Re: Where are we?

Description: The American government still spends too much money on defense, Trillin says.

Question: When you read the newspaper or what the news, what issues stand out for you?

Transcript: Right now the issue is Iraq that stands out for me because people are just steadily getting killed there. And when I see the . . . that . . . those pictures at the end of the PBS News Hour, it’s heartbreaking to see those people being killed for, to my mind, no reason; and sent there by a bunch of people who were very careful not to put themselves in danger, and whose sons and daughters are not in danger. So I think for that reason if for nothing else, it’s the most . . . it’s the kind of overwhelming issue in the country now.

Question: What are the challenges facing the U.S.?

Transcript: Well I think the . . . You mean internationally, I think the United States is gonna have to figure out a role for itself as – what sounds like an advertising slogan – “the last remaining superpower”. And obviously it’s not the Cold War anymore. It’s something else, and I don’t think that the United States has quite figured out . . . And I think also the United States is gonna have to figure out how to catch up with other countries not so much economically, but I mean when it comes to just statistics like infant mortality and things . . . literacy. I think that the United States is actually falling behind in a lot of ways, so I think we’re gonna have to figure out how to not be simply the people with the biggest army or the only army when it gets right down to it. I mean I think the United States, last time I read, spends as much money on what’s called “defense”, although not many armies are attacking lately, as everybody else put together. Or pretty close. So I think . . . I think obviously the United States . . . The question of how the United States is going to use its power is still not clear from the days following the Cold War.

Question: What should be the big issues of the 2008 election?

Transcript: Iraq. I mean I think healthcare, but I think there’s been so much demagoguery on healthcare. And that’s another way we’re falling behind, in fact. I mean if you look at the, say, American automobile manufacturers, their cost . . . I mean why is somebody’s healthcare tied to his job on the assembly line? I mean it’s absurd. But if you do something else, the talk is socialized medicine. But there is, you know, 46 million people I think I read last week, who have no insurance – no coverage at all – and actually don’t go to a hospital. Or as the President said, they can go to an emergency room. It would be interesting for him to try that one of these days – go into one of these emergency rooms late at night when your kid’s sick. So I think that in those sort of things I think that should be a big issue, but I’m not sure that it will be. Everybody’s been burnt on it I think.

Question: What role should journalists play in the election?

Transcript: Well I think . . . You know it’s interesting. I read something the other day that made a very interesting point. I think it was in conjunction with the debate that was on YouTube where citizens . . . civilians, as we would call them, asked questions as opposed to reporters. And the debate was just as silly as the other debates. I mean there were nine people. It’s not really a debate. It was just sort of a nonsense sound bite thing. But the interesting thing was not the answers, but the questions. Reporters tend to ask questions about how the campaign is going, or how something’s gonna play compared to something else. The reporters are generally interested in the process, and that’s what’s so stupid about saying, “Oh, you know, 80% of ‘em vote Democratic.” I mean they don’t . . . In the first place they’re not ideologues. That’s just how they vote. And also they’re much more interesting in the game than they are in the ideology. And reporters in general are interested in politics and bored by government. So that’s why the minute the election’s over they start talking about the next election. And that’s why when you think about, about 80% – I just made up that figure – of the coverage of an American election is about who’s gonna win . . . something we’re all going to know on election night. Even if the reporters are all death rate, we’re still gonna know it. They’re gonna count the votes and we’re gonna know who won. So why do they keep telling us who’s going to win or lose – it’s not really the point – rather than tell us what that guy really believes or what he’s likely to do? I think that the other thing that reporters ought to try to do . . . And you know, I don’t mean that they don’t do some of this, but the actual issues of a campaign aren’t usually the issues that the president deals with. I mean if you voted on the issues, you would have voted for what’s discussed in the campaign. You would have voted in the Kennedy-Nixon election according to what your beliefs were on the future of the islands of Quemoy and Matsu. That became a big issue between Kennedy and Nixon – would we go to war to protect Quemoy and Matsu, two islands off Taiwan that were sometimes shelled by the mainland communist China. That’s not the difference between Kennedy and Nixon. And that’s not . . . And of course once the election was over, that was the end of Quemoy and Matsu. And nobody has heard of Quemoy and Matsu since. So I think that somehow the election coverage should really tell us, “What kind of person is that?” Because the decisions he’s gonna make are not the decisions that are talked about during the campaign. There are other decisions.

Recorded on: 9/5/07