or, you know, the government is going to tell us what kind of cereal we eat in the morning for breakfast

So, I think what we're trying to do on the show is find out. There is a center place. But that doesn't mean we're always going to agree. But we want to get to some kind of common ground, so we can have real solutions

(CROSSTALK)

SPITZER: Here are the things we know what government needs to do. And we won't be a nation that can compete with China. And we're going to talk with some really smart folks about how we do that in the coming weeks on this show

PARKER: Look how effective that witch ad was, because we're talking about serious issues and we have Christine O'Donnell to thank for that

SPITZER: That's right. And you know what? She's saying to herself right now, she's getting all this free press

PARKER: Yes, let's move on

SPITZER: Well, we should move on, but these are the issues and how are we going to move on? We going to enter the arena?

PARKER: Let's enter the arena.

SPITZER: Joining us tonight in the arena, two journalists who have covered Washington and politics for years

(CROSSTALK)

PARKER: All right. Let me introduce you

We have Katrina Vanden Heuvel, the editor of "The Nation," and Reihan Salam, who is a fabulous commentator for the conservative side on "National Review" online and other publications

SPITZER: Thank you both so much. Great to have you here

Well, you heard us have this little conversation about Christine O'Donnell's ad. What is your take on it? What does it say about the Tea Party that the slogan now is, I am not a witch?

(LAUGHTER) REIHAN SALAM, "THE NATIONAL REVIEW": Well, I think that it's very shrewd politics on Christine O'Donnell's part, partly because the politics of condescension have really become very important to a certain slice of the left, not necessarily to...

(CROSSTALK)

SPITZER: Explain

(CROSSTALK)

SPITZER: What do you the politics of condescension?

SALAM: Well, the politics of -- for example, take someone like a Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin is, like Christine O'Donnell, a very polarizing figure. She's a figure who has some plus points, some negative points, but she's also a figure who really closely identifies with and is identified with by a pretty large community of people

So when you mock someone like Christine O'Donnell for her peculiar religious beliefs, et cetera, there's likely to be a backlash

(CROSSTALK)

SPITZER: ... victimization.

PARKER: It's quite a different thing to mock someone.

(CROSSTALK)

KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL, EDITOR, "THE NATION": It's a little bit like Spiro Agnew, 21st century, updated, where he would go on about nabobs of negativism in the media

But I do -- I will never sit in judgment on a Sarah Palin, for example. To my last breath, I think politics of condescension are dead on arrival

But I do think you have to look at the values these people are espousing, the Tea Party. They want to gut Medicare. They want to end a minimum wage. I think these are the real issues of our time, and not whether she's a witch.

PARKER: I don't think they really want to do all that. I think they want to do some -- yes, they want to do some cutting and they want to stop some spending and they want to keep government from expanding

VANDEN HEUVEL: That is witchcraft that I don't believe in. That is witchcraft I will never to my last breath

(CROSSTALK)

PARKER: That is witchcraft? OK, I am a witch

(LAUGHTER)

SPITZER: No, look, I'm with Katrina, I'm with Katrina, because I think the reason they need to sort of run on the vapid claims about less government equals more freedom is because at its root, what they're going back to is a Herbert Hoover vision of governor, pre-FDR, saying, we want to take away the very pieces of government that created the middle class.

SALAM: Eliot, I have a ton of respect for you, but I have to say...

SPITZER: You can stop right there.

SALAM: ... I will give you a very simple, simple fact.

In Western Europe, broadly understood, you have about the same amount of tax revenue generated on a per capita basis as in the United States. But in the United States, we have a much lower tax burden. So, how is it that you're generating same amount of money in both places?

And when you're talking about Herbert Hoover and FDR and what have you, the fact is that we live in a very different world now. And this entails different economic strategies

VANDEN HEUVEL: Reihan, I wish we did live in a different world. But I do believe that the right wing today is still animated by a desire to roll back the New Deal and those core elements which built a strong middle class in this country and the architect of the pieces which create a middle class.

And I have to say that I see nothing in the Tea Party or the Republicans today except retro, old ideas, which are about deregulating government, which are about cutting taxes for the very rich, and which would put us back in the mess we were in

(CROSSTALK)

SALAM: ... one retro old idea. A retro old idea was the reform to Social Security under President Carter, not under President Roosevelt, that changed the way we calculate Social Security cost of living adjustments, and made the program much, much more expensive..

(CROSSTALK)

SALAM: ... that then led to tax hike on working families.

(CROSSTALK)

SALAM: That's not rolling back FDR. That's rolling back Carter. And I think some of us would be comfortable with that.

(CROSSTALK)

SPITZER: Let's reframe this conversation. The conversation really has to be about what is the proper role for government in driving an economy forward to create the wealth you're talking about and how much government investment in things like NASA or in high-speed rail?

VANDEN HEUVEL: Or in infrastructure, which a report today tells us is decaying

(CROSSTALK)

SALAM: I have to say, I find that a little vacuous and vapid, just as vacuous and vapid as you find the less government equals more freedom thing, because, as Kathleen said earlier on, I think that a lot of the question is not, do we go to zero public spending, but rather is, are we getting value for our money?

VANDEN HEUVEL: I wrote a column last week called, "Eat, Pray, Vote."

And I say that, no, because I think you are seeing people wake up to the fact, I come back to this idea of a country that is on the cusp of having the reforms that made it a great country, whether building a strong middle class or other advances, being rolled back by those who don't like the new America and who are angry about a rising American electorate

SALAM: I have to say, I'm pretty comfortable with the new America for all kinds of reasons, but I think that the really -- the reason why the right is at a fundamental disadvantage is because you have a large number of very active people, some of whom turned out in Washington this past weekend and many more of whom will turn out in weekends to come, who receive money from the taxpayer, very large, politically powerful and politically influential, and they have what you might call a class interest in expanding the state at -- not an interest in improving the efficiency and quality of the public services that we consume

And I think that's very dangerous. And the fact that you have a couple of Tea Partiers here and there, they have nothing close to the power of this incredibly organized and disciplined group of literally millions of voters who will turn out every time to fight for their salaries

SPITZER: Specify whom you're talking about

SALAM: I'm talking about members of public sector unions

SPITZER: It's a fair point. It's a fair point. I just want -- so it's clear who we're talking about.

VANDEN HEUVEL: But that's the wrong kind of class warfare, Reihan. When you demonize public sector workers who...

(CROSSTALK)

SALAM: My parents are both public sector workers who I would absolutely never demonize.

(CROSSTALK)

VANDEN HEUVEL: Why scapegoat them when in fact you have a real economy that's in great pain?

SALAM: It's not scapegoating.

PARKER: Let's maybe concede that there are certain things that government can do and should do. There are certain things that the private sector can do. Nobody wants their taxes to go up

But how do we get President Obama to explain what needs to be done in a way that is convincing and that how he can -- how can he unite the American people behind a cause that we're all involved in, actually?

VANDEN HEUVEL: All right, here's something.

I mean, I think this president has worked very hard to try to transcend the differences. I think at the end of the day, this country faces extraordinary, structural, systemic obstacles to the change he spoke about. And in my view what we need to do over this next period is not really discuss which ads, but to fight those structural obstacles. And I'm all for private/public partnership

(CROSSTALK)

SPITZER: All right. Thank you all so much. Thank you so much

Coming up, we go toe to toe with the engineer of the Tea Party, former Congressman Dick Armey

PARKER: And another opinionated revision of history from the director of "JFK" and Wall Street, Oliver Stone

Don't go away. We're back in 60 seconds

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DICK ARMEY, FORMER REPUBLICAN HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER: As a free-born individual person, choose to say, I want to leave this mandatory government program, you're free to leave. You're free to say no to the government. What a marvelous idea. I could say no to the government. I'm 70 years old. I know you don't believe it

SPITZER: I don't believe that

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OLIVER STONE, DIRECTOR: All kinds of crazy stuff happens. We have had suffragettes. We have had prohibition, right? We have banned alcohol. We go -- America goes into its virtue, its know-nothing, kind of like, the foreigners are enemies. We hate the Europeans. We blame them. We have an isolationist history and an isolationist country. We have two huge oceans and we feel protected

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SPITZER: Time now for our headliner interview Few people understand how Washington works quite like our next guest, as former House Majority Leader Dick Armey was at the center of the D.C. power structure

PARKER: Now, as the de facto leader of the Tea Party movement, he's trying to usher in a new leadership

Armey stopped by our studios. And we started by asking him about his description of the Tea Party as a hostile takeover of the Republican Party

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARMEY: The Tea Party is not an agent of either political party

The Republican Party -- I know exactly where you're going with this. The Republican Party in Delaware said, let's have a primary for the Senate race. Their favorite son, the closest thing to a Republican icon they have in this state, took his $3 million, got into the race, and he lost to a relatively unknown person with $400,000 or less

Now, it's their primary. She won it. He had everything going for him. He lost it. She's now their nominee. They can take it or leave it, but that's their nominee. It's their open primary. If -- now, they say, look, she beat our icon, but she can't win the general. Well, she just embarrassed you on national television. Why would you say...

PARKER: Fair point. Fair point

ARMEY: ... that the gal that beat your icon can't win the general?

PARKER: There is a libertarian streak in the Tea Party movement

ARMEY: Absolutely.

PARKER: And then the GOP's still got a very strong contingent of very social conservatives. So, how do we -- how do you integrate those two?

ARMEY: What you do is you go to the big ideas. I was surprised that Mike Castle lost that election

He lost that election because he didn't do his job as a candidate. He was willing to support cap and trade, an anathema to the freedom- loving Tea Party movement, because they know how destructive it will be to the American economy and to -- particularly to jobs in the energy industry

He was willing to support TARP, which they thought was -- they saw TARP, a Bush initiative, boneheaded as it were, born out of a bogus idea that has no standing in economic theory whatsoever

SPITZER: But it did save the banks, no?

ARMEY: Purely political construct Well, why save the banks? Where did too big to fail come from? That's a political...

(CROSSTALK)

SPITZER: I'm with you on too big to fail, but that's a separate conversation

ARMEY: All right

SPITZER: I probably disagree with just about most of the things at least you say and hear...

(CROSSTALK)

PARKER: You disagree with freedom?

SPITZER: No, no, no, not the big words like that, but the specific policies you talk about

I want to see if we can get a better understanding of it and sort of see if we agree or disagree on some basic stuff

You're talking about a radical redefinition of what government does and doesn't do. Fair to say?

(CROSSTALK)

PARKER: ... about what government...

(CROSSTALK)

PARKER: ... to be

ARMEY: Perhaps there was a radical redefinition of what government does and doesn't do a couple hundred years ago. They called it the Constitution of the United States

SPITZER: Right. OK.

ARMEY: And it was a Constitution that limited government out of deference to the rights of the individual to his liberty

What we're trying to do is restore government back to the vision of our nation that made us the greatest blessing in history of the world

SPITZER: I understand you see it that way. I'm not disagreeing with that. I just want to see if we can add texture to what this means

ARMEY: OK.

SPITZER: Because when I read -- and I have read a lot of the documents. Let me give you some specific programs and say, would you fund them, all right, things that people can relate to? Would you have had the federal government build the interstate highway system?

ARMEY: Absolutely. And you can find that in Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations."

SPITZER: OK. All right. OK. Would you have had -- would you have the federal government pay for higher education? You're a university professor.

ARMEY: No, I would not

SPITZER: You would not have any funding, no government funding?

ARMEY: No. I don't think the federal government's involvement in higher education has benefited the students of America

(CROSSTALK)

ARMEY: Would you...

PARKER: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Let him finish that thought, if you don't mind

(CROSSTALK)

ARMEY: Well, the federal government has the military academies, and it's an important thing. They should continue to do that

But the education of our young people should be under the jurisdiction and under the auspices of the state governments. The state of Texas has a great university system that has not been made any better by federal government involvement

SPITZER: So, you would rip out all money that goes to the universities and say let the states increase their taxes to pay for it?

ARMEY: Let the states manage the education of their young people

SPITZER: Let's continue.

Centers for Disease Control to help make sure we...

(CROSSTALK)

ARMEY: Centers for Disease Control left in the hands of the scientists is probably a very important thing

SPITZER: So you would eliminate it, the Centers for Disease Control?

ARMEY: No, I did not. I would leave it in the hands of the scientists and I would tell the politicians to butt out. Let real who have real expertise make scientific decisions, medical decisions. Let's not have a bunch of political mandates issued by people who don't even understand..

(CROSSTALK)

SPITZER: I don't think that is what CDC does.

OK, how about NIH, National Institutes for Health, does all the research?

ARMEY: I think again that is probably acceptable opportunity to do some good with the federal government's taxpayer dollars, if they have the discipline to leave the agency to do its job on a professional basis, rather than corrupting it.

SPITZER: How about NASA? You going to fund NASA?

ARMEY: Oh, absolutely I would fund NASA. And I sure as heck would keep it focused on its initial mission

(CROSSTALK)

SPITZER: Now, in your book, and in all the Tea Party stuff, they say we're not cutting defense

ARMEY: I think, again, you can rationalize every agency. There are efficiencies to be made in defense, as there...

(CROSSTALK)

SPITZER: But you're saying we're not -- so, I'm just trying to figure out where you're cutting.

ARMEY: Defense is stipulated in the Constitution as a legitimate, necessary duty of the federal government

SPITZER: So, where are you cutting?

ARMEY: How about we cut out a lot of nonsense like National Endowment for the Humanities and Arts? And how about getting rid of AmeriCorps, which is just obnoxious?

SPITZER: AmeriCorps, OK.

ARMEY: Even intellectually, it's an insult to the American people

SPITZER: OK.

ARMEY: How about you get rid of the Corporation for National Broadcasting in that very nominal party of the budget which is called discretionary spending, which I would probably call indiscretionary spending?

Lyndon Johnson's Great Society transformed the budget of the United States government from 85 percent discretionary, 15 percent mandatory, to just the reverse. Now your ability to cut spending and to make the trims that are necessary to restore the government to service in the lives of the people is made very difficult because of the dominance of...

(CROSSTALK)

PARKER: One thing we should point out is that the congressman is also an economist. This is not just a political stump speech here ARMEY: This government cannot grow the private sector of the economy by itself, growing larger. It's like you have got a 200-pound jockey that thinks, if I just eat more and gain myself to 210, the horse will be able to win the race

(CROSSTALK)

SPITZER: I like that metaphor

(CROSSTALK)

PARKER: It seems pretty simple. I mean, we clearly can't afford everything we have got. We can't -- we have got to stop spending somewhere

(CROSSTALK)

ARMEY: I will tell you what. I will give today's retirees and today's working youth a more hard, fast commitment for Social Security

I will say to every child in America, every working man and woman in this country, I will guarantee you, you will have Social Security just as you know it today, with the only change being a cost of living adjustment that is commensurate with the consumer price index for the rest of your life, if you choose to stay in it

SPITZER: OK.

ARMEY: But I will also give you the right to choose to leave it

SPITZER: But you're saying something very important that I don't think most people are picking up on. What you're doing is changing the escalator in Social Security in a way that many people agree with

ARMEY: That's right. And I'll tell you what

SPITZER: I happen to agree with that

ARMEY: I'm going to just say to the American people, if you choose to...

SPITZER: You already said you're going to do one of them

ARMEY: If you, as a free-born individual person, choose to say, I want to leave this mandatory government program, you're free to leave. You're free to say no to the government

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PARKER: Well, few politicians are as colorful as Dick Armey, the face of the Tea Party

We will be right back

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Now, I think the problem for Obama has been he's tried to establish that connection

But with so many people pulling at him from the other side with things like death panels coming in from the other side, nobody knows what is true and false. And so he hasn't been able to create the connection. So, they don't have patience the way they did way back in a much harder time

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SPITZER: Now, for Constitution avenue, where we go behind the scenes to figure out why people behave the way they do in Washington

PARKER: And there's no one better to help us do this than our next guest, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Doris Kearns Goodwin. She worked in LBJ's White House and has written about FDR, JFK, and her childhood love affair with the Brooklyn Dodgers

SPITZER: Oh, my goodness. Her bestseller "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln" has won many prizes. And Steven Spielberg is turning it into a movie

Welcome. And thank you for joining us.

GOODWIN: Oh, I'm delighted to be with you both.

PARKER: Doris, we want to start with this whole concept of the team of rivals

Barack Obama came into the White House, promising to bring his rivals to the table. What has happened? There's no one left but Hillary

(LAUGHTER)

GOODWIN: Well, Hillary was the main rival.

I remember at the beginning, somebody said to him, would you really be willing to put into your chief inner circle a rival, even if his or her spouse were an occasional pain in the butt?

(LAUGHTER)

GOODWIN: And then he said -- went right back to Lincoln. Lincoln said: It was a time of peril. I'm going to do it

OK. So, he had Hillary. He has Biden, who was a rival, sort of. And he questions his assumptions. He's playing that role of being somebody who can really be in there and rough it up with him

He's got one Republican, LaHood. He tried to get Gregg, another one. He has Gates. So, I think he tried. But in today's world, it's much harder than it was in earlier times

SPITZER: Well, look, there is the same sense of crisis. We are in two wars, different types of wars than World War II or the Civil War, of course.

But, economically, things are so fraught with risk. Why does that same sense of patriotism and purpose not permeate Washington?

GOODWIN: It's a great question

And it's one of the sadnesses that I have as a historian, not being able to figure out why, given this time, we're paying so much attention to minor things and we're talking about trivial things, not just in the media, but politicians themselves? Something has happened to our system right now.

It will get better, because I'm an optimist. You have got to believe something is going to turn it around

SPITZER: Being Red Sox fans, you necessarily are optimists.

(LAUGHTER)

GOODWIN: Yes, I have to be.

PARKER: Well, the media obviously play a role in all of that

And I want to talk about that for a minute, because the White House has taken on the media in a new way. I mean, the president, himself, has spoken about, for example, Rush Limbaugh

And I wonder, is -- has the media become such a force that we have to -- that it's almost a fourth branch of government, rather than the fourth estate, and has to be dealt with in that...

(CROSSTALK)

GOODWIN: You know, in a funny way, I think it's always been a fourth branch of government, except that other presidents have known how to use it better and to work with it better

I mean, Teddy Roosevelt was able to make the media his friends. He became a personality because he knew the reporters and he was good with them. FDR used the radio brilliantly to have conversations with the people. And the media became part of his pulpit

JFK did those great press conferences where television was perfect for him. And Ronald Reagan knew how to give those great speeches. I think what's happened with Obama is, he hasn't figured out the right forum for him as president. It worked in the campaign, those huge speeches where he was great. When he has got a written text, nobody's better

But when you're president and you're just speaking to a camera and that stupid teleprompter is there -- you know, LBJ used to have a teleprompter he never wanted to go without. They called it mother, because he wouldn't go anywhere without mother.

(LAUGHTER)

GOODWIN: But he was so stiff behind there, too.

PARKER: Yes

GOODWIN: Somehow, he's got to figure out a better way to talk to the people.

SPITZER: I think that's exactly right. but is there another dimension to this? Has the media become more invasive, more hostile? Does it feel that it needs to be more aggressive, so that it can't let itself develop the bonds or the relationships, for instance, that FDR or Teddy Roosevelt had with the individual members of the press?

GOODWIN: I think that's part of it

I also think part of it is, the Internet has become such a big source. It's almost like the fifth branch of government now. And what does the Internet do to the media? It makes everything shorter than it used to be. It rushes everything. It means that one story saturates for weeks on end

PARKER: Sticking to the media a minute, it's hard to talk about what the media do, because there are so many different kinds of media

And you have written a little bit about and you just spoke about JFK being perfect for TV and the different ones who had different talents for different media. What about -- now we're tweeting and we're blogging

And is that presidential? I mean, I wonder how that affects our perception of the presidency, when you have the leader of the free world, as we like to say, tweeting. It seems...

(LAUGHTER)

GOODWIN: Well, I think what a modern political figure figures today is, they have to reach audiences that are segmented however they can. There's no one audience anymore

I mean, it used to be that you go on television -- or, when Roosevelt went on the radio, 85 percent of the adult radio people are listening to him. Saul Bellow said you could walk down a street and not miss a word of what he was saying because everybody had it on. People walking in and you'd hear it coming out of the windows. Now, you can't do that. You have to find every media if you can. But it does diminish somehow that sense of the free world president.

KATHLEEN PARKER, HOST: Yes.

ELIOT SPITZER, HOST: You referred a minute ago to the sense of immediacy and we want a response right now. When FDR ran in his midterms, he was coming off the depression and he had not succeeded in his first midterm elections in solving the economic problem. Yet somehow the public gave him time. This time around, Barack Obama coming off his equivalent economic debacle, also not his fault. We are saying you haven't solved it in 19, 20 months, we're blaming you. What has happened to our psyches that we're demanding that immediate response? And what should Barack do about it?

GOODWIN: You know, I thought about FDR because it's true. In 1934, we still had 20 percent unemployment.

SPITZER: Right.

GOODWIN: The recovery had begun, but people hadn't really felt it in their lives. People said, he's going to get killed in the midterm elections. And he didn't. He won seats in part because he established an emotional relationship with the people. They trusted him for the future.

Now I think the problem for Obama has been he's trying to establish that connection. But with so many people pulling at him from the other side with things like death panels coming in from the other side, nobody knows what's true and false. And so he hasn't been able to create that connection. So they don't have patience the way they did way back in a much harder time.

SPITZER: Even despite all of these problems and challenges, how is President Obama had to stand up against other presidents at this point in his administration?

GOODWIN: Well, you know, the one thing historians will say looking back at it 20, 30 years from now, is he's done some historic things. And that's got to give him solace when he goes to bed at night. As hard as it is every day, he can say, I got a health care bill. Nobody got that through from the time they've been trying since Teddy Roosevelt really. I got financial reform through that's really going to change, perhaps not as much as one would have wanted. And I think that's going to help him. But it's really important for him to establish his connection to the people because people live in the present day.

Remember when I was teaching at Harvard and one of the radicals stood up and said, but FDR, he didn't end the depression until World War II came so he's no good at all. I said, people live in the short term. He made them feel better. He got them jobs during the '30s. It's almost the opposite with Obama. He's done the historic things but he hasn't yet made people feel what's happening to them right now.

PARKER: Thank you so much for a very interesting conversation.

GOODWIN: You're very welcome.

PARKER: We'll be right back. Doris, stay right here.

GOODWIN: I will do it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PARKER: What about Christine O'Donnell? Have you paid much attention to that phenomenon?

OLIVER STONE, FILMMAKER: It's like, you know, you're asking me about lottery winners. If I followed the news like that, I would lose my mind. I don't know how you can do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PARKER: Our next guest is a filmmaker who often has captured the American zeitgeist from "Wall Street" to "JFK," from "Born on the Fourth of July" to "Platoon."

SPITZER: But Oliver Stone is just as famous for his inflammatory political statements like calling corporations responsible for September 11th. The director of "Provocateur" visited with us recently.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SPITZER: You have a perspective on the Obama presidency. What do you think so far compared to what you were hoping and expecting?

OLIVER STONE, FILMMAKER: Well, you know, I like -- I was hoping for the federal Delano Roosevelt moment, that 1933 moment when he would take it on, because he had a mandate from the young and old. There was that hope that he would breathe the new spirit and take on the corporations and take on the oligarchies that run America and say, look, new way of doing things. He would have had the people behind him. And I think he could have gotten out of Afghanistan and Iraq and been quicker about it and attack the Wall Street issue faster and so forth.

SPITZER: And so I sense more than some minimal disappointment.

STONE: Yes.

SPITZER: A sense that he has pulled his punches, as it were.

STONE: Yes, no one -- that's not surprising. On the other hand, I'm still rooting for him.

SPITZER: Right.

STONE: I haven't -- you know, it's either him or McCain or Palin or Bush. You know, I don't think there's a choice.

PARKER: Could you see making a movie about Sarah Palin? Is she movie fodder? I would think she --

STONE: I think it's a bad idea because I think you're already empowering her. She's a moron in my opinion and she hasn't said anything and she's very colorful. But you give her more and more power, like Father Coughlin in the 1930s -- or you know, she's an Andy Griffith character out of a face in the crowd or something.

PARKER: Well, let's not make a movie about her right now but looking backward, I mean, as we advance from the future and look back, it's about some very unusual phenomenon that she has entered this political stage. STONE: No, not really.

PARKER: No.

STONE: And there's no nothing and American history is all over the place. You'd find candidates coming. Ignorant people run for office and they win. But the Ku Klux Klan was marching, 100,000 Ku Klux Klan marched in the streets of Washington, D.C. in 1923 to astounding success.

SPITZER: So what is the response?

STONE: Washington, D.C.

PARKER: But a woman, I don't think we've had many women here --

STONE: All kinds of crazy stuff happens. We've had (INAUDIBLE). We've had prohibition, right? We banned alcohol. America goes into its virtue. It's know nothing, kind of like, foreigners are enemies, we hate the Europeans, we blame them. We're an isolationist history and an isolationist country. We have two huge oceans and we feel protected.

SPITZER: How do you expect or do you expect this to burn out or to end? What is the response to it?

STONE: Well, in this climate where the media empowering her, you might very well have an election where she could win. If she wins, then we deserve what we get.

PARKER: What about Christine O'Donnell? Have you paid much attention to that phenomenon?

STONE: It's like, you know, you're asking me about lottery winners. If I followed the news like that, I would lose my mind. I don't know how you can do it.

PARKER: Well, can we talk about your new movie "Money Never Sleeps"?

STONE: Yes.

PARKER: I understand --

STONE: He has something to do with it, yes.

PARKER: Yes. Tell me about that.

STONE: He was great. I mean, actually it was early on when we were doing the research and we came to his office, and you gave us the time, it was two hours, I think and we talked about -- you said, look, go to this Goldman Sachs, go to this AIG issue. This is where the nexus of an evil empire lives. And he told us -- it shocked me. I sat there stunned. I remember that afternoon because it hadn't been in the newspapers. He said, Goldman is shorting its own clients. They're going long and short in this subprime market. And I -- the concept had never crossed my mind. I don't think it may be -- SPITZER: You never (INAUDIBLE) that way. Come on, this is --

STONE: You investigated Wall Street excessively and you did a great job.

SPITZER: Back to the movie.

STONE: You would have been treasury secretary in this new (INAUDIBLE). And we wouldn't be here where we are now. It would have been a different ball game. If you have enemies, yes.

PARKER: Is Eliot Spitzer a movie?

STONE: But you got to make enemies in politics and he proved that.

SPITZER: Wait, I want to come back to FDR because FDR had a very difficult moment about two years into his presidency just as Barack Obama has. But he in essence doubled down. He instead of veering back the way Bill Clinton did, instead of saying let's compromise, he said, I believe in these principles and he went after the oligarchs to use your word in a different way than our recent Democratic leaders have. Would that have worked at this moment?

STONE: Well, there was a moment there in time when Obama had that -- the electorate was sizzling with -- even the Republicans were upset with Bush. It was that moment in time where he had breath of air behind him.

SPITZER: Let me ask you this. Would you have thrown away -- I happen to agree with you. But I think what stood in his way was this incessant push for bipartisanship which everybody desires that when they won, the Obama administration suddenly was surrounded by the traditional establishment. And his cabinet, I call it his cabinet continuity you can believe in. They lost that energy for change and embraced Wall Street that then got its wishes and its desires when it came to fundamental issues.

STONE: Not only Geithner and Summers but also Gates, Robert Gates at defense. And I think -- I know you're going -- many of you will disagree. Hillary Clinton at defense, as secretary of state was a huge mistake because she had voted for the Iraq war.

SPITZER: Can you ever get change that's bipartisan? I mean, part of what Roosevelt was willing to do was to say, look, transformation cannot be bipartisan.

STONE: It can. He appointed a tough cabinet, Francis Perkins, Henry Wallace. He had great people in there and they went at it.

PARKER: I'd love to stay but I think our takeaway message here is Eliot Spitzer for secretary of the treasury.

SPITZER: Trying to -- come on.

STONE: I think you're a great talk show host.

SPITZER: Thank you.

PARKER: Thank you so much.

STONE: But secretary of the treasury is my vote.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PARKER: We're all familiar with the Christine O'Donnell ad, "I am not a witch." OK. So one of our -- what we like do here is have a little party round. How many -- what kind of denial would other politicians make along this line?

LLOYD GROVE, "THE DAILY BEAST": I think I'm not a bestiality pushing thug who wants to take out a "New York Post" reporter with a baseball bat. Carl Paladino --

PARKER: Wow.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SPITZER: Welcome to "Our Political Party," offbeat conversation with folks who have strong opinions in all range of political topic.

PARKER: It's a party and we have a guest list. Let's go around the table. Doris Kearns Goodwin who really needs no introduction. She's a historian, author of a gazillion books. Lloyd Grove who is editor- at-large for "The Daily Beast," covers media and politics.

SPITZER: And Errol Louis who's a columnist for "The Daily News" and in the mid-1980s, late 1980s was a street musician in Paris.

ERROL LOUIS, NY DAILY NEWS: I was.

SPITZER: It's too bad you were still there. You're probably having more fun.

And we have Dave Zirin --

PARKER: So is --

(CROSSTALK)

LOUIS: But you know, we know each other. I'm telling the truth.

SPITZER: Being a street musician was fun. Anyway, Dave Zirin who is the sports editor for "The Nation." And also at 5'10" inches tall, you were the center on your high school basketball team.

DAVE ZIRIN, THE NATION: That's right.

SPITZER: Either you are great or that team was maybe not so great.

ZIRIN: We were fantastic.

SPITZER: OK.

ZIRIN: We were epic. And I'm not a witch.

(LAUGHTER)

PARKER: Speaking of which, thank you for that. Thank you for that segue.

ZIRIN: No problem.

PARKER: Well, we're all familiar with the Christine O'Donnell ad, "I am not a witch." OK. So one of our -- what we like to do here is have a little party round. How many -- what kind of denial would other politicians make along these lines? Dick Nixon said, I'm not a crook. You know who said, I did not have sex with that woman. So come up with a politician, and what would he say?

LLOYD GROVE, "THE DAILY BEAST": I think I'm not a bestiality pushing thug who wants to take out a "New York Post" reporter with a baseball bat. Carl Paladino --

(LAUGHTER)

It's too long. It's too long.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I like that.

PARKER: Let's have the denial. We'll try to figure out who it is.

SPITZER: We don't know.

PARKER: That's good.

SPITZER: Errol, you got one?

LOUIS: Well, I'd say, you know, I think the president, it's long past time that he had a press conference to say that he's not a socialist welfare thug Muslim. I mean, we need to clear this up. I've been waiting --

(CROSSTALK)

PARKER: That's a denial.

ZIRIN: My one, if I could.

SPITZER: Yes. Yes.

ZIRIN: OK. It's not really a denial but it's of this ilk. It's a -- I'm Meg Whitman and I employ undocumented workers, and so do you, California. Well, at least those of you that --

SPITZER: Gutsy. Gutsy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, wow.

ZIRIN: Appealing to those who have servants, that's her base in California.

SPITZER: So she's going for the 10 million and above income level --

ZIRIN: Yes.

SPITZER: -- who are proud of their employing illegal immigrants.

ZIRIN: Yes. She's going to own it.

SPITZER: She's going to own it.

ZIRIN: Yes.

PARKER: That's a different approach.

SPITZER: Tell me while we were dealing with the tough issues confronting the future of the United States and this is what politicians have become.

GOODWIN: Actually, you know that's sad in a way.

SPITZER: Yes.

GOODWIN: I agree. This whole thing drives me crazy is in a story. When I think of the Lincoln/Douglass debates and they were talking about, the nature of the world and --

PARKER: Do you think that ad is effective? I mean, do you think that's actually going to resonate with people, I am not a witch?

GOODWIN: I think it's a mistake. But I think, you know, who knows? Maybe she thinks it's clear the deck and now she can go on and talk about other things.

PARKER: Well, she's got people advising her so this is clearly a strategic decision. And I'm just curious --

ZIRIN: I would like to ask Doris, do you think future historians will be poring over like the tweets of Sarah Palin or the Facebook musings?

GOODWIN: What a great book. The tweets of Sarah Palin.

ZIRIN: Yes. Think about the archive work that you've done over the decades. Yes.

GOODWIN: No, it's a real question. I mean, what we have now 200 years ago are letters and diaries and intimate resources that allow us to really know what people were feeling and thinking. But what are they going to have 200 years from now? You're right. They'll have --

LOUIS: Well, the thing about Twitter is you know the time and the date, and you know exactly the moment in which --

PARKER: Look, 120 characters, who cares what they said?

SPITZER: A very smart individual said -- observed to me that until about the 1930s or '40s people wrote letters, then they spoke over the phone until we had 60 or 70 years where we lost the intimate thoughts of people--

GOODWIN: Except for the taped conversations.

PARKER: Do you still write letters?

SPITZER: But now we're going back to the Internet so we're going to get it.

PARKER: Well, the election is less than a month away and Delaware isn't the only campaign to talk about. Looking across the country, is there a particular race that you're following, Lloyd?

GROVE: Well, I love Jerry Brown/Meg Whitman. Jerry Brown is the "Madonna" of politics and Meg Whitman is spending the equivalent of Madonna's wealth. And it's just a fascinating race. It looks like Jerry is well positioned to be governor.

SPITZER: But why is Jerry Brown the "Madonna" of politics?

GROVE: He has reinvented himself so many times. I mean, he's downwardly mobile. He started out as governor, wanted to be president, ended up as party chairman, then mayor of Oakland. Worked his way back up to attorney general.

ZIRIN: Dated Alex Rodriguez. Oh.

The state of California versus marijuana. Look, they're doing the referendum there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.

ZIRIN: And let's face it, you fly into LAX, you get a contact high. It is a cash crop. It could solve the budget issues for that state. The amount of hypocrisy of almost every single person who's going to vote against it boggles the mind. It could also help deal with drug issues with Mexico and importation and violence along the border. I hope people in California vote yes on weed.

SPITZER: Now, where do you register?

ZIRIN: Unfortunately --

SPITZER: I kind of expected you to relocate and vote.

ZIRIN: Yes. Maryland.

SPITZER: Maryland.

ZIRIN: Yes.

SPITZER: No exciting races there. ZIRIN: Absolutely nothing. It's Maryland.

SPITZER: You have a governor's race though.

ZIRIN: Yes, we do. Bob Ehrlich against O'Malley, otherwise known as oh, Malley (ph). And you know, we'll see what happens. I mean, you do get with the two of them, the sort of six of one, half a dozen of the other, tweedledum (ph), tweedledummer (ph). It's kind of like watching paint dryer and apple turned brown or a Boston Red Sox game. It's not very exciting.

PARKER: Oh, no.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think you guys are on opposite sides of the table.

SPITZER: I've got another question I want to ask when we come right back in 60 seconds.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SPITZER: Welcome back to "Our Political Party." Let's squeeze in one more quick question. The baseball playoffs start tomorrow. None of the great rivalries are up on the lineup. Rivalries are important. They define competition.

Doris, what is your favorite political rivalry.

GOODWIN: Well, I'm living with one right now. Because I am writing about Teddy Roosevelt and Taft. They were great, great friends before they ran against each other in 1912, knocked each other out, destroyed the progressive ring of the Republican Party. So that's a sad rivalry.

SPITZER: And it's never returned.

GOODWIN: Never returned. It really has never returned. But the best rivalry is JFK and LBJ because they eventually became one person. LBJ was able to pass the things that JFK mobilized the country for. Without one or the other, they wouldn't have been a successful.

SPITZER: Absolutely. Did they ever appreciate that? I guess they couldn't have.

KEARNS: No, no. JFK and LBJ got along pretty well. It was Bobby and LBJ that hated each other. That's the most mortal rivalry.

GROVE: That was my rivalry, and the reason -- I mean, an intraparty rivalry is more vicious and much more interesting and more dramatic. And a book about this was called "Mutual Contempt."

GOODWIN: Exactly.

GROVE: So it was toxic on every level and fascinating.

PARKER: Great title. SPITZER: Yes.

PARKER: We can't write our book now.

(LAUGHTER)

SPITZER: Errol?

LOUIS: It doesn't get more heated than Alexander Hamilton versus Alex Burr, right?

PARKER: Yes.

LOUIS: Fatal fight. I mean, this is real rivalry.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think we should bring dueling back.

SPITZER: Dave?

ZIRIN: This is kind of in honor of Doris' Teddy Roosevelt versus college football. Teddy Roosevelt personally, he loved college football at first because he thought it taught particularly young men from wealthy schools, from Ivy League schools how to be real men, even preparing them to rule the country in the 20th century. But then players started to die on the field because there were no rules. It was like from "Brave Heart." And then Teddy Roosevelt wanted to ban football in this country.

SPITZER: Right.

ZIRIN: And they had to organize the rules. Walter Campton (ph) out of New Haven, as a way to keep college football around. And so because of Teddy Roosevelt's crusade against college football is how we have the game that we know today.

GOODWIN: Yes.

SPITZER: Amazing. Amazing.

PARKER: That's interesting.

Well, I hate to break up the conversation but we're throwing a party every night at this time on "PARKER SPITZER." Thanks to all our guests for coming. We hope you'll come back and join us again.

ZIRIN: Thank you.

PARKER: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Randi Kaye. "PARKER SPITZER" is back in a moment. First, the latest.

In Connecticut, a guilty verdict in the capital murder trial of Steven Hayes. He was convicted on 16 of 17 counts in the deaths of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters during a 2007 home invasion. The trial's penalty phase begins October 18th.

In New York, a defiant Faisal Shahzad sentenced to life behind bars for the botched Times Square car bombing last May. The 31-year-old Pakistani American pleaded guilty in June. At today's sentencing, he warned Americans to, quote, "brace yourself, the war with Muslims has just begun."

In the last few weeks, we've reported on multiple youth suicides linked to bullying. Comedian and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres is speaking out about the epidemic and joining the fight to end bullying. She joins Anderson tonight.

That's the latest. Now back to "PARKER SPITZER."

SPITZER: Welcome back. Time for our P.S., the postscript to our program.

We've been talking on and off all night about Christine O'Donnell's ad. You know the one where she promises no, she's not a witch.

PARKER: And all of a sudden interest in things magical reminded me of one of my favorite bumper stickers which magically is our P.S. for tonight. Remember the "Wizard of Oz?" Start there. Life just hasn't been the same since that house fell on my sister.

SPITZER: You know, really not such a bad accident. Only one person got hurt in Toto.

PARKER: Oh, no.

SPITZER: Don't blame that went on me.

PARKER: Well, luckily for me that's all for us tonight. Thanks for joining us and please come back tomorrow for more stimulating conversation with the people we always want to talk to.

SPITZER: "LARRY KING LIVE" starts right now.