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Jay’s guest today is John H. Sununu, the former governor of New Hampshire, the onetime chief of staff to Bush the Elder, and the current and forever politico. He talks about his upbringing: how he came to his views. He talks about the importance of a serious (non-frivolous) education. He talks about free enterprise and some other things that made America great.
He talks about his old boss, GHWB, and the book he has written about that president: The Quiet Man.
Then he and Jay talk about Election ’16: Hillary, Bernie, Trump, Ted, and them. The governor’s views are direct, as always. Jay also wants to know about the governor’s old friend and sparring partner, Soledad O’Brien. Does he hear from her much?
Finally, Jay wants to know: Is America going to the dogs? Or will we be all right?
Reliably, a talk with John Sununu is bracing, interesting, and fun.
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Another fascinating interview! I particularly liked Sununu’s comment about the “establishment”. It has been my impression throughout the current political season that the so-called establishment has simply been a tag put on anyone who has run a successful campaign and put in the time and effort necessary to become a party leader at some level. The current trend seems to be the desire to call anyone and everyone currently holding political office part of the establishment. They have done it with Rubio, and now I am hearing Cruz being called that, and even Ben Sasse. This rings to me of anarchy on an absurd level.
“John Sununu: Fun name,fun guy.” –Bob Tyrrell, circa 1988
I met John Sununu on the last NR Cruise (he’s a regular). I’ve heard how arrogant he could be, at least during his heyday, but I found him to be an unassuming man, and during the NR get together I met him at, very approachable. I saw him wandering around in Juneau with his wife, again in a comfortable, unassuming way. At one time he was at the pinnacle of power, and to have read the allegations that he (over?) enjoyed its perquisites the dichotomy just struck me.
But I’d also like to remark on Nordlinger and Sununu’s comments on engineer’s in government and their conservatism. Engineers are by nature conservative when solving physical problems. But looking at recent presidential history they haven’t been all that politically conservative, at least not from a small government perspective.
The two presidents in the 20th century most associated with the engineering profession are Jimmy Carter and Herbert Hoover. Dwight Eisenhower had an engineering education at West Point, but throughout his life he really was more of an amateur historian, though he was responsible for the federal government’s involvement in the Interstate Highway system. So he too increased federal everyday involvement in American’s lives, though in a more modest way.
I think when engineers hold political power, they want to use the levers available to them to solve problems, and inconvenient constitutional safeguards are something to circumvent.
Reducing the size of government simply doesn’t compute.