The Brian Lehrer Show

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But Was It Good For Democracy?

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Super Tuesday saw heavy turnout at the polls, but revealed a patchwork of primaries, caucuses, and confusing delegate counts. Robert George, Benjamin Barber, and David Epstein join us to discuss whether our primary system is damaging our Democracy. Plus: A new series celebrating black history month, and Fred Kaplan discusses his book on the foreign policy missteps of the Bush Administration.

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Listen to the whole show

...But Was It Good For Democracy? Parsing Super Duper Tuesday

Robert George, New York Post editorial writer and Ragged Thots blogger, David Epstein, professor of political science at Columbia University, and Benjamin Barber, professor of civil society at the University of Maryland, senior fellow at the think tank Demos and author of Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole (Norton, 2007), take a look at the primary process.

Talking History

Howard Dodson, director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library, joins us on Thursdays in February to talk about African American history. This week: the bicentennial of New York's Abyssinian Baptist Church.

The Bicentennial of the U.S. Abolition of the Slave Trade Exhitbition & Programs
The Abyssinian Baptist Church Bicentennial Exhibition

Our Foreign Policy Daydream

Fred Kaplan, author and "war stories" columnist for Slate.com, discusses his new book Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power.

Fred Kaplan profiles Defense Secretary Robert Gates in this weekend's New York Times Magazine

Free, Yet Enslaved

James McBride, musician and author of Song Yet Sung, talks about Harriet Tubman, contemporary black culture, and--perhaps--why Holiday Inn cures his writer's block.

Song Yet Sung is available for purchase at Amazon.com

Event
James McBride will be reading tonight at Hue-Man Bookstore & Cafe (2319 Frederick Douglass Boulevard @ 125th Street) at 6PM.