The Time of Our Lives Read Online Free PDF Page A

no doubt, was a result of the stratospheric levels of federal debt piled up, beginning with the Bush years and accelerating in the first half of the Obama term, twinned with the persistently high levels of unemployment and the anxiety over the new national health care plan.
    The upswing in the conservative numbers paid off for the Republican Party in the midterm elections, obviously, and GOP leaders once again began speeches with the phrase “The American people have spoken.” Just two years earlier, Democratic Party leaders were using the same phrase, and four years before that President Bush was invoking the American people in his speeches.
    Six months after the Gallup poll, an NBC survey found that 79 percent of the respondents thought the country was too divided politically. That’s a very big number, but it didn’t surprise me, because everywhere I go, whatever the ideological or cultural makeup of the audience, that is the overwhelming sentiment of the audience when the talk turns to politics.
    For me there was no more poignant demonstration of the frustration over the cold war among partisans in Washington than an encounter I had on Capitol Hill. Two bright young men approached me after a reception for the International Rescue Committee, a renowned refugee organization with bipartisan support. They were dressed in the standard uniform of Capitol Hill aides: serious blue suits, white button-down shirts, and red ties. One said, “Mr. Brokaw, we want to ask you about the old days here in Washington.” Given their youth, I was afraid by “the old days” they meant the first Clinton term, but I volunteered to help however I could.
    They went on, as one gestured to the other, “We’re best friends even though he’s a Democrat and I’m a Republican. We go into Georgetown, drink beer, and argue politics and at the end of the night we’re still friends.
    “But his boss is a Democratic congressman and mine is a Republican and they won’t talk to each other. It’s really frustrating. Was it always this way?”
    I explained that no, it wasn’t. When I worked in Washington at the height of the Watergate scandal, an acrimonious time, Meredith and I would often find ourselves at dinner parties with prominent Republicans and Democrats, sharing a drink and stories from some dustup on the Hill. Senators Bob Dole and George McGovern, I told them, two World War II veterans representing opposite ends of the political spectrum, are close friends and often worked with each other on fighting global hunger.
    If anything, the partisan cold war in Washington has gotten worse since that chance encounter with members of a younger generation determined to serve but frustrated by the consequences of the fundamental incivility that courses through Washington these days.
    My friend Bob Schieffer, host of the highly regarded Sunday morning public affairs program Face the Nation , has been in Washington more than forty years and he says it’s never been worse. He cites a prime example of the juvenile behavior that takes place on too many Sunday mornings when he tells of one show in which he had one Republican guest and one Democratic.
    The Sunday shows all have what is called a “green room,” where the guests and journalists gather for coffee, makeup, and any last-minute instructions. Bob told me, incredulously, “We had a call from the staff of one of the men, a senior leader of the Senate, requesting separate rooms so the guests wouldn’t have to be together. I said, ‘No. We’re not changing our behavior just to suit theirs.’ ”
    House Speaker John Boehner was asked on NBC’s Meet the Press to review a video of some Iowa citizens who believe President Obama is a Muslim and that that guides his policies. Moderator David Gregory asked the Speaker if he felt compelled to correct those voters. Boehner declined, saying his job is “not to tell the American people what to think.”
    The Speaker said he believes the president