Thank you Gratis. Six minutes past 11 today is programming is made possible in part by The Advocates of Minnesota Public Radio contributors include the Bayport Foundation supported by the Andersen Corporation. Good morning, and welcome to mid-day on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm John Raby in for Gary Aikman and the introduction to his new book Tim. Penny tells the story of Walter. Mondale's Famous Last Words, presidential candidate 1984 by famous last words because they sealed Mondale fate as the Democratic hopeful in his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. Mondale said, let's tell the truth. Mr. Reagan will raise your taxes. And so why he won't tell you I just did any point in telling the story again. Is that in the realm of politics in American society telling the truth as Mondale. Most certainly did can hurt. You mind. Y'all did not win. The election that you're in telling lies is rampant. According to Penny in Penny. The former dfl congressman is co-author of the 15 biggest slide in politics some of these fifteen the abortion debate matters. All politicians are corrupt. The budget will be balanced by the year 2002 Republicans believe in Our government the Democrats are compassionate to Penny as our guests in this hour of midday. Good morning. Mr. Penny mm in the Twin Cities to 276 thousand or one 800-242-2828 1 800-242-2828. The toll-free line your book take politicians to tasks for spouting lies. It takes the media to tasks for repeating these lies without serious examination. You were in Congress though for 12 years. So your politician and your co-author Major Garrett is a journalist. How come we should believe either of you on this point? I read the book and decide for yourself as if the basic premise of this book is that we need a more thoughtful discussion of these issues it too often were subjected to Sound by politics that substitute slogans for for substance and what we try to do. These familiar sound bites is to dig beneath the surface give people more perspective gives and something else to chew on we'd like to think it's a thought-provoking book. We don't suggest that the everything we offer here. It is going to be unquestioned by the reader. We're not necessarily out to persuade everyone to our point of view, but we are out to give them something more to think about and I think that's a healthy contribution to the political debate. The public is liable to trust a book written again. As I said by a politician and a journalist no matter how well-intentioned no matter how how Strait the facts might be in this book aren't people just kind of disillusion by it by our camp in the media and your camp in politics. I think that's what prompted the book is this sense of disillusionment. Not a part of the public that says the system is not delivering for them what they really need that then there's a lot of shallow news coverage going on and in some respects of the title of the book is is meant to tap that discussed on the part of the electric but then when you get into the book, did you find that much of it really challenges of the conventional wisdom the comfortable of conclusions that most Americans I have actually reached on the same issues. So we're not saying that these are simply lies that are spouted by politicians and the parotid by the news media. We are staying that these are lies that the most Americans are comfortable to believe because they've heard they used the slogan to repeat it. So frequently throughout the years that they've come to accept many of them the world. Simply trying to take the debate a little deeper and offer some analysis of these issues that goes to goes beyond the sound bites. I wanted to before we get into some of the reported lies that you do talk about. I want to get into some of the lies that you don't talk about at least understand your criteria. You don't for instance talk about Nixon's lies. You don't talk about President Clinton's lies. How do you categorize those kind of lies and why don't you get into him up with lies at the deal with the public policy major issues that affect Americans from Social Security to Medicare to campaign Finance reform to immigration policy. Is it because we believe that that I'm these many issues of policy. We've we've had a rather unproductive discourse over the years. Camps on the right to the left is a steak out to the slogans that then simplify in terms that they believe is advantageous and we never seem to get past that it's like they've the throw slogans there a back-and-forth them at one another and of the average voter soda sits in the middle of watching The Exchange but not learning much from it. And we think that these debates over public policy are far more damaging to a democracy because after all we elect people to achieve the common good and and when you get bogged down and Paralyzed by Mindless said sloganeering you don't end up with the sort of consensus that the most policy forward so we focus on Pub. Policy we don't focus on that personal transgressions or Miss behaviors down in this book 13 minutes past 11. Tenpenny is our guest on midday or midday FL Congressman senior fellow at the U of M Humphrey Institute co-author of the new book the 15 biggest lies in politics. And by the way, there will be a discussion in the book signing tomorrow Tuesday at the Humphrey Institute. And that's at 5 we'll take your calls to 276 thousand in the Twin Cities to 276 thousand or one 800-242-2828 1 800-242-2828. Another point that you make something I've always found interesting and that is that politicians tend to not call each other Liars, even though they seemed to me that that might be a pretty plain obvious statement for a politician to make that might make some Headway with their constituents. And why would you be penalized for telling the If you're saying, you know, the the honourable gentleman from North Carolina or wherever it may be not so honorable and is lying on this particular Point said to use it the I suppose it's it's one of the few areas in which we got one another some slack. We we say so and so is misguided misinformed unclear and their statement. And and it's it's it's a way of them of a disagreeing without being too disagreeable. Frankly. We wanted to be a bit more provocative with the title of this book. So we use the word lie, and and we we did that to suggest that went when the debate is designed to be When the debate is designed as it is, it started shallow or superficial approach to the issues when when the slogans that are often used as a certified cover over a lot more information that would give us a greater perspective. Perhaps even a different perspective on the same issue you might as well call that a lie. And so that's what we've chosen to do in this book 6 if we could hear Money buys elections everybody everybody seems to come to that conclusion. And of course there has been significant news coverage on this point the through the years most of it highlighting the fact that the candidates who spend the most of their eye off and win but the news coverage has also caused us. Believe that it isn't simply very often but almost invariable that says a big-spending candidates end up winning elections of what we did. What we asked orders to to realize is that the money is only one factor money can certainly make campaigning easier. You can buy a lot of things with the with a big war chest, but you can't buy a winning message. You can't buy a Grassroots support. You can't buy an awful lot of money. You can only buy that with your your own efforts and your own ideas and go we fight in the chapter in numerous examples of where they in the candidate having spent less actually wins the election and we try to put some perspective on which races are really competitive. But the sad fact is that in American politics. There are some districts in America that seldom If Ever I vote for anything other than a republican candidate or a democratic. When you factor out those districts that that only rarely are competitive in and that's usually because of some personal Scandal you really find 3240 congressional seats that you're in you're out are likely to be competitive and in virtually all of those cases. So there's a reasonable amount of money a flowing to both the candidates there and in that contest and and and so putting the focus more narrowly on Races Deb to have a chance of being competitive you find that their funding disadvantages are not that great for Challengers as opposed to income. It's fairly narrowly. I should say for a second, you know how to check if you want to call in right now and spent his opponents to buy a sizable amount and then ended up in third place. That's a lie, but in fact money is extremely influential in politics in general, right you're not disputing that a lot of money for my own personal preference is that is that we would spend a lot less. I I would rather have more genuine campaign so that don't rely on on 30 seconds that adds too many of which turn out being at a cat so mean, but I'm trying to set my personal preference aside here in the end and rather dispute the lie that money is is the primary factor on adding my own race for congress in 1982 is evidence that money alone is not the deciding factor. I was outspent by nearly three to one. I had a little very little medium paid media during that campaign. I was almost all conducted on a shoestring and shoe-leather basis, but I think they're there was a national mood that was somewhat contrary to of the Reagan Administration in the middle of their first tournament. And republicans in Congress where we're on the defensive a somewhat because of that there was a recession unemployment was approaching 10% nationally and people were a little uneasy about the economy. And so there were other factors that came into play in that race and made it possible to win will being outspent nearly 3 to 1. So I am saying that you're in you're out you can find examples were candidates beat the financial odds because they have something else message mood momentum going in their favor 19 minutes past 11. This is midday on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm John Raby invergarry eichten and our guest is Tim Penny co-author of the new book. The 15 biggest lies in politics will take your calls to 276 thousand in the Twin Cities or one 800-242-2828 John from Elk River joins us. Good morning. You're one of the few Democrats I have in very high regard. You made a comment that you didn't think you could buy a winning strategy or platter winning message. I think you can or not but I missed something on the previous selection. He bought Dick Morris and espoused ideas that I don't think he ever believed in anyone. I don't think that it's necessary to run on my ideas that you actually believe I think it's come down to the point where all its importance to win. Your comments on that. Well, I appreciate your your call. And if it does take us into a somewhat different direction and that is a sort of the tendency to Fashion your campaigns after or around those issues that the test well in the opinion polls and I think part of why we get this such a shallow discussion of issues in politics is that we have a too much emphasis on opinion polling to find out which mm issues have the most emotional attachment with voters a witch slogans anything from cops on the beat to drive by deliveries at you name it. We we we seem to be searching searching for the right phraseology to to catch the attention of the electorate and into me. This makes the debate and a lot more shallow, then then it ought to be and you can end up with candidates that the that fashion their campaigns around this approach. They may have some resonance with the electric but in many cases it may have little relevance to what they really intend to do once they're in office candidates with a ton of money. I can put on the ads of declaring their strong support for education in one form or another and it can be in direct contradiction of the kind of voting record. They've accumulated over the previous few years. So this started deception can occur in political campaigns, but it has always occurred in political campaigns. They have the ability now with tons of money in their campaign budgets to inundate us with these misleading messages, but at another level I think there are ways to challenge this and there are ways to challenge this without necessarily raising the same amount of money and countering these ads with the with ads that contradict the message letters to the editor candidate debates. I mean, these are still opportunities that are available to us and in the media course have to do their job, and that's why I think these ad watches are so important because they help us to dig need slogans politicians want us to hear and and help us to discover the veracity or the lack of the route to the Indies campaign assertions Dwight on the line for Marshall County. Thanks for calling. Hey there Dwight. I guess white is not with us. He wanted to ask about I was actually calling us from his farm tractor and he thought that maybe Farm legislation was one of the big lies you have to be up to take on that thing. They're promised a lot but nothing really gets accomplished. I guess you could say I think much of what was the promised India freedom to Farm Act could could fall into that category because obviously the Freedom Farm Act was premised on the ability to move a lot of grain into the international markets. And now of course 2 years later we're discovering depth of these markets are an unreliable thing and prices have declined dramatically. So even with a bumper crop were sitting here with the abysmal prices. I think the bigger lie though is is what attempts did the debate this fall and that is that the sum Some folks say there's nothing wrong with the freedom to Farm Act and yet they're holding to give us next year's Farm payments this October just before the election. This may not be as big a liar as the 15 Lies We lift in our book but it is emblematic of the kinds of lies that are often thrown at us by our elected officials. It's it's it's you know, it is patently pantley inconsistent to say that the freedom Reform Act is is is a good Farm policy and then to vote to give the farmers next year's Farm payment this year because that That boat is is a major change in farm policy. So how can you say that the farm program is fine and then vote to change it this major way up there at the same time. Have you been following the governor's race not very closely except to hear a few of the ads that are already hearing audible over whether Norm Coleman hates the Family Farm or not know that the Democrats seems they've been trying to say that Norm Coleman wants the Family Farm to wither and die on the vine and and on Coleman saying well, that's not exactly what I said when it wasn't infected exactly what he said exactly what he said the issue. I think it's a fair debate as to whether Norm Coleman understands the Minnesota agriculture as well as the skip Humphrey his Democratic on it, and we ought to have a debate about that and I think That level very basic that lead the campaign to say something that is now then there's really a lot of question about and then what damage does that do to any real debate like they're saying shit happen that the reason they do it is because they puts the other candidate on the defensive and that's exactly why they do what they know that it's across the line. They know that it isn't exactly fair or entirely accurate, but they say it as a way of putting the other side of the defensive and then there hope is that at some level with some butter that will stick and and I guess they've achieved that objective. It wouldn't have been in Sensational for them to up a present. Mr. Coleman statement in the context in which it was made and so fairness is his never been Central to our Processing and and yet, I think the the shallow and and attack style approach that we often see candidates resort to does overtime do damage to the process. It gets to the point where people become dismissive of almost anything and everything that's coming at them from the various campaigns and up and I think that that's that's that's the tragedy of of this set of a textile politics. 27 minutes past 11 call up and talk with Tim Penny about lies in politics to 276 thousand in the Twin Cities to 276 thousand or one 800-242-2821. 800-242-2828 Norm from Inver Grove Giants. The conversation is more lies and Damned lies. You know, I wanted to ask you about the demise of the Clinton health insurance reform initiative during his first term. There were an awful lot of lies surrounding that all masquerading as some form of truth. I do have a take on that and that that's my first question when you think about it. What do I think about it though? I absolutely there were a lot of lies coming out of the insurance industry itself in a lot of people. I believe I bought into it simply because they're there was some rhetoric in there that she sounded good sort of reminded made back in the days when one seat belts were being proposed and there were a lot of people that that are just really haven't thought about the issues because of the fact that we have such a cumbersome system and it cries out to be changed to one in which as a President Clinton had pointed out what we need is health insurance that is universal that you can't I have taken away from you and is non-discriminatory. That is it doesn't discriminate based upon age or economic circumstances or pre-existing medical conditions. We having health insurance in health insurance system has Clinton had pointed out which is broke. Heavily flawed that is the disgrace of First World countries. And the sooner we get rid of it the year of the better off we'll be for one thing. It'll actually reduce the other percentage of GDP that we send them to spend on health coverage in this country 14% That was the number during Clinton's first term down to hear something may be more approaching Canada's 9% What do you think about that? I was I was always struck during that debate about the what was said about Canada's Healthcare System. If you didn't listen too closely, you could get the image that they were corpses piling up in Canadian hospital because of the there Universal coverage. I think that was part of what went wrong with our health care debate that you had one side making those assertions about the grave and gross. Inadequacies is Canadian health-care system that you had the other side that sort of holding. Cannabis system worse or other Universal government-run systems like Canada's as the Panacea that somehow we can have the unlimited health care for all at less cost the current system. And and and I I think that's what becomes so frustrating as both sides can't be right and yet both sides were basing their statements on on underlying facts that the that were accurate. I mean that there are some deficiencies in the Canadian Healthcare System, but on the other hand, you cannot have a Universal Health Care system that provides unlimited access to virtually every American for virtually any kind of Health procedure. They want without the system actually costing more than the current programs. So I think that's a big piece of what was wrong with it. Yes, there were lies sort of thrown out there to discredit the Clinton Health Plan and there was some oversimplifications 2 of what it would really mean to the average of order and it didn't frighten people into believing that the that it would have been a bad piece of legislation on the other hand. I think there were some lies spotted by the Clinton Administration in which day I were over-promising what they could achieve and they were trying to create the impression that we could make all of these changes without additional cost and yet in the details of their Health Plan there were at least a hundred billion dollars worth of higher taxes to pay for the new health system. They were proposing so, you know, I think there was a lot of misinformation and and deception going on in that Health Care debate and and as a consequence, is it fell in a heat in Congress Congress didn't do anything until a couple years later when we came back picked up the pieces and pasta first to Kennedy kassebaum bill which provides for some Port of portability of coverage shift from job. job, and then a little later the Children's Health bill which provides subsidies for coverage for families who are who are currently not available Healthcare through their employer because we need to take a break but I supposed to get the truth then who who do you think they kind of tend to believe and where they supposed to get the trees besides in the book The 15 biggest lies and politics more conversation with Tim penny in just a moment is your chance to speak your mind about the programming you here on Minnesota Public Radio good or bad come to our public comment meeting Thursday, October 8th that the Nokomis Community Center and members of our programming staff will be on hand to respond to your suggestions your opinions your phrase or otherwise That's the NPR public comment meeting October 8th at 7 at the Nokomis Community Center 24th. And East Minnehaha Parkway in South Minneapolis. Will see you there sonny and 62 in the Twin City should be a partly cloudy day with a higher on 76 and get down to buy 55 overnight partly cloudy and then a few clouds tomorrow about to 73° usually it is warmer than usual. The normal low is 45 and the normal high is 65° across the state sunshine in the South some clouds in the north from the upper 60s in the Northeast the upper 70s in the southwest. It's midday on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm John raabe back to Tim Penny and just a moment. We got him for another 20 minutes or so. And then it's Writer's Almanac Garrison Keillor and then it noon a live broadcast from the national Press Club will be hearing from venture capitalist head Foresman. He'll be talking about options & Education scholarship choices for Low-income children, that's at noon another live broadcast from the national Press Club in pennies and our guest this broadcast of midday will take your calls at 227. 6004 one 800-242-2828. He's with us to talk about his book The 15 biggest lies in politics, which he co-authored with Major Garrett journalist. So how about that that question I asked where besides of course your book is the public supposed to get the truth. And who do you attend? Who do you think they tend to believe most? People tend to believe the organizations they belong to and I guess I would I would caution voters to first question their own affiliations. When you're a member of the AFL-CIO or the National Rifle Association or a pro-choice or pro-life group. Obviously you pay your dues and you want to believe the mailings. They send you the baron mine most of these organizations. I send you mailings that are by Nature inflammatory and one-sided because they want to motivate you to act they want to motivate you to send that letter to Capitol Hill. They want to motivate you to send them another contribution and thin so I would urge that the voters who belong to these organizations and most of us belong to at least one question the the the objectivity of of the material we're getting from our own groups and and seek out of Types of information other sources of information on those same issues so that you know, we we don't find ourselves getting caught up in in believing something that that maybe runs a little deeper than the information that's being provided to us by these by these interest groups. That's one place to start of the other is that we really have such opportunities today with the proliferation of magazines. And and of course now the internet seek out information and then to find out for ourself what's factual and what isn't you can go directly to the internet and get access to daily proceedings on Capitol Hill C-SPAN allows you to watch the debate as it unfolds and far better to judge the performance of legislators based on a real debate on the hills and some press release they may send out to Subsequent to that debate. So I think voters have plenty of opportunities to find more balanced and more substance on on every issue that's being debated that look no but it takes some work. I want to talk about the first point you make in your book the titles are all what you say are lies and the chapter number one line. Number one is the abortion debate matters and that kind of touches on what you were just mentioning that for people who support abortion rights. They may have been very glad to hear what was supposedly true that there are very few partial birth abortions and that this was just a red herring well then turns out there than the person who is really putting that statement out. There was lying through his teeth in his words if you wanted to help his cause but you know, that's something that a partial birth abortion partial birth abortion is really tough thing to think about it talk about and even if you supported Can REITs you you may be against that procedure? So you want to think that it's not really happening that much and it turned out not to be true example of why you have to second-guess or look beyond what you're hearing from the interest group that you may be Affiliated that you made affiliated with that. You may pay dues toward because they have their own agenda and part of their agenda is their own Survival. If they don't get you fired up if they don't get you motivated. If they don't get you to a point where you want to send them another check. They they go by the boards. So there's always a self-interest with these interest groups and as a consequence, even if you belong to these groups and you are primarily committed to their agenda, you ought to look beyond what they're sending you even when I was in Congress, we had this internal organization called the Democratic have study group that was supposed to provide us a factual information on all the legislation coming out of the various committees on Capital. And since most members are on to perhaps three committees are there were many other committees were work was going on and legislations being develop that it would that we would sort of rely on this summary report coming out of the DSG to help us understand. What's in that bill. I almost always read the summary from the DSG and then read the summary from the Republican policy conference to make sure that I was hearing both sides of the debate because invariably the DSG which was supposed to be this objective study group was giving us the Democratic Party Line and you had to look at with Republicans were staying to find out what the Republican party line was. And then when you mailed the two you typically figured out what the and what was really going on and what was really in the bill and so I'm just suggesting that the voters have these opportunities and they ought to take these opportunities to find countervailing pieces of information and and and then they can sort out better sort out. Fact from fiction. It's got a bill in Two Harbors. Thanks for calling them. Hi, hi, good morning, or good afternoon to add a little bit to the discussion by tension. Possibly the fact that the other public I think tends to have expectations that for the most part can't be met and so I put quite a burden on people trying to develop a policy to I think kind of a you know, they have to direct it somehow to that immature part of the shelves bed doesn't like to know that all of our expectations can be met and it puts them. I think it puts policy-makers and kind of it of a tough place to say that there are things that they have no control of give an example of human nature. I think is that if money money. That's going out from you doesn't have the same value is money coming into you from someplace else. So that's that thing is always going to be there. If you if you gave someone $1,000 this afternoon it would the thousand dollars would have a certain kind of value to you. But but if someone sent you a thousand you say what boy that wasn't quite as much as it a thousand isn't quite as much as I thought it was, you know, when people ask how much they pay in taxes and what they get for it and all that sort of thing that that equation can't ever match up right now. You're right actually the bills that you are actually big. Yep. Send a bill to someone else and they pay you at doesn't seem like it's as much of my money Minnesota and I think the pilot, you know, the political discussion up here is really Savvy by the people who do it. I don't I don't really know if there is a account I want to eat up here that pays for more than 20 or 25% of all their own Services. It's all done with granson Federal AIDS and stayed AIDS and and you know, they even have their own tax-funded really text taconite that the taxes only spent up here and so forth and and all of the desk is here, but the but the Mantra up here is that the people from the cities are out, you know, they're always ignoring us and they're not taking care of her knees and I'll let me find out account appear that 25% of its operating budget is paid for by its local taxpayers in a lot of what we try to do in this book is to challenge voters themselves. This isn't really designed to to just condemn the politicians for spotting these lies or the news media for the quite off. Parroting these the slogans and sound bites but to start a challenge of Voters because the at its core the system perpetuates this shallow debate if if we allow it and in very often we eat we are demanding inconsistent things from our political leaders, and that's why we we get lies back from them and we've been demanding more from the social security system than its able to pay for over the long-term not responsible for politicians lying back at us. That's that's a flaw with them, isn't it? Well, I just I don't want to let voters off the hook on this either and I think that's the degree to which I'm agreeing with your caller that all of us are responsible. He right. I'm the first one to say that political leaders iOS better and off more substance stations, and if we don't get to a more substantiv debate on these issues, we can't come to understand that we can't have it all. And and I I just think it's a tragedy that the that on the one hand voters demanded all but but we never should have trust them with the truth to tell them what you can't have it. Also, since you can't have it all what do you really want? The politicians would tell you the same thing? Maybe we're wrong and you know, then then perhaps would stop being led like my opponent does it then it didn't then I'm defeated and he's elected and connect. Reason I'm asking. My question is the Tea Party caucus and Convention system is under severe criticism and attack. I was wondering mr. Benny if you have an opinion as to how that system of the caucuses and the conventions can do a better job of smoking out the campaign political prevarications. Are they even liable to do that? I'm sure they are. I have some thoughts on on how we can make the party process caucus conventions more inviting and get people back into the system, but I don't talk to these issues in in my book partly. I think what we need to do is if they have an emphasis that these events on soda straw ballots. I really think that's the easiest thing for people to come in to chivonne a caucus tonight. And if that becomes to the bar first order of priority, then you turn out more individuals. I also think that narrowing the number of issues that there will be debated allows you to get into the substance of a handful of issues that says that the party activist really believe our are critical so instead of debating 2030 resolutions and by the end of the night 90% of your your caucus attendees have left and only 10% of their to make the decision. I think you ought to have set up the screen at the start of the meeting to say we've got 30 or 40 resolutions. Let's have a quick tally here to see which are the five that have the most interest within the group and then we'll proceed to have a more thoughtful debate on those five. So I'm just trying to think of ways that would make it more inviting and more productive to participate in the caucus-convention process. And those are some thoughts that I have articulated over the course of the last several years a big a significant difference between lies that are told during a campaign and lies that just happened in the normal course of business and Congress and State legislatures. Look that the that desert tactical lies and there are big lies and in there often times in the course of debate in the course of moving legislation to forward to the course of reaching compromise. Is where little lies have to be told and and they don't harm the larger objective of getting something done. What we're trying to focus on our are these overarching lies that the deal with really significant public policy issues in and because of the lies are the false choices that they represent or or the way in which of these these beliefs are just too held in in Violet by interest groups on the right or the left and we just kind of gridlock'd the system so we can't get anything done and we're trying to focus on the big policy issues where we think we've we really lost a lot of time and lost a lot of ground because we we haven't had anything strictly new or or or a substance is said about these issues in many many years is 12 minutes before 10. This is midday on Minnesota Public Radio John Raby here sitting in a tin penny is our guest on the line the form of the FL congressman. Fellow at the Humphrey Institute and co-author of a new book called the 15 biggest lies in politics is a discussion and book signing tomorrow at the Humphrey Institute at 5. Go to the phones again John's on the line from Cottage Grove High don't seem like there's a lot of us out here. We're rather cynical about what's going on in the government. And of course what's going on seems to be rather pervasive seems to be a general consensus. This is happening everywhere all the candidates. That's why I was hot out here who feel rather powerless to do anything about it. My question is is If if this is something that is happening to everybody is going in the government and those of us will like those people are somehow unable to control that situation where we could people who lie in invent government. Is there something wrong with the system. I mean, it would tend to indicate that if something is wrong for everybody there something wrong with the way the system is operating V. Lie, all politicians are corrupt your 5th chapter. I'm not sure that it does because in that chapter, we we really talked about how we have tightened up are at the standards and opened up our public meetings and required full disclosure both of personal finances and you're holding politicians to higher ethical standards than ever before and in so we we dispute the notion that the that are political class is more corrupt than they've been in the past. And in that in some ways, we have a preoccupation with the technicalities of corruption. If you didn't. Your t's and Dot your I's and cross your t's in there in an FEC report. You could be subjected to a fairly negative news story over minor transgression, but it but it creates the impression that is a serious candle. So that's the nature of that chapter but I will stay in this maybe gets to the point. Is it the collar that just because we have politicians who are more ethical today as its measured by all these ethical requirements that are that are on the books. That doesn't mean they're better leaders. And I think we maybe this is a consequence of of money in politics that that is damaging because we we have so much money focused on opinion polling which causes politicians Tell us what they think we want to hear rather than telling us what we need to know. We have so much emphasis on the kind of media that money can buy so much for going into negative ads that often mislead instead of informed that we have in many ways polluted the process and and and really cause people to be more cynical than they might otherwise be in and so I guess how you hold people accountable for that. I think you have to be in a campaign environment. You have to demand more debates, but you but that means you have to show up for these debates because it's it's one thing for candidate to hold a bit and in another thing that you told that to bed in front of an empty Auditorium if people have to get back engaged in the process and demand better of it or will continue to get more of the same. It's now eight minutes before noon and President Clinton right now is speaking with the Press raid in a line at the Mideast. Peace Summit Benjamin Netanyahu and President Clinton and Yasser Arafat and is kind of a surprise. So it will have details on it and the news from National Public Radio in just a few minutes. So stay tuned for that few more minutes to talk with Tim Penny. We've got Gordon on the line from Crystal. Hi, Ken Gordon. Can you be fairly concise? I read the book called the system written by Haynes Johnson and David rotar about the study of the health-care debate 93-94 Furtherance under under the do like I've been concerned about the years and in its is not Equitable and millions of people without Healthcare in in most Nations. Don't do that. Where did you take? This book has one source. Then as a source for True information where else do you go Garden or somewhere in the middle is factual and on other topics to put things together. So I guess I just like your comings what you're doing what you want to do and part of a part of what ails our system is that what little effort it would take to find out more about a given issue or to dignity to surface to adjust isn't expended on the part of many of Voters. And so they get frustrated with the system and yet they don't do the little extra research on their part that would help them sort out fact from fiction. So I certainly appreciate the dose of Voters that take that extra time to look into issues want one thing on Health Care reform. That's that's now being debated. It's it's kind of unfortunate that the four years ago. We began a major debate about Healthcare reform, I that all fell in a heat and we came back and get to make a metal reforms in the last few years, and now maybe we're finally returning to this issue, but there has been some discussion recently on on both sides of the aisle Democrats and Republicans about Tax credit so that individuals would would have the same opportunity to it to secure health coverage on the same terms that have made available to their Employers in those work settings where employers not provide health coverage. Maybe the wave that maybe the wave of the future. Thanks very much for your time. They attempt any form of the FL congressman and co-author of the 15 biggest lies and politics discussion and book signing tomorrow at the Humphrey Institute at 5, and thanks to our callers to I would anticipate the spring thaw to get my father out to the backyard to have a game of catch just to be able to take the glove out of the basement storage Minnesota native and Twins baseball star Paul Molitor Heroes 2 baseball Fame from the sandlots of Saint Paul on Mondays. All Things Considered will have a special report all things considered weekdays at 3. President Clinton is reporting progress in Breaking the deadlock in the Middle East peace process details on the way after Garrison Keillor in The Writer's Almanac.