Country Over Self

Originally recorded on 10-24-24 In this episode, Matt and Mark talk about the 41st President, George H. W. Bush, and his campaign promise of "Read my lips, no new taxes" during the 1988 presidential campaign, and how that promise clashed with the realities of governing that led to the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990 and a balanced budget...and ultimately sowed the seeds of Bush's defeat in the 1992 election. Mark UpdegroveMark K. Updegrove is the president and CEO of the LBJ Foundation and serves as Presidential Historian for ABC News. From 2009 to 2017, he was the director of the LBJ Presidential Library, where in 2014 he hosted the Civil Rights Summit which included Presidents Obama, George W. Bush, Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Carter.  Updegrove is the author of five books on the presidency including Incomparable Grace: JFK in the Presidency, published in 2022 and the executive producer of the CNN Original Series, “LBJ: Triumph and Tragedy.” He has written for the New York Times, Politico, Time, National Geographic, the Daily Beast, and USA Today, and has conducted exclusive interviews with seven U.S. presidents. His next book, Make Your Mark: Lessons in Character from Seven Presidents, will be published in March 2025.  Previously he was publisher of Newsweek and president of Time magazine’s Canadian edition. He is married to Amy Banner Updegrove, the former publisher of Texas Monthly, and lives in Austin, Texas. 00:00 Introduction to Country Over Self 00:34 Guest Introduction: Mark Updegrove 01:05 George H. W. Bush's Impressive Resume 02:22 The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990 03:54 Bush's Controversial Tax Decision 06:47 Impact of Bush's Tax Compromise 09:57 Rise of Conservative Media and Its Effects 11:39 Ross Perot's Populist Candidacy 17:30 Bush's Legacy and the Clinton Letter 24:54 Rapid Fire Questions on Presidential Choices 30:50 Final Thoughts and Closing To learn more about Country Over Self or to check out other episodes head to Countryoverself.com.  If you have an idea for an episode or want to reach Matt directly, please email [email protected] Country Over Self is edited and produced by Culture Collaborative Media.   

Originally recorded on 10-2-2024 00:00 Introduction to Country Over Self 00:33 Meet Joseph Ellis: Historian of John Adams 02:36 John Adams: The Most Human of the Founding Fathers 04:15 Adams' Role in the American Revolution 05:58 John Adams' Presidency and Political Challenges 11:23 Adams' Peace Treaty with France 26:25 Adams' Correspondence with Jefferson 34:00 Rapid Fire Questions and Reflections 38:58 Closing Remarks and Call to Action In this episode, Matt and Joe talk about the 2nd President, John Adams, his unusual rationale for making virtuous decisions, the remarkable story of his retirement correspondence with Thomas Jefferson, and the importance of remembering the details of the era you're contemplating as a historian. Joseph Ellis Joseph J. Ellis is one of the nation's leading scholars of American history. The author of thirteen books, Ellis was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Founding Brothers: the Revolutionary Generation and won the National Book Award for American Sphinx, a biography of Thomas Jefferson. His in-depth chronicle of the life of our first President, His Excellency: George Washington, was a New York Times bestseller. Ellis’ most recent book, The Cause: The American Revolution and Its Discontents, was published by WW Norton in Fall 2021.  In one of the most “exciting and engaging” (Gordon S. Wood) histories of the American founding in decades, Ellis offers thrilling accounts of the origins and clashing ideologies of America’s revolutionary era, recovering a war more brutal and more disorienting than any in our history, save perhaps the Civil War.  Taking us from the end of the Seven Years’ War to 1783, The Cause interweaves action-packed tales of North American military campaigns with parlor-room intrigues back in England. Ellis' essays and book reviews appear regularly in national publications, such as The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Chicago Tribune, The New Republic, and The New Yorker. Ellis’s commentaries have been featured on CBS, CSPAN, CNN, and the PBS’s The News Hour, and he has appeared in several PBS documentaries on early America, including “John and Abigail [Adams]” a History Channel documentary on George Washington Ellis has taught in the Leadership Studies program at Williams College, the Commonwealth Honors College at the University of Massachusetts, Mount Holyoke College, and the United States Military Academy at West Point.  He lives in Vermont with his wife Ellen Wilkins Ellis and two big Labradoodles. He is the father of three sons. To learn more about Country Over Self or to check out other episodes head to Countryoverself.com.  If you have an idea for an episode or want to reach Matt directly, please email [email protected] Country Over Self is edited and produced by Culture Collaborative Media.  

Originally recorded on 09-26-2024 In this episode, Matt and Rick talk about the 37th President, Richard Milhous Nixon as a case study of why there is no such thing as Country Over Self -- that successful politicians by definition fuse together their electoral success, their view of what's best for America, and therefore their actions while in office.  Rick Perlstein Rick Perlstein is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan; Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America, a New York Times bestseller picked as one of the best nonfiction books of 2007 by over a dozen publications; and Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, which won the 2001 Los Angeles Times Book Award for history and appeared on the best books of the year lists of The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune. His essays and book reviews have been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, The Village Voice, and Slate, among others. A contributing editor and board member of In These Times magazine, he lives in Chicago. 00:00 Introduction to Country Over Self 00:57 Discussing Richard Nixon's Legacy 02:06 Exploring the Concept of Country Over Self 03:56 Nixon's Environmental Policies 06:24 Historical Examples of Presidential Decisions 08:34 The Complexity of Political Morality 14:43 Watergate and Its Implications 17:29 The Controversial Pardon of Nixon 23:04 Nixon's Rehabilitation and Legacy 27:37 Concluding Thoughts and Future Outlook To learn more about Country Over Self or to check out other episodes head to Countryoverself.com.  If you have an idea for an episode or want to reach Matt directly, please email [email protected] Country Over Self is edited and produced by Culture Collaborative Media.   

Originally recorded on 09-27-2024 In this episode, Matt and Richard talk about the 38th President, Gerald R. Ford, and his pardon of his predecessor, Richard Nixon, who resigned in disgrace and under threat of impeachment for the Watergate scandal - a move that almost certainly led to Ford's defeat in the 1976 election against Jimmy Carter.  Matt and Richard also talk about First Lady Betty Ford's courageous decision to turn her private struggles with cancer and alcoholism public so as to raise awareness and reduce stigmatism. Richard Norton SmithBorn in Leominster, Massachusetts in 1953, Mr. Smith graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1975 with a degree in government. Following graduation he worked as a White House intern and as a free lance writer for The Washington Post. After being employed as a speech writer for Massachusetts Senator Edward Brooke, he went to work for Senator Bob Dole, with whom he has collaborated on numerous projects over the years. Mr. Smith’s first major book, Thomas E. Dewey and His Times, was a finalist for the 1983 Pulitzer Prize. He has also written An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover (1984), and The Harvard Century: The Making of a University to a Nation (1986). His Patriarch: George Washington and the New American Nation (1993) was a Main Selection of the Book of the Month Club, while his 1997 biography, The Colonel: The Life and Legend of Robert R. McCormick, described by Hilton Kramer as “the best book ever written about the press,” received the prestigious Goldsmith Prize awarded by Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School. In October, 2014 Random House published Mr. Smith’s biography On His Own Terms: A Life of Nelson Rockefeller, fourteen years in the making, and based on thousands of pages of newly available documents, as well as more than 200 interviews. The result has been called definitive by publications as diverse as The New Yorker and National Review. Between 1987 and 2001, Mr. Smith served as Director of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum in West Branch, Iowa; the Dwight D. Eisenhower Center in Abilene, Kansas; the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation in Simi Valley, California; and the Gerald R. Ford Museum and Library in Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor, Michigan respectively.At each of the libraries he contributed to significantly higher public visitation through major temporary exhibits, imaginative public programs, and educational outreach efforts. In addition to expanding and renovating the Hoover Library, Mr. Smith overhauled the permanent exhibitions at Reagan and Ford. In 1990 he organized the Eisenhower Centennial on behalf of the National Archives. In 2001 Mr. Smith became director of the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas, where he supervised construction of the Institute’s landmark home and launched several high profile programs. In October, 2003 he was appointed Founding Director of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois. In two and a half years he turned around the troubled project, which has since received international praise for its innovative approach to the Lincoln story. Beginning in 2006 Mr. Smith was a Scholar in Residence at George Mason University in suburban Washington, D.C., where for seven years he taught courses in the American presidency for both undergraduate and graduate students. During the same period he conducted oral history projects for the White House Historical Association, the Dole Institute and the Gerald R. Ford Foundation.  In January, 2007 millions of television viewers saw him deliver the final eulogy at President Ford’s funeral in Grand Rapids, Michigan: in July, 2010 he honored Mrs. Ford’s request to do the same for her. Mr. Smith was instrumental in designing a new and highly acclaimed museum and Education Center at historic Ford’s Theater in Washington. More recently he has advised planners of the George W. Bush Presidential Library in Dallas, and the George C. Marshall Home in Leesburg, Virginia. A frequent contributor to such publications as Time, Life, and the New York Times, he has also been a regular guest on the PBS NewsHour, and on C-SPAN, where he served as the network’s in-house historian from 2006-2014. In this capacity he organized a 2007 series spotlighting little known holdings of the nation’s presidential libraries; as well as The Contenders, a fourteen week series examining presidential also-rans whose historical contributions transcended their political ambitions; and a highly popular series recognizing America’s First Ladies, airing in 2013-14. To learn more about Country Over Self or to check out other episodes head to Countryoverself.com.  If you have an idea for an episode or want to reach Matt directly, please email [email protected] Country Over Self is edited and produced by Culture Collaborative Media.