On this edition of the City Journal Books Podcast, Ben Boychuk and Joel Mathis discuss presidential power with Stephen F. Knott, author most recently of Rush to Judgment: George W. Bush, the War on Terror, and His Critics (University Press of Kansas). Knott, a professor of national security affairs at the United States Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, contends that historians have done a disservice to their profession by judging President Bush's record too harshly, too soon. His previous books include Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of Myth, Secret and Sanctioned: Covert Operations and the American Presidency, and At Reagan’s Side: Insiders’ Recollections from Sacramento to the White House.
Stephen F. Knott
Among the questions we discuss:
• How did George W. Bush's national security decisions differ from former presidents?
• Do historians give some presidents a pass on abuse of power more than others?
• Is the role of Congress in wartime to write checks and shut up?
• Should Congress have formally declared war on the Taliban in 2001?
• Have the courts carried out a "quiet constitutional revolution" in the way presidents may handle national security?
• Did the Bush Administration's wiretapping program go too far?
• Did Bush invite the judgment of history?
• And much more!

Please visit and "like" Ben and Joel and City Journal on Facebook to comment or to share this interview. There you will also receive regular updates about new stories from City Journal and City Journal California, along with links to Ben and Joel's weekly syndicated column with ScrippsHoward News Service. Thanks for listening.

We're pleased to announce that the Ben and Joel Podcast is becoming the City Journal Books Podcast! Although our name and home base may be changing, the content of the program will remain the same. We'll continue to offer 21st-century conversations for listeners with 19th-century attention spans with authors of books we think are interesting, enlightening, and particularly relevant to the public discourse.
Charles R. Kesler
In this episode, City Journal associate editor Ben Boychuk and Joel Mathis, a national affairs columnist for Philadelphia Magazine's The Philly Post, talk to Charles R. Kesler about his new book, I Am the Change: Barack Obama and the Crisis of Liberalism. Kesler is the Dengler-Dykema Distinguished Professor of Government at Claremont-McKenna College, a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, and editor of the Claremont Review of Books.

Among the questions we discuss:
• What ideas motivate Barack Obama?
• Who's the audience for this book? How should a liberal engage this book?
• Do conservatives know more about liberals' political history than liberals do?
• How did Woodrow Wilson's "New Freedom" reshape American politics?
• How did Franklin Roosevelt inexorably tie liberalism to the Democratic Party?
• How did Lyndon Johnson outdo FDR and Wilson?
• Does Obama represent a "fourth wave" of liberalism?
• What do American progressives owe to the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel?
• Did history end for American conservatives in 1787?
• Do conservatives unknowingly accept liberal premises?
• And much, much more!

Please visit and "like" Ben and Joel and City Journal on Facebook to comment on this interview, as well as to receive regular updates about the podcast and links to our weekly syndicated column with ScrippsHoward News Service. You'll be glad you did!

Programming note: Let's call this one the last episode of "The Ben and Joel Podcast" and the inaugural episode of the "City Journal Books Podcast." Upcoming guests include: Stephen Knott, Greg Lukianoff, and Richard H. Immermann.

Ben and Joel are joined by Brink Lindsey. He is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and senior scholar at the Kaufman Foundation—he's also known for his time at the Cato Institute, where among his many roles he served as the editor of the monthly Cato Unbound magazine. He's written several books, including "The Age of Abundance: How Prosperity Transformed America's Politics and Culture." And he is the author, most recently, of the short e-book discussed in today's podcast: "Human Capitalism: How Economic Growth Has Made Us Smarter--And More Unequal."

Questions contemplated in this podcast:

• How is economic growth making us smarter and more unequal?
• Is growing income inequality the "dark lining of a silver cloud?" Is economic growth good despite the growth of inequality?
• How is Lindsey's book different from Charles Murray's recent "Coming Apart," aside from a cheerier outlook? What's holding back the middle class?
• Do differences in "cognitive culture" explain differences in achievement? Do genes matter? And since can't kids can't "pick the right parents," how intractable is the problem?
• Does helicopter parenting actually work? How? Has Joel already ruined his 4-year-old son?
• Can inequality be solved by applying libertarian solutions? Will school competition help? And why urge more early child development programs when they don't seem to work?
• Has America captured all the "low-hanging fruit" of easy innovation and human capital development. Is this economy as good as it gets?
• How are zoning laws and occupational licensing in big cities inhibiting the normal flow of the economy?
• Bonus: "Human Capitalism" was released as an e-book ahead of hardcover publication. How has the e-book publication affected preparations for the hardcover book?

Next podcast: Charles Kesler discusses: "I Am The Change: Barack Obama and the Crisis of Liberalism."

Ben and Joel are joined by one of the most distinguished investigative reporting duos in American journalism. Donald Barlett and James Steele have worked together for more than four decades, first at The Philadelphia Inquirer, where they won two Pulitzer Prizes, then at Time magazine, and now at Vanity Fair as contributing editors--racking up armloads of prestigious awards everyplace they’ve been. They also have written eight books.

Their most recent book is “The Betrayal of the American Dream”--it’s a follow-up to “America: What Went Wrong?” a 1991 series that originated in the Inquirer and then became a book.

Questions considered in this podcast:

• Why is the American middle class disappearing? And 20 years after "America: What Went Wrong?" has the situation actually gotten worse?
• Isn't American manufacturing still really successful? And isn't growing inequality the result of growing productivity?
• Is free trade actually good for America? Or does the system guarantee American workers never be successful? And what happened to our trade surplus with Mexico?
• Doesn't the free trade produce cheap goods for American consumers? How can the U.S. compete with the advantages available to state-supported companies in China? Is a little bit of protectionism called for?
• Is it better to make iPads here or buy them cheaply from abroad? How about shoes? And even bridges? Are we willing to risk trade wars to guarantee fairness?
• Is tax policy really responsible for the growth of income inequality in the United States? What's wrong with lowering rates but eliminating loopholes? Should we actually have more brackets in the tax code?
• Is it actually possible to create a successful political movement in favor of protectionism and higher taxes for the rich and big corporations?
• What's the secret to Barlett and Steele's four-decade partnership.

For more podcasts and weekly political commentary, join the conversation at Ben and Joel's Facebook page.

Douglas Stuart joins the podcast to discuss his new book, "Creating the National Security State: A History of the Law That Transformed America," a look at the 1947 National Security Act. Stuart holds the J. William Stuart and Helen D. Stuart Chair in International Studies at Dickinson College; he is also an adjunct professor at the U.S. Army War College.

Questions pondered in this podcast:

• What did the United States look like, militarily and national security-wise, before World War II?
• What's the difference between "national interest" and "national security?"
• Who was Pendleton Herring? How did he influence U.S. security policy?
• How did the rise of Nazism and Fascism influence American ideas about security? How did the emphasis on national security facilitate the rise of an "administrative state" here? And what did the advent of the atomic bomb mean in all of this?
• How was the 1947 National Security Act shaped by service rivalries?
• What did Harry Truman think about the massive bureaucracy that resulted from the act?
• Does the military dominate the U.S. foreign outlook too much? What about domestic politics?
• Is there a way to reform the bureaucracy without making a bigger mess?

Programming note: This is a brief interruption of our hiatus. The podcast will be back in full force later this fall.

Ben and Joel are joined by Jonathan Haidt, the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at NYU-Stern School of Business. He’s the author of several books, including “The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom” and more recently, “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics And Religion.”

Questions considered in this podcast:

• Why do good people fight over politics and religion?

• What are the parts of morality that are obviously part of human nature? And how do liberals and conservatives differ, morally?

• Are liberals missing a limb, morally speaking? Are they at a moral disadvantage in political debates? And are liberals loyal to the nation?

• Do academics and intellectuals try to turn ideologies into pathologies? Do liberals have too much sway in the academy?

• What does Haidt mean when he says "morality binds, and blinds?"

• How much does genetics feed into our ideological predispositions? If we're hardwired, what's the point of bipartisan dialogue?

• Who is better at understanding the other side? Liberals or conservatives?

Programming note: We often have 45 minutes to an hour to discuss these books with their authors—in this case, the interview lasted just a half-hour. Aside from forcing us to drop a number of questions from consideration, the time limit may have made us sound rushed and truncated. We're more aware of how lucky we are to get the time we normally do with authors! In any case, please visit and "like" the Ben and Joel page on Facebook to comment on this interview, as well as to receive regular updates about the podcast and links to our weekly syndicated column with ScrippsHoward News Service. You'll be glad you did!

Jonah Goldberg, American Enterprise Institute fellow and editor-at-large at National Review Online, joins Ben Boychuk to discuss his latest book, The Tyranny of Clichés: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas.

Joel Mathis received a last-minute offer he couldn’t refuse and couldn't join us for this episode—which was a shame, because Ben and Jonah were looking forward to the sparring contest. But Joel's presence is made known around 13 and a half minutes into the podcast, when Ben reads a couple of questions he had written shortly before we recorded.

Among the questions we discuss:
• What's so great about ideology?
• Why aren't liberals more willing to embrace their ideological history?
• Is the problem with liberals today that they're "bookless"?
• Do conservative arguments based supposedly on "first principles" obscure the practical effects of conservative policies?
• Who doesn't support progress?
• If he had to do it all over again, would Goldberg have written a completely different book?
• How has Goldberg's style evolved since the old days of the original G-File on NRO?
• And much, much more!

Music heard in this podcast:
• "The Ritual/Ancient Battle/2nd Kroykah," Gerald Fried (from "Star Trek: Original Television Soundtrack," Vol. 2)
• "Days Are Forgotten," Kasabian
• "Logical Song," Supertramp
• "The Trees," Rush
• "My Way," Sid Vicious
• "Jessica," The Allman Brothers
• "Epilogue (original version)—End Title," James Horner (from "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan—Expanded Edition")

Please visit and "like" the Ben and Joel page on Facebook to comment on this interview, as well as to receive regular updates about the podcast and links to our weekly syndicated column with ScrippsHoward News Service. You'll be glad you did!

Programming note: This episode of "The Ben and Joel Podcast" is Vol. 5, No. 12 for 2012, and was recorded in June. Unfortunately, editing took quite a bit longer than usual because of a technical glitch. Joel Mathis was on assignment when we recorded this one.

Ben and Joel are joined by author Robert Draper. He’s a former writer for Texas Monthly magazine; nowadays he’s a correspondent for GQ and a contributor to The New York Times Magazine. He was the author, in 2007, of “Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush.” And he’s out with a new book, “Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside The U.S. House of Representatives.”

Questions considered in this podcast:

• How did the Tea Party change the House of Representatives? How have Tea Party candidates been changed by the House? How do they deal with the tension between their principles and the demands of governing?
• How has the Republican Party in Congress evolved over the years? What lessons did they learn from Ronald Reagan? And how does John Boehner still have his job as Speaker of the House?
• How did 2011's fight over the debt ceiling become such a "sugar-coated Satan sandwich"?
• What lessons can Democrats learn from the last few years? Did President Obama ever have a chance to govern in bipartisan manner? Or did he make too much a fetish of bipartisanship? And why can't Democrats figure out what they stand for?
• Have Twitter and Facebook made the job of Congress impossible?

Music heard in this podcast:

• "No No No," Yeah Yeah Yeahs
• "No Way," Sonic Youth
• "Stop The World," The Clash
• "Satisfaction (I Can't Get No)," Otis Redding
• "You Won't Be Satisfied (Until You Break My Heart)," Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong
• "Won't U Please B Nice," Nellie McKay

Please visit and "like" the Ben and Joel page on Facebook to comment on this interview, as well as to receive regular updates about the podcast and links to our weekly syndicated column with ScrippsHoward News Service. You'll be glad you did!

Ben Boychuk is joined by Lenore Skenazy, "the World's Worst Mom" and author of the 2009 book, Free-Range Kids. Ever since Skenazy caused a scandal by allowing her then-9-year-old son to ride the subway home alone, she's been waging a sometimes lonely war against what she aptly calls "worst-first thinking." Recently, Skenazy has turned her biting wit against the emerging trend of "Alcatraz Parenting", which was the impetus for what turned into a fairly wide-ranging interview.

Among the questions we discuss:
• Why isn't her Discovery International reality TV series on in the United States?
• How much has really changed since Free Range Kids was published?
• How did the Etan Patz case change public opinion and the laws?
• Just how bad is the kidnapping problem today?
• Should parents take their kids to parks and leave them there?
• How does worst-first thinking threaten self-government?
• Which do you prefer: "Alcatraz parenting"? "Prisoner parenting"? Or "Panopticon parenting"?*
• What are some really dumb products that parents can buy to provide an illusion of safety for their children?
• "Tooth Prints"? Seriously?
• Is the fear of lawsuits overblown?
• What are some of the most important things children should learn before they are 12?
• And much more!

* This is really embarrassing, but when we recorded the interview, I misidentified the originator of the "panopticon" concept. It was, in fact, Jeremy Bentham. For some reason -- age? a small stroke? lack of caffeine? -- I identified the man behind the idea as John Stuart Mill. (Well, I had good reason: Mill was, after all, a student of Bentham's.) It's especially galling because I asserted with supreme confidence that most people listening to this podcast would know what the panopticon is or was. If you don't, just follow the links. Anyway, I cut that part of the exchange from the interview -- about two minutes in all -- although Lenore's musings on the panopticon remain intact.

Music heard in this podcast:
• "Greatest Love of All," Big Daddy
• "The Kids Are Alright," The Queers
• "I'm Your Boogie Man," KC and the Sunshine Band
• "Overlove," Dio
• "Fearless," Pink Floyd
• "Take a Chance," The Bomboras

Please visit and "like" the Ben and Joel page on Facebook to comment on this interview, as well as to receive regular updates about the podcast and links to our weekly syndicated column with ScrippsHoward News Service. You'll be glad you did!

Programming note: This episode of "The Ben and Joel Podcast" is Vol. 5, No. 11 for 2012. Joel Mathis was on vacation when we recorded this one. I should have posted this sooner, but events conspired against it.

Ben and Joel are are joined by Edward Luce, Washington columnist and commentator for the Financial Times, where he writes about American politics, and the economy. In addition to his reporting career, Luce spent 2000 as the chief speechwriter for Lawrence H. Summers, the US Treasury secretary. He has just written a book: "Time to Start Thinking: America in the Age of Descent."

Questions considered in this podcast:

• Is anything going right in America these days?
• Why is the middle class stagnating? And why does it matter for our economy and our politics?
• Will Americans ever again get to have stable jobs with a stable set of skills? Or will careers be a constant process of retraining and "upscaling" of skills?
• Why should government push harder for solutions to America's problem when even the elites aren't smart enough to know what the right solutions are?
• How can America compete with state-centric economies like China while holding onto its traditional notions of liberty? Doesn't American have a bias against government picking winners and losers?
• Is innovation necessarily linked to manufacturing? If so, how does American innovation survive the country's dwindling manufacturing capacity? Can a digital economy spur the necessary innovation required by the economy?
• Is it more important to reform education or immigration? Are there changes we can make without spending lots of money? Or should we be pouring money into infrastructure—and how do we decide what projects to fund?
• Are Americans getting the (sclerotic) government we deserve—are we responsible for our own decline? Or are we just subject to the natural forces of history? Or can "American Exceptionalism" lead us out of decline?

Music heard in this podcast:

• "Until The End of the World," U2.
• "Way Down In The Hole," Tom Waits.
• "The Distance," Cake.
• "Yawny at the Apocalypse," Andrew Bird.
• "End Theme," Zero 7.

Please visit and "like" the Ben and Joel page on Facebook to comment, as well as for updates about the podcast and links to our weekly syndicated column with ScrippsHoward News Service.