SUMMARY: It has been nearly a year since the death of Barbara Bush. Now, Susan Page’s new biography of the former first lady, “The Matriarch,” reveals the heartache and happiness that shaped Bush’s life. Judy Woodruff sits down with Page to discuss Bush’s childhood, her conflicted feelings about the women’s movement, her “terrible relationship” with Nancy Reagan and more.
SUMMARY: With the country feeling deeply polarized and a Supreme Court that has moved to the right under President Trump, the role of Chief Justice John Roberts is attracting increased interest and scrutiny, including in "The Chief," a new book by Joan Biskupic. Judy Woodruff talks to Biskupic about the pivotal justice's “guarded” personality, drive to achieve and hallmark judicial decisions.
SUMMARY: Rapper Kendrick Lamar was the first non-classical or jazz artist to win a Pulitzer Prize on Monday for his album "DAMN." Jeffrey Brown joins Judy Woodruff to discuss some of the recipients in areas of literature and music.
SUMMARY: Leonardo da Vinci's inquisitive spirit defined the quintessential “renaissance man.” The master artist, scientist and inventor is now the subject of a new biography by Walter Isaacson, who has profiled geniuses including Benjamin Franklin and Steve Jobs. Isaacson and Judy Woodruff discuss what he discovered while chronicling da Vinci's life.
SUMMARY: In what ways is Richard Nixon still with us in our political culture? John Farrell, author of "Richard Nixon: The Life," joins Jeffrey Brown to discuss Nixon’s Dickensian childhood and how it influenced his polarized politics, his mix of idealism and inclination toward dark intrigue, as well as the revelation that Nixon helped sabotage the Paris peace talks to end the Vietnam War.
SUMMARY: President Obama rejected the Keystone XL pipeline after seven years, and the October jobs report offered a brighter labor outlook. Judy Woodruff discusses the week’s news with syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks, including claims about Ben Carson’s past, questions about Marco Rubio’s finances and revelations in a new biography about George H.W. Bush.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): But, first, a White House decision finally on the Keystone pipeline, a rough week for some Republican candidates, and wins for conservatives on Election Day.
First, we turn to the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That’s syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
Gentlemen, welcome.
MARK SHIELDS, syndicated columnist: Judy.
JUDY WOODRUFF: It’s great to have you here.
So, that Keystone pipeline decision, David, the president finally — seven years later, we now know he’s against it.
DAVID BROOKS, New York Times: Yes. Well, first of all, it could be mythical. With oil prices so low, they might never build it anyway. So, it really doesn’t matter at some level.
But pretending it matters, I do think it’s an anti-environmental, anti-science move. His State Department and many other experts decided, if the oil is going to come out of the sands, it’s a lot cleaner to have it go through the pipeline than to put on trains or trucks and send it over to China through ships that way.
And, so, if the oil comes out of the sands, which it’s going to do if it makes economic sense, we might as well do it in the cleanest way possible. So, to me, this is just a political decision to placate some people who he’s offended with some of his other decisions.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Political decision, Mark?
MARK SHIELDS: I don’t think anyone could accuse the President of being impulsive. It was seven years, five exhaustive studies.
(LAUGHTER)
MARK SHIELDS: And I think it became a symbol for both sides, bigger than it was really.
I don’t think it was going to be an environmental disaster. And I don’t think, with gasoline $2 a gallon cheaper than it was the day that Barack Obama was nominated, the urgency had abated.
SUMMARY: In writing “Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush,” Jon Meacham was given unprecedented access to the Bush family and their personal diaries. Judy Woodruff sits down with Meacham to talk about what he learned about the former President, as well as what Bush 41 thought of his son George W.’s administration.
HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour): Biographies don’t always make news, but a new book on George H.W. Bush is garnering headlines across the country today for how Bush 41 felt about his son’s response to the 9/11 attacks and subsequent invasion of Iraq, among other things.
The book will not be published until next week, but we have an early look. For “Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush,” Jon Meacham, the executive editor at Random House, relied not only on extensive interviews of the president’s family, staff, and friends, but also on the nearly daily audio diaries the President recorded while in the White House.
Judy Woodruff talked with him earlier this week for the NewsHour Bookshelf.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Jon Meacham, welcome.
JON MEACHAM, Author, Destiny and Power: Thank you, Judy.
JUDY WOODRUFF: You had extraordinary, maybe unprecedented access to this president, all of his diaries, Barbara Bush’s diaries, the ability to interview almost everybody in the family. Why do you think they trusted you with all this?
JON MEACHAM: Well, I hope they felt that I would call it like I saw it, which was the sort of the mandate from the president.
JUDY WOODRUFF: A life of privilege. I mean, he certainly grew up in this family involved in politics, great wealth, but he also had a sense of responsibility from a very early age. What do you think shaped him?
JON MEACHAM: Well, you know, he comes out of the same world of noblesse oblige that shaped Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt, and, frankly, some of the founding fathers.
You could argue that, culturally and temperamentally, George H.W. Bush has more in common with the founders than he does with his successors generationally, in terms of their life experience. You know, his mother was hugely important. She was very religious and very competitive in equal parts, I think, it’s safe to say.
And he believed in the doctrine, to whom much is given, much is expected. What’s really interesting, I think — and I hadn’t realized this until I got into Mrs. Bush’s diary — is that there was an expectation, there was a sense that he could be president, that possibility was within the realm of the probable, as early as the 1950s.
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): Stokely Carmichael marched with Martin Luther King Jr. He campaigned for voting rights and against the Vietnam War and ultimately devoted himself to a Pan-Africanist movement that linked him to controversial leaders across that continent.
But, in most history books, he will be forever remembered as the activists who coined the term black power during years of racial turmoil in the United States.
A new biography, “Stokely: A Life,” tells a more complete story of a man who shaped the contemporary and sometimes conflicted civil rights movement. Its author is Peniel Joseph, professor of history at Tufts University.
GWEN IFILL (Newshour): Finally tonight: the Man in Black. It's been 10 years since the legendary singer songwriter died at age 71.
Last week, his estate announced a new album would be released in March. The never-before-heard songs were recorded in 1986. The audiotapes of the original recording sessions recently were discovered in the family archives.
We get a look now at Johnny Cash the man.
Jeffrey Brown has our book conversation.
JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): From the Sun recording studios in Memphis to California's Folsom Prison, to the famous last video he recorded before he died, Johnny Cash crossed musical boundaries and influenced and moved several generations of singers, songwriters and fans, even while he struggled with his own addictions and pains.
All of this can be found in "Johnny Cash: The Life," a new biography by Robert Hilburn, who served as chief music critic for The Los Angeles Times for more than 30 years.
