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The King of Stuff welcomes Tevi Troy, author of Fight House: Rivalries in the White House, from Truman to Trump. Ricochet’s own Peter Robinson said the book “presents such a vivid and accurate portrait of the strife, sniping, backbiting, leaking, and intrigue in the Reagan White House that I found it perfectly excruciating to read. I mean that as a compliment. Deeply researched, briskly written, and full of judicious, useful lessons, Fight House is just a marvelous book.”
Subscribe to the King of Stuff Spotify playlist featuring picks from Jon and his guest. This week Jon offers one of the oddest oddities ever, “Doctorin’ the Tardis” by The Timelords.
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Great conversation with Tevi Troy, just signed up for his mailing list (www.tevitroy.org). And the KLF conversation was a nice trip down memory lane. Their Chill Out cd which samples Elvis, twinkling ambient passages, and a lot of pastoral recordings was one of my favorite late-night spins in college — The KLF – Chill out – YouTube
I couldn’t add the Timelords song to our playlist since it isn’t on Spotify. (Probably because it’s one solid copyright violation)
Thanks Jon! Good pod.
Everything old is new again. The Fight House stuff is common in every administration, to lesser or greater degrees. Interesting how it’s been variously applied; Barry liked everyone on the same page all the time, which to me means fear. Putting competing interests in your cabinet gives you more options, not less, and means the people who work for you are in large part competing with each other, which will generally give you a better product.
If everyone is aligned with what they think their boss wants to hear, then the boss will get exactly that, and think everything’s fine. With no independent voice (or contrary voice), how will you ever really know what’s going on? Especially if you decide you’re so clever you can start skipping your daily security brief while telling everyone you’ll read it, later.
Being lucky isn’t the same as being competent. For some people, it’s really hard for them to understand what that means.
Jon,
For some years it has bugged me that your voice is similar to some other public figure and that I can’t ever place it. Today the planets* aligned with the KLF commentary. That person is Barry “Dr. Demento” Hansen. Because yesterday was the solstice, the conjunction of planets, and the admirable interview subject’s woulda-been 80th birthday, here’s something for comparison:
There is also the disturbing, yet comforting, thought (gotta be a German word for that) you become the next Dr. Demento when Barry gives up the ghost.
*Music, Seltsam Musik, Doctors, Dr. Who.