Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 29 May 2004
Last week National Defense University heard that CSPAN was coming with two vans, seven people and two cameras for my presentation at the conference being held on 2-3 June at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, and they naturally assumed that it was going to be a live broadcast. Flurry of emails ensues. I am surprised by the change in plans, but announce it here anyway.
We were all wrong in that assumption.
CSPAN and Brian Lamb want to stick with Lamb’s original idea of taping the brief and showing it later in prime time on CSPAN, probably followed by me and a host in studio live to take phoned-in questions.
I am relieved to hear this. NDU was telling me I’d need to schedule a 15-minute break in the presentation and—frankly—that would be hard for me. When I get rolling in the presentation, I lose all track of time. So this way, I’ll just do my thing, stop when it makes sense, and let CSPAN worry about how to edit it all later.
So there’ll be nothing to watch on 2 June (Wed). It will probably be shown, according to Lamb, either late June or early July.
Meanwhile, the Book Notes interview with Lamb will play tomorrow night at 8pm and 11pm EST. There are spaces at CSPAN to discuss the program and review the book. I’ll be interested to see if anybody does. I’ll post the complete transcript online here once it appears at their site (http://www.booknotes.org/Program/?ProgramID=1782).
What you won’t see on the tape is Lamb and I chatting for about 10 minutes while the tape rolled and he instructed his assistants to apply just enough make-up to deal with my shining forehead. We talked about Laura Ingraham (he told me a very funny story about how she once got back at some boyfriend who broke up with her), the vagaries of make-up on shows in general (he complained about eye-liner once on Donahue and I bitched about sometimes having eyebrows drawn in).
During the show you will see I am fairly slow and subdued for about 15 minutes, but then I really forget about the taping and loosen up quite a bit (watch for my hands to start really moving on-screen). I was amazed I didn’t swear at least once, but Lamb is so reserved (despite constantly giving you that winky sort of half-grin after he asks questions—always off camera as far as the viewer is concerned!), that I maintained my composure in that regard.
I will say this: it’s true you only get to go on Book Notes once in your entire life, so I’m very glad I can be as proud about this show as I am. But again, most of the credit really goes to Lamb for the style, tone, pacing and depth of the interview. He really is a master.
At the end of the show, I call him “sir” and then the audio cuts out while the credits roll. Right away he bellowed “Don’t call me sir!” And then I laughed about finally getting into that habit after so many years of being around military officers all the time (Lamb is a former Marine, if I’m not mistaken). He told me we just needed to sit there and chat until the video was done, so we did, and I finally relax enough near the very end to cross my legs (whew!).
Again, it’s the best interview I’ve ever given, primarily because Lamb is the best interviewer I’ve ever encountered. I watched the tape against last night with my in-laws and I was a bit intimidated—I fear I’ll never sound that smart ever again!
No articles today, so instead here’s a review from Intellectual Conservative, an online pub.
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