Bob Woodward joined me Friday morning to discuss his new book “Fear”:

Audio:

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Transcript:

HH: I’m joined now by Bob Woodward, author of the brand-new book, Fear. And I have read every word of it, Bob. Welcome back, it’s good to have you.

BW: Thank you.

HH: Evelyn Duffy, your assistant, begins the book. Elsa Walsh, your wife, ends it, the kindness lady. So you bookend your book with these two ladies in the era of #MeToo. The sort of graciousness and appreciation of these two women is welcome, my hat tip to you.

BW: Well, no, they’ve worked, I mean, they’ve lived their lives around getting this book out and getting it right and checking everything. And you know, it is, as I say, Evelyn was in spirit and level of effort a co-author.

HH: Well, it’s just a wonderful way to begin and end. Now only one process question from me. Everyone spends time talking to Bob Woodward about process. I only have one process question, then we’ll go to the book. If all, if one of your sources who you have taped comes forward and publicly asks you to release those tapes, would you do so?

BW: Well, yes, I think, yes. I think I would. But I, you know, this is meticulously done trying to cross-reference everything and so forth. So I would expect of somebody would not want to release their information, because they’re confidential sources. And as you know, I protect my sources. I think that’s the, one of the building blocks of good journalism and book writing.

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The audio:

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The transcript:

HH: Joining me now, Senator Chris Coons of Delaware. I know he’s praying for everyone in Wilmington, North Carolina, but I bet you you’re also relieved it’s not Wilmington, Delaware in the eye of the storm, Senator.

CC: That’s correct. Wilmington, North Carolina is a great city, and I am concerned about and praying for the people of North Carolina. But we in Delaware are glad that it looks as if it is going to weaken and stay south of us. So I have a weekend down at the beach doing events in the community planned, and I’m glad that the events we’re doing aren’t putting out sandbags, but instead, you know, meeting, gathering, talking about events of the day.

HH: I think the entire federal, state and local governmental structure is mobilized. We just have to wait to see. This could be an unusual event and we’ll follow it closely. Let’s talk about the unusual even today in the Senate Judiciary Committee. You’re going to postpone the vote on Brett Kavanaugh for a week. Am I correct about that, Senator?

CC: Yes, and that’s a tradition on the committee. Literally any nominee can be held over for one week at the request of any member, and that is routinely done for nominees for U.S. marshal, district courts, Circuit Courts. So there’s nothing unusual about the week holdover. We just got answers, I’m told, late last night. I’ll just, I’ll be looking at them today from Judge Kavanaugh to our written questions for the record, and we’ll see whether that answers any of my outstanding concerns and questions.

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Former Secretary of State John Kerry joined me Wednesday to discuss his new memoir, Every Day Is Extra:

Audio:

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Transcript:

HH: So pleased now to welcome former Secretary of State John Kerry to the program. Secretary Kerry, welcome. Every Day Is Extra is a fine read. I love memoirs. I’m a sucker for memoirs, but this one is very good. Welcome, and thank you for joining us.

JK: Well, thank you, Hugh, and I apologize for being a moment late. I was trying to dial in, and the number wouldn’t work, but I finally got it.

HH: Oh, I’m glad you’re here. I’m going to save the last ten minutes for Iran, but I want to begin, one of the many revelations, many surprises in this, I did not know on the 4th of July weekend of ’13 when the government of Mr. Morsi was falling apart in Egypt that your wife had a serious health episode. That was very surprising. How is her recovery going?

JK: She’s doing great. Thank you very much. She’s a fighter, and she came back from it very well. But she did. She had a bad seizure, what they call a grand mal seizure. It’s the only one ever, and we learned a lot. I learned a lot about that challenge that apparently in 50% of all seizures, they can never tell you why it happened, and you may never have it again. It’s just amazing.

HH: Yeah, idiomatic syncope. I had it in my family, and so when I read that, I was fascinated. And you were in the middle of following and sort of overseeing our response to the army’s takeout of Morsi. It doesn’t, it brought home the fact that diplomats have lives.

JK: They do, occasionally. That’s for sure.

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Not surprising that on 9/11 I would think about evil.  It is not pleasant to think about, but think about it we must.  It comes in many forms and guises – some are easy.  As Alfred said to Bruce Wayne in Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight”

Because some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.

That is evil in its purest, but also rarest, form.  Pure evil is, relatively speaking, easy to combat – you kill it.

The evil of 9/11 was different.  While the perpetrators could not be, “bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with,” they were deluded and thought they were doing good.  Most evil is done in the somehow misguided pursuit of good.  In the case of 9/11 is was in pursuit of a wrongful ideological good.  That is an evil that can be fought directly.  Ideologies can be combated with competing ideologies.  Yes, religiosity combined with wrongful ideology makes the battle harder, but it also supplies the opposition.  Religiosity is not the problem – the ideology to which it is affixed is.

The evil that is hardest to combat is the evil born of self-interest, often perceived by the perpetrator to be in the pursuit of good.  The evil that results from this motivation is not as instantly sweeping or as immediately devastating as 9/11, but when viewed for what it is we can see that it is a rot that may defeat us far more certainly than any attack possibly could.

I can think of two examples of this last motivation for evil that are worth examining

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