Al Franken on learning to be a politician

Al Franken on learning to be a politician

Sen. Al Franken’s new book, Al Franken, Giant of the Senate, is the rare politician memoir that’s actually interesting. And note that I said interesting, not funny (though it is also funny).Most books by politicians are about how they’re not really politicians — they’re authentic, they’re honest, they shoot from the hip, they still remember what it was like growing up in a mill town raised by feral dogs and subsisting on nothing but hay.Franken’s book is the opposite: It’s the story of how he learned to be a politician, and even how he learned to respect politicians. It’s about realizing he couldn’t litigate his past comedy, about trusting his staff, about understanding why politicians act the way they do in interviews, about recognizing why the norms of the Senate matter.So this is an interview about what it’s like to be a politician, why perfectly nice and interesting people end up acting like all those other politicians after getting elected, and the role we as voters (and we in the media) play in it. If you’re interested in how politics actually works, you should listen.Books!Captured: The Corporate Infiltration of American Democracy by Sheldon WhitehouseHow Children Succeed: Confidence, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character by Paul ToughOur Kids by Robert Putnam Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(764)

Jessica Valenti on honesty, internet trolls, and modern feminism

Jessica Valenti on honesty, internet trolls, and modern feminism

Jessica Valenti is the founder of Feministing, a columnist at the Guardian, and the author of the new book "Sex Object." She's also a friend from the early days of blogging. In this podcast, we talk a...

14 Jun 20161h 11min

Moby on how cheap rent leads to great art

Moby on how cheap rent leads to great art

Moby's new memoir, Porcelain, is a great read for policy wonks. Really.It's less a history of music than a history of New York in the 80s and 90s, and a reflection on how density, crime, racial and se...

7 Jun 201658min

Secretary of Labor (and maybe VP?) Tom Perez

Secretary of Labor (and maybe VP?) Tom Perez

Tom Perez is President Obama's Secretary of Labor. He is also, according to the New York Times, on Hillary Clinton's shortlist for the vice presidency.I spoke with Perez about his path to the Labor De...

31 Mai 20161h 7min

Andrew Sullivan on quitting blogging, fearing political correctness, and Donald Trump

Andrew Sullivan on quitting blogging, fearing political correctness, and Donald Trump

Last year, Andrew Sullivan quit blogging — the medium he had done so much to create. And you know what? He was pretty damn happy about it. He was taking walks, meditating, exercising, reading, and gen...

24 Mai 20161h 54min

Alice Rivlin, queen of Washington's budget wonks

Alice Rivlin, queen of Washington's budget wonks

There is no budget wonk in Washington with a resume as thick as Alice Rivlin's. She was the founding director of the Congressional Budget Office. She was the director of President Bill Clinton's Offic...

17 Mai 201658min

Arianna Huffington on sleep, death, and social media

Arianna Huffington on sleep, death, and social media

Arianna Huffington is, of course, the editor and namesake of the Huffington Post, one of the true juggernauts of the new media world. But her path to that position has been a winding one. She was a pr...

10 Mai 20161h 24min

Robert Reich on supporting Bernie Sanders, dating Hillary Clinton, and fighting inequality

Robert Reich on supporting Bernie Sanders, dating Hillary Clinton, and fighting inequality

You could fill a podcast just reciting Robert Reich's biography. Rhodes Scholar. Assistant to U.S. Solicitor General Robert Bork. Director of policy planning at the Federal Trade Commission under Cart...

3 Mai 20161h 42min

Bruce Friedrich on how technology will reduce animal suffering

Bruce Friedrich on how technology will reduce animal suffering

When I first met Bruce Friedrich, he was running PETA's awareness campaigns. Yeah, those campaigns — the ones where naked people stuffed themselves in saran wrap and cages, and where wounded chickens ...

26 Apr 20161h 17min

Populært innen Politikk og nyheter

giver-og-gjengen-vg
aftenpodden
forklart
stopp-verden
aftenpodden-usa
popradet
fotballpodden-2
dine-penger-pengeradet
rss-gukild-johaug
lydartikler-fra-aftenposten
det-store-bildet
nokon-ma-ga
hanna-de-heldige
rss-ness
e24-podden
rss-espen-lee-usensurert
aftenbla-bla
grasoner-den-nye-kalde-krigen
rss-utenrikskomiteen-med-bogen-og-grasvik
frokostshowet-pa-p5