SUMMARY: Former Justice John Paul Stevens spent 35 years on the Supreme Court, writing some of its most important decisions. At age 99, he is still writing, including a new memoir, and weighing in on prominent U.S. issues today. Judy Woodruff sat down with Justice Stevens in April to hear his thoughts on everything from President Trump to how a childhood accident shaped his future views on gun ownership.
SUMMARY: William [J.] Burns, former Deputy Secretary of State and Ambassador to Russia, may have spent more time with Vladimir Putin than other American diplomat. In his book, “The Back Channel,” Burns discusses how a “sense of grievance” underlies Putin's interactions with the U.S. Judy Woodruff talks to Burns about a "failure of imagination" on Syria and the current state of American diplomacy.
SUMMARY: Journalist Jason Rezaian was the Washington Post’s bureau chief in Tehran until 2014, when he and his wife, Yeganeh, were arrested by Iranian authorities. She was released after three months, while Jason was held for another 15. He describes the harrowing experience in his memoir, “Prisoner: My 544 Days in an Iranian Prison,” and talks to Judy Woodruff about why he believes he was targeted.
SUMMARY: While Republican Sen. John McCain has lately undergone treatment for brain cancer, he still speaks his mind. Judy Woodruff talks with Mark Salter, co-author of a new McCain memoir, "The Restless Wave," about his Senate service, Russian election interference, American society, and politics in the age of President Trump and much more.
"The Restless Wave" John McCain (excerpt):
"Before I leave, I would like to see our politics begin to return to the purposes and practices that distinguish our history from the history of other nations.
I would like to see us recover our sense that we are more alike than different. We’re citizens of a republic made of shared ideals, forged in a new world to replace the tribal enmities that tormented the old one.
Even in times of political turmoil such as these, we share that awesome heritage and the responsibility to embrace it. Whether we think each other right or wrong in our views on the issues of the day, we owe each other our respect, so long as our character merits respect.
And as long as we share, for all our differences, for all the rancorous debates that enliven and sometimes demean our politics, a mutual devotion to the ideals our nation was conceived of hold, that all are created equal, and liberty and equal justice are the natural rights of all."
SUMMARY: Facing the storm over Hillary Clinton's email amid the 2016 election, James Comey said he and the FBI "were screwed honestly either way." The former FBI director and author of “A Higher Loyalty” joins Judy Woodruff for part two of their interview, in which they discuss Loretta Lynch’s encounter with former President Bill Clinton and his decision to announce the reopening of the Clinton probe.
SUMMARY: Former FBI Director James Comey on Monday criticized a House Intelligence Committee report that found no evidence of collusion between Russia and Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign, saying the FBI had a “basis for investigating” the matter.
“There was a basis for investigating, meaning there were facts to support an investigation” into alleged ties between Russia and members of Trump’s campaign, Comey said in an interview with the PBS NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff. “To say there was no evidence just wasn’t the case.”
Comey joined a chorus of critics who have slammed the report in recent days. President Trump touted the finding on Twitter, repeating his frequent claim that the Russia probe was a “total witch hunt.”
In the NewsHour interview, Comey, who is on a media tour to promote his new book, also defended his decision-making surrounding the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server during the 2016 election.
The former FBI chief said he was trying to “do the right thing” when he sent a letter to Congress less than two weeks before the election announcing the bureau had reopened its probe into Clinton’s emails. Comey said the alternative option — not going public with the FBI’s actions — would have been “catastrophic.”
“We were stuck in the middle of a no-win situation,” Comey said.
Clinton and many Democrats have argued that Comey’s letter to Congress helped Trump win the election. Comey, who was fired by Trump last May, has insisted he wasn’t taking sides in the race.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join John Yang to discuss the week’s news, including James Comey’s memoir detailing his interactions with and impressions of President Trump, what House Speaker Paul Ryan’s retirement means for the GOP and the pardoning of Scooter Libby.
John Yang (NewsHour): But first to the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That’s syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks, who joins us tonight from San Francisco.
Gentlemen, welcome to you both.
We have a lot of talk about the new book by James Comey. He talks about — describes the President as being unethical, untethered to the truth, and describes his presidency as a forest fire.
David, let me start with you.
What — from what you have read of the reporting and the excerpts, what’s your takeaway?
David Brooks, New York Times: Well, I think President Trump has done a pretty good job of confirming everything Comey said by his tweets today. I mean, the word slimeball shouldn’t be coming out of the White House.
I think it’s aptly titled. One of the things we see in this book is a guy who is like, frankly, a lot of people who work in government in Washington as part of the career civil service, that their loyalty is not to red and blue. And we’re used to covering politics as a red and blue tribal war.
But their loyalty is to their profession, to their agency, to their institution, to some other set of standards. And they get in the middle of red-blue fights and they probably have their own personal opinions, but Comey seems to be a guy who has loyalties to other things.
And he’s offended Democrats mightily. He’s offended the Republican President mightily. And I think he passes the smell test, by and large. And I so think he’s honest that it could — it’s quite possible that Donald Trump didn’t do anything criminal here, but did do something mafioso-like. And that’s, frankly, not a completely new revelation.
John Yang: Mark?
Mark Shields, syndicated columnist: I think David makes a very good point about Jim Comey, who has been a rather remarkable public servant for a long time and then found himself, in 2016, on the receiving end of vilification from both candidates, from the Clinton people for his handling of the e-mail matter right up to the Election Day, and by the Trump people since and then his firing.
And the President’s adding to the sort of annals of American Presidential rhetoric this week, along with malice toward none and charity toward all, and the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, to a weak and untruthful slimeball is what he’s called James Comey.
I do think that this is not to be confused with the “Fire and Fury” book, which was great gossip and great anecdotage. This is the testimony, straightforwardly, on the record, of a rather remarkable public servant who kept notes on everything and gives his own testimony. It’s not hearsay. This is what he says.
And I think it will be given great attention. It’s already gotten great sales. And it will become part of the national dialogue, and much to the consternation of the President.
John Yang: David, I have got to ask you. There is so much of what has been said about this in the press is talking about the sort of personal comments and personal observations about the President, the size of his hands, the complexion, orange tone to his — hue to his face.
It sort of feels like — does it feel to you that Comey is goading the President in a way?
David Brooks: Not really.
And that reads to me like novelistic detail. One of the things we know about Comey is, he’s a serious reader. He’s a big fan of Reinhold Niebuhr, as am I. And so I think he was trying to write a book which had some literary detail that 'you are there.'
I do think, in general, from what I have read of the book and the excerpts, it passes the smell test. One important moment for me was his description of his handling of the Clinton e-mails.
And now he says, my goal consciously wasn’t to let politics influence my decision. But he allows — and this is him showing some vulnerability — he allows the possibility that the thought of her winning election and then having the e-mail investigation come out might seem illegitimate to people.
And he didn’t want her to be elected and then something new comes out right after the election. He thought that might hurt the institution of the Presidency. And so he allows that possibility could have had some unconscious influence on him.
And that strikes me as a man who is looking at himself and saying, is it possible I messed up? Is it possible I was influenced in ways that I wasn’t consciously aware of? That strikes me, by the standards of Washington memoirs, as a reasonably high level of honesty.
Mark Shields: And I think one thing that we will see is, he is a very effective witness on his own behalf. And he’s going — it’s full-court press.
There’s going to be media coverage. He will be on the “NewsHour.” He will be on the networks. He will be everywhere. And he will be answering all the questions, and he will influence, if not drive, much of the conversation for the next couple of weeks.
SUMMARY: The military analyst turned whistleblower who leaked the Pentagon Papers looks at the existential threat of America’s nuclear capacities in his new memoir, “The Doomsday Machine." Very little has changed, says author Daniel Ellsberg, when it comes to what he calls the immoral and insane policies regarding nuclear weapons. William Brangham sits down with Ellsberg to discuss the looming danger.
SUMMARY: Photographer Finbarr O'Reilly and former U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Thomas Brennan both went through the intensity of combat, and the loneliness and doubt that follows. Now they’ve written a dual memoir, "Shooting Ghosts," a story of two lives that came together in war. The co-authors join special correspondent Nick Schifrin for a conversation.
SUMMARY: Amy Tan was going to write a book about writing. But what came to her mind instead were memories of childhood, reflections on family treasures, photos, documents. In “Where The Past Begins: A Writer’s Memoir,” Tan explores revelations about her family and how her experiences steered her toward a life as an author. Tan joins Jeffrey Brown for a conversation.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Hari Sreenivasan to discuss takeaways from an in-depth interview with Hillary Clinton on her election memoir “What Happened,” President Trump’s move to work with Democrats on protections for young undocumented immigrants and what it means for his base of support.
HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour): And now it’s time now for the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That’s syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
First off, your reactions to the interview so far?
MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: What I find interesting is, I don’t pay any attention to books from politicians.
And the only time I listen to any politician waxing semi-candid is when they are either over 70 or given up all hopes of the White House.
And I think Mrs. Clinton is not 70, or close to it, I guess, but she’s obviously given up all hopes to the White House. And, in that sense, there’s a lot more candor, than I think I have certainly seen in past books, an admission that every candidate is ultimately responsible for his or her campaign, victory or defeat.
And every campaign is inevitably a mirror reflection of the candidate. And she does accept responsibility, but she doesn’t do it exclusively. She wants to share it with some in the press, with other forces in our society.
DAVID BROOKS, The New York Times: Well, as for the book, it’s tough to be reflective and a good storyteller and be in the public sphere.
You’re so active that you don’t have time for reflection. And I read the book. And I thought it was interesting, by political standards, way more interesting. I think she’s right, as she said in the interview, that it was just not her year. She’s not going to the anger, outsider politician.
I think she’s pushed up too much emphasis on Comey and all that other stuff and the Russians in blaming this. But she has cusps of thoughts throughout the book.
For example, at one point, she says she really loves the parable of the prodigal son. And she says, I’m so much like the older brother, who is the rule follower. And, of course, then you think, well, Bill Clinton is the ultimate younger brother, the prodigal son. And she’s on the cusp of a really interesting insight about her relationship with him.
But she can’t — she never, never takes the next step. And I think that’s just because active people — I remember I once interviewed Margaret Thatcher, and she was the same way — so much active, not a writer, not reflective, not getting the analysis you actually want.
But that’s just a product of being in the public sphere. I think the book with is far more interesting than most political books of that sort.
SUMMARY: Richard Ford's parents were ordinary people, "all but un-noticeable to the world's disinterested eye." But the acclaimed writer still decided to write a memoir of their lives because, to him, being their son felt like a privilege. And more simply, he missed them. Ford offers his humble opinion on the power of memoir to make us remember what's most vital to us.
SUMMARY: Elizabeth Farnsworth traveled the world for years as a foreign correspondent for the NewsHour. Her new book, A Train Through Time, examines her experiences in hotspots such as Latin America. But it's more than a story of her reporting, as she details her childhood and the loss of her mother, and also blends fact with fiction. Farnsworth sits down with Jeffrey Brown to discuss her work.
SUMMARY: Larry Brilliant jokes that he doesn't live up to his last name, but he has lived a remarkable life, from his early days in the San Francisco hippie scene, to his work as one of the world's leading disease fighters who helped eradicate smallpox. Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro sits down with Brilliant to look back at his career and current work identifying today's global threats.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO (NewsHour): The shiny red T-bird convertible is a nod to its owner's Detroit roots. But it's in San Francisco that he first made a name for himself. It was quite a name to begin with.
DR. LARRY BRILLIANT, Epidemiologist: It's so arrogant to have a name like Brilliant that I put 'Sometimes Brilliant and Sometimes Not So Brilliant.' And that's what I sign.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: The memoir Larry Brilliant is autographing chronicles a life of unusual journeys, a civil rights, an anti-Vietnam War activist, and hippie, who helped eradicate smallpox from the world.
Today, he's an adviser to Silicon Valley philanthropists who are helping him tackle other major diseases.
DR. LARRY BRILLIANT: In the last 30 years we've had 30 pathogens, viruses jump from animals to humans. We know some of them, SARS, MERS, swine flu, bird flu, Ebola, Zika.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: It all began in 1969 in San Francisco, where Brilliant had come for an internship after medical school and volunteered to work at the recently closed federal prison on Alcatraz Island, which was occupied by a group of about 100 Native American protesters. That stint got him on the evening news.
DR. LARRY BRILLIANT: Somebody from Warner Brothers saw me on television, and they called me the next day and they said, we're starting a movie in two or three days. We're going to be gathering at the same place I got off the boat, and it's going to be a movie about hippies and rock 'n' roll. It's going to have the Grateful Dead and the Jefferson Airplane and Pink Floyd.
SUMMARY: Bruce Springsteen has been an American icon for decades, a working-class rock ‘n' roll hero whose songs speak to millions of devoted fans. Now he's telling his own story, looking back at his young, struggling and once little-known self. Springsteen sits down with Jeffrey Brown in a special two-part interview to discuss his new memoir, “Born to Run,” and more.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): He was proclaimed rock's next big thing in 1975, and he became the real thing with albums like “Born to Run,” “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” “Born in the USA,” and many more.
Now Bruce Springsteen tells his own story in a memoir.
Jeffrey Brown paid him a visit to hear first-hand.
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): In his new memoir, Bruce Springsteen looks back at his young, struggling and then little known self and writes: “I wasn't modest in the assessment of my abilities. Of course, I thought I was a phony. That is the way of the artist. But I also thought I was the realest thing you had ever seen.”
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: That's right. Most artists I know consider themselves to be phonies, along with the feeling that there's something that you're doing is essential, essential to communicate, and deeply, deeply real.
JEFFREY BROWN: Springsteen has been rocking his way through marathon, arena-sized concerts for decades, a kind of working-class rock ‘n' roll hero to millions of devoted fans.
In the recording studio he built at this rural New Jersey home, we talked about becoming Bruce Springsteen, the story he tells in his book, “Born to Run.”
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: It was a very different type of writing from songwriting.
JEFFREY BROWN: In what way?
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: A pop song is a condensed version of a life in three minutes, whereas, when you go to write your prose, you have to find the rhythm in your words, and you have to find the rhythm in the voice that you have found and the way you're speaking.
JEFFREY BROWN: What about that voice, though? Because in songs — I think of writers I have talked to, or poets, and there's always the question of, how much of that is you?
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: I would say, in your memoir, it's you.
I think that, when you're writing your songs, there's always a debate about whether, is that you in the song? Is it not you in the song?
SUMMARY: Bruce Springsteen finds a calm, safe place when he’s on stage. In the second part of our special interview with the legendary rock ‘n’ roller, Jeffrey Brown sits down with Springsteen to discuss the books that shaped him, how he’s coped with depression and how Americans can start to heal political divides.
SUMMARY: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is the national face of the GOP. With five terms under his belt, McConnell is also the longest-serving senator in Kentucky history; his extended and colorful career takes center stage in his recently published memoir, “The Long Game.” McConnell joins Judy Woodruff to reflect on the state of American politics today and the 2016 presidential race.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Now a different take on the 2016 presidential election.
It comes from the Senate majority leader, Republican Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. He has just published his memoir, “The Long Game,” after five terms in the U.S. Senate. He is the longest-serving senator in Kentucky history.
I sat down with the senator this morning at the offices of the National Republican Senatorial Committee here in Washington.
Senator Mitch McConnell, thank you very much for talking with us.
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), Majority Leader: Glad to be with you.
JUDY WOODRUFF: We’re here to talk about your memoir, “The Long Game.”
There’s a lot going on right now at this moment politically. And I want to get to that.
You write about the people who influenced you, of course, your mother, your father. You write about a senator from Kentucky, John Sherman Cooper, Mike Mansfield.
When you think about these people and their influence in your life, how does Donald Trump compare?
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL: Well, he’s certainly a different kind of person in politics, totally different.
The Republican voters wanted somebody from outside, and they picked somebody from outside. We will see in the end whether that works out. They don’t seem to be happy with either candidate. They don’t care for Hillary Clinton and they don’t care for Donald Trump, but the American people, at least in the Republican primaries and caucuses, clearly wanted somebody totally different. And that’s who they nominated.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, and you mentioned Hillary Clinton. Today, we learned that she apparently has done something historic, become the first woman to clinch enough delegates to become the nominee of a major political party in this country.
You know her. What do you think of her?
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL: Well, Hillary Clinton is a very, very experienced insider.
So, you’re going to have a race between the ultimate outsider and a long-term insider. And the American people, I think, are going to have to make a big decision about whether they’re satisfied where the country is now. If they are, then I think Hillary Clinton would get another four years, and it would be very similar to the last eight.
If, on the other hand the country, wants to dramatically go in a different direction, they’re certainly going to have the opportunity by voting for Donald Trump.
JUDY WOODRUFF: You do write also, Senator, throughout the book about your commitment to racial diversity, among other things, about your marriage to Elaine Chao, who happens to be of Chinese heritage.
You have been asked in the last few days about what Donald Trump said about the judge, federal judge of Mexican heritage, and his denouncing him. You have said you don’t in any way accept what Donald Trump has said, but when you were asked if it was racist, you didn’t answer.
Now that you have had some time to think…
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL: Well, what he said was — it was outrageous and inappropriate. And I couldn’t more strongly condemn that.
The implication here is that those who came to America legally over the years are somehow second-class citizens. My wife came here at age 8 not speaking a word of English and ended up in the president’s Cabinet.
We all got here from somewhere else going back in our lineage. And I think these gratuitous attacks on Americans who got here recently or whose parents got here recently need to stop.
SUMMARY: A medical procedure used to diagnose damage from brain injuries may also help some autistic patients make connections and understand emotions they’ve never experienced. Author John Robison underwent that experimental therapy, detailed in a new memoir, “Switched On.” Hari Sreenivasan talks with Robison about his experience.
HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour): In the latest NewsHour Bookshelf conversation, a look into a potential new treatment for autism.
Transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS, can be used to diagnose damage from brain injuries and disorders. But a new study investigates whether the therapy can help some autistic patients make connections and understand emotions they have never experienced.
I recently spoke with one such patient.
John Robison, thanks so much for joining us.
So, first, let’s start with, what is transcranial magnetic stimulation, and why did you decide to participate in this research?
JOHN ELDER ROBISON, Author, “Switched On”: It’s a therapy where they use focused bursts of electromagnetic energy to transmit tiny amounts of electricity through the scalp and through the skull, and into your brain.
Your brain’s an electrical organ, so if you want to change how it functions, you can change it most directly with targeted electricity. When I heard that there was a study that might help autistic people like me see emotional cues in other people, the idea of it just spoke to the heart of something that I felt had been a disability in me all my life, being unable to read body language and expressions and cues in other people.
HARI SREENIVASAN: So, you describe this. I want to quote a paragraph.
It says: “Imagine that, all your life, you have seen the world in black and white. Meanwhile, everyone around you describes the beauty and richness of color. After a while, their talk of color frustrates you. Which do you believe, their words or the evidence before your eyes?”
So did you get a glimpse of color?
JOHN ELDER ROBISON: Absolutely.
That’s really the transformative thing about this. You can be an intelligent adult, and all your life, you hear about color, and yet eventually you start getting angry because the evidence in your eyes is gray.
And then imagine the doctor does something and they turn on color for half-an-hour. And even if color goes away, for the rest of your life, you’re going to know it’s real. And that’s kind of how it is for me. They stimulated me, and it was a temporary thing.
The effects lasted for some months, I would say. Some of them faded away quickly, some longer. And that built an ability that’s in me today based on that real experience. And it’s something words and teaching and talk could never have achieved.
SUMMARY: By age 36, neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi had earned five degrees across various fields and was at the end of a residency at Stanford. Then he was diagnosed with lung cancer, a disease that killed him 22 months later. Facing death, he wrote “When Breath Becomes Air,” a memoir of his search for meaning in his last days. His widow, Lucy Kalanithi, joins Jeffrey Brown to discuss the book.
JUDY WOODRUFF(NewsHour): What makes a life worth living? What gives it meaning? And how does that change when the time one has left collapses? These are some of the profound questions taken up in a new memoir by a doctor who suddenly faced his own mortality.
Jeffrey Brown has our newest addition to the "NewsHour Bookshelf."
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): As a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was used to dealing with life-and-death issues. He was, by his own account, a driven man who studied literature and philosophy before turning to medicine, earning five degrees along the way.
He was near completion of a rigorous residency at Stanford when, at age 36, he got a diagnosis of lung cancer.
DR. PAUL KALANITHI, Author, “When Breath Becomes Air”: Five years down the line, I don’t know what I will be doing. I may be dead. I may not be.
JEFFREY BROWN: He would live just 22 months more, and in that time have a child with his wife, Lucy, and write an indelible memoir, “When Breath Becomes Air.”
SUMMARY: "In “The Courage to Act,” former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke writes that the global economic collapse of 2008 could have resulted in a crisis akin to 1929 had he, his colleagues and policymakers around the world acted differently. He joins Judy Woodruff to discuss his memoir of that turbulent time and its aftermath.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): He took on perhaps the most important job in the financial world a year before a global economic collapse.
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke reflects on that turbulent time in a new book, “The Courage to Act: A Memoir of a Crisis and Its Aftermath.”
Ben Bernanke, welcome to the program.
BEN BERNANKE, Former Chairman, Federal Reserve: Thank you for inviting me.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, you write in this remarkable book that takes us inside not only your life, inside the Fed, a place we don’t hear about very often, that if you and your colleagues had not acted as you did in 2008, that we could have seen something like 1929 again.
Do you really believe that might have happened?
BEN BERNANKE: Well, nobody can know for sure, but, as an academic, I studied the Great Depression. I studied how financial panics affect the economy. And I was very concerned about that, you know, even before Lehman Brothers, even before the financial panic hit its peak.
But after Lehman Brothers, and when the financial panic accelerated, we saw just a tremendous drop-off in the economy, as sharp as the beginning of the Great Depression. So, I really do believe that it would have been a very, very serious and protracted downturn if the financial crisis had not been arrested.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, the title — in the title is “The Courage to Act.”
But I guess one question is, did you and your colleagues really have a choice? If things were about to fall apart, what else could you have done?
BEN BERNANKE: Well, the title refers to policy-makers around the world.
It was a very chaotic situation, a very scary situation, big, high-stakes decisions and in a very uncertain and politically difficult environment. And people — policy-makers could have been passive. That was what some commentators were urging, for example, that we should just step back and let the market take care of it.
So it was very difficult to do that. And I’m glad to have been part of a Fed and Treasury team that took the action that was needed.
SUMMARY: For more than half a century, Barney Frank was one of America's loudest voices for progressive policies, both financial and social. Economics correspondent Paul Solman spends a day in Boston with the famous former lawmaker and financial reformer to discuss his new memoir, “Frank: A Life in Politics from the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage.”
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): Next, a profile of a crusading voice on financial reform who also became a public figure in the debate over gay rights.
It’s the story of former Congressman Barney Frank, son of a mob-connected New Jersey father. He went on to Harvard and to volunteer as a Freedom Rider in Mississippi. His public and private story, including his long tenure as a lawmaker, is the subject of his new autobiography.
Economics correspondent Paul Solman caught up with him in Boston for tonight’s installment of Making Sense, which airs every Thursday on the NewsHour.
PAUL SOLMAN (NewsHour): For 32 years, perhaps the country’s most controversial, quick-witted congressman, Barney Frank, now improbably lolling in semi-retirement.
But for almost half-a-century, his was one of the America’s loudest voices for progressive policies, both economic and social, a devotee of using government to help redress inequality.
His new autobiography sums up his half-a-century of effort, and the two stunning surprises of his long career, the revolution in attitudes toward government and sexuality.
So, you start out, government in high repute, homosexuality…
FORMER REP. BARNEY FRANK (D), Massachusetts: In low repute.
PAUL SOLMAN: Contemptible.
BARNEY FRANK: Yes.
PAUL SOLMAN: And now it’s the other way around.
BARNEY FRANK: Well, as I have said, by the time I retired in 2012, my marriage to my husband, Jim, got a much better public response than my chairmanship of the committee that wrote the financial reform bill.
PAUL SOLMAN: When Frank began his political career here at Boston City Hall, it was unheard of to be openly gay. So, he remained in the closet, a bright-eyed Harvard-schooled reformist assistant to Boston Mayor Kevin White in 1968. His government goals?
