Interviews
An Interview with Bob Herbert
Barnes & Noble.com:
Your book is titled
Promises Betrayed. What promises are you referring to?
Bob Herbert: They're the promises we tend to think are encompassed by that mythic ideal, the American Dream. I grew up in New Jersey in the 1950s and '60s, when it seemed as though the dream was in the process of being fully realized. In the book, I refer to this period as "America's great postwar run." Work was plentiful, and it was becoming easier and easier for kids to get a decent education. Schools and housing and highways were built, and a standard of living was established that was the envy of the world. Big advances were made in civil rights, women's rights, and civil liberties. The nation committed itself to protecting the rights of workers, consumers, even the criminally accused. We became more conscious of the environment and eventually made it a priority. It was a remarkable period. And being young, I thought it would go on forever.
B&N.com: How have things changed?
BH: You don't hear people talk that much about the American Dream anymore. The U.S. may be the world's richest and most powerful nation, but as a society we're no longer committed to guaranteeing the rights and lifting the standard of living of ordinary citizens. Working men and women are being dealt the jokers in the deck. Those who are already wealthy and powerful have a stranglehold on the nation's resources as never before.
We're reneging on promises that go all the way back to the New Deal. We've allowed the politicians and their well-heeled handlers to tell us we can't build first-class schools or provide employment at a reasonable wage for all. We're told we can't follow through on the promise of Social Security. We can't always deliver health care or affordable drugs to the sick and infirm. We can't clean up the slums or rescue the children trapped by poverty. Don't get me started. The truth is we can, but we won't. At some point during the last several years, America seemed to lose its nerve, and its can-do spirit morphed into a disturbing faintheartedness.
A great nation has tremendous obligations. And right now we're not meeting ours.
B&N.com: You've been described as "the conscience" of the
New York Times Op-Ed page. How do you feel about that label?
BH: It's flattering, but I don't think of myself as the conscience of anything. I'm a reporter and commentator whose job in large part is to point out some of the things in our country that are going haywire. I frequently write about underdogs because they're the ones getting shoved around. The powerful interests don't need my help. They've got big, booming megaphones. I try to give a voice to others who have a right to be heard.
B&N.com: Were you surprised at President Bush's reelection?
BH: I was not surprised. For one thing, I never believed the Democrats had a chance of carrying Florida. I'd written stories about voter intimidation and other shenanigans going on down there and had long since come to the conclusion that if the election were close, the GOP would find some way -- any way -- to ensure that President Bush would prevail. So that was a big handicap to start with.
Then there's the fact that John Kerry, though dogged, was not a charismatic candidate, did not clearly differentiate himself from Bush on the war, and did not make nearly a strong enough appeal to crucial elements of the Democratic base: poor people and blacks.
B&N.com: Would a better-informed American voter have reelected him?
BH: A better-informed America would never have elected George W. Bush in the first place.
B&N.com: Many of your columns take up the cause of specific people in jeopardy. Have you been able to directly help any of these people through your reporting?
BH: I have been able to help some people in jeopardy, but not nearly enough. There are columns in the book about LaCresha Murray, an 11-year-old girl who was convicted of a homicide she never committed. The columns helped get her released from prison. I wrote a long series of columns about dozens of black residents in Tulia, Texas, who were falsely accused of narcotics trafficking and sent off to prison. The columns were very instrumental in obtaining justice in those cases. All of the convictions were eventually overturned. There were death penalty cases in which columns I wrote were likely influential, if not decisive.
It's the cases you're not able to affect that haunt you -- people who you know are innocent but remain in prison; or immigrants who have done nothing wrong but are nevertheless uprooted from their homes here in America and forcibly returned to treacherous situations in their native countries.
B&N.com: Do you feel the media has been as tough on Bush as they were on Clinton?
BH: Not for a moment. The media has not been nearly as tough on Bush. Remember Whitewater? It turned out to be nothing. Monica? That was a grotesque personal failing but not in any way comparable to the launching of this misguided war in Iraq, the criminal misuse of intelligence, the gruesome treatment of wartime prisoners - many of them innocent - on Bush's watch, the squandering of the enormous budget surpluses and the astonishing transfer of wealth from working people to very rich. I could go on and on…
B&N.com: In your opinion, what's the most under-reported story in politics today?
BH: I'll mention a couple. There's the plight of millions of ordinary working Americans who are insecure about their employment, mired in debt, struggling to make ends meet, and living from day to day without adequate health insurance or provisions for retirement. A key aspect of that story is the way mainstream politicians -- especially, but not exclusively, Republicans -- have run roughshod over the interests of those workers and their families.
The other grossly under-reported story is the truth about the war in Iraq: the terrible misery it has inflicted on tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis and thousands of American G.I.s and their families. Falluja had to be leveled in order to save it. Now the residents who have returned are drinking putrid water, and their kids are going to school in tents.
B&N.com: Second terms have historically been tough for presidents. How do you think President Bush's has gone so far?
BH: I didn't think the president had a good first term. But he won reelection and feels he has a mandate to do more of the same. I'm not so sure the second term is the problem. The biggest problems he'll face are the chickens coming home to roost from the wrong-headed policies he's imposed throughout his administration. We've still got the war to deal with, and the little matter of paying for it. We've got budget and trade deficits as far as the eye can see. We've got consumers up to their ears in debt with no relief in sight. We've got extremely high oil prices and nothing in the way of a sound energy policy. And we've got a world that is extremely complex and increasingly dangerous, and yet we're not adequately preparing Americans -- intellectually or economically -- to cope with it.
Politics has triumphed over substance, and we'll eventually pay a fearful price for that.
