I try my best not to get political, especially when I’m interviewed on television. I’m not comfortable broadcasting my political or socioeconomic opinions, and I usually get itchy and twitchy watching other writers or actors getting up on soapboxes they don’t always deserve to be standing on. I don’t believe everything in life comes down to politics, but sometimes I feel like I’m one of the very few people thinking that way. I guess I consider myself an Independent. I definitely want to hear what everybody has to say, both sides of the argument.
Anyway, in 2004, the Bushes invited Sue and me to Fort Worth for the fifteenth anniversary of Barbara’s Foundation for Family Literacy. The program was driven by Mrs. Bush’s belief that “the home is a child’s first school, the parent is a child’s first teacher, and reading is a child’s first subject.”
Let your children see you read.
Sue and I spent the day with George H. W. and Barbara. David Halberstam was there and we talked about The Best and the Brightest, his narrative of America’s involvement in Vietnam that the Boston Globe had likened to “watching an Alfred Hitchcock thriller,” and about his time in Moscow. The novelist Daniel Silva was also at the Bushes’. I’m a fan of Silva’s wonderfully complex Israeli hero, or maybe antihero, Gabriel Allon. Silva can really write. The bastard.
While we were at the Bush apartment, Barbara pretty much ran the show. But every once in a while President Bush would sneak her a look that communicated Okay, enough. Let’s not forget I was president. And Barbara would give him a look that seemed to say Heard that one before.
I found the Bushes to be down-to-earth and they both had a terrific sense of humor. When some people get a little too over-the-top negative about Bill and Hillary Clinton, I’ll say to them, “You respect the Bushes, right?” If they’re being honest, most will admit, “Yeah, yeah, the Bushes are good people.” Then I come back with “Well, the Bushes love the Clintons. So that’s got to tell you something about the Clintons.” The two families were close, especially President Clinton and 41.
It seems to me there’s a nasty little disease going around and it’s especially prevalent on TV and radio news shows. It goes something like this: “My view of the world is right—and your view is stupid!” I really don’t like that. Honestly, it makes me a little sick to my stomach.
Do I believe Al Franken should have had his Senate career ruined? My personal opinion—no. Do I know what went on between Woody Allen and the Farrows? Nope. And neither do you. And neither did the Hachette Book Group employees, none of whom had read Allen’s autobiography Apropos of Nothing, when they demanded the publisher not publish it. Maybe I’m hopelessly old-fashioned, but I’m almost always on the side of free speech.