The Tuesday, October 5, 2010 Charlie Rose Interview, Hour (sit down, chat, or whatever Rose calls these) with Bob Woodward

He doesn't want to over dramatize anything; he also doesn't want to under dramatize anything. That's the gist of this sit down. They're obviously pals, and Rose is working, and so is Woodward to an extent, but, really? Is that it? Chock it up to a bad relationship. Rose was pressing for something a little more definitive from the bottom line takeaway from the whole book, and it's basically: that The White House and the Military are of different ilk, obviously, and they don't get along, and they don't see eye to eye, and haven't, and won't, and that's that. Pepper in a bunch of exciting and fancy details about what the Oval Office smells like at 11:59 PM, or what 4 yards beyond "Employees Only" sign at the Pentagon looks like, and you've got the book. It took 45 minutes to get to what Woodward would have done, had he even imagined himself imagining that he could imagine a decision as to which we he might have gone, about the decisions that were made, amongst the actors in this story. It's an interesting read, no doubt about it. But really: it's fancy gossip. What is this, supposed to be influential at some strategic level? I get it; there's texture, there's enough narrative here to make a movie, and Ron Howard should do it. I get it. Watch that whole interview here. You can buy it for a few bucks on Amazon, but why would you?

The Friday, September 24, 2010 Charlie Rose Hour with Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google

Here he was, for an hour, talking up and getting absolutely electric about technology and the future for Google and the United States, but as he saw the hour closing in on the two, Schmidt, the brilliant manager, politician, and salesman (ultimately) that he is, ended with some corny notion of "deeper reading." He alluded to, at the end of the day, that, in spite of Instant Search (something Google's just come out with the other week), Schmidt waxed Romantic over how pleasurable and thoroughly satisfying a good old fashion book is. Yeah, right. Schmidt wrote the forward to The Startup Game, and in doing so, practically endorsed the thing. Charlie Rose was just another of Google's tour, the objective of which is to maintain appearances about things with the U.S. (You might've caught him on Colbert the other week.) Watch the full interview here. Or download and buy it here: Charlie Rose - Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google (March 6, 2009)

The Wednesday, October 28, 2009 Charlie Rose Conversation with Sam Tanenhaus

CHARLIE ROSE: Sam Tanenhaus is here. He is editor of both the "New
York Times Book Review" and the "Weekend Review" section of the newspaper.
When he is not appraising books, he writes some of his own. His biography
of Whitaker Chambers was a finalist for the National Nook Award and the
Pulitzer Prize.

His latest book is called "The Death of Conservatism." In it he argues
that today’s Republicans have lost their way and need to return to their
intellectual roots. I am pleased to have him back at this table. Welcome.

SAM TANENHAUS, AUTHOR: Great to be here, Charlie.

CHARLIE ROSE: And did this grow out of that "New Republic" piece that
you wrote?

SAM TANENHAUS: It did. I wrote a story, an essay during the first
month of the Obama administration, and the Republicans and the conservative
intellectuals, because the book is really about both, seemed totally lost.

And also it builds on a lot of thinking and writing I’ve done ever
since I started writing about conservatism some 20 years ago.

Read the rest of that transcript here.

The Thursday, July 16, 2009 Charlie Rose Conversation with Bob Woodward of The Washington Post

CHARLIE ROSE: And so you said once in a recent interview that you
were searching for the center of gravity about him.

BOB WOODWARD: Yes.

CHARLIE ROSE: What does that mean?

BOB WOODWARD: That means what’s going to define him.

First of all, he’s had no real crisis. He’s inherited all the crises
of the Bush administration, as he says repeatedly, "Not of my making, this
is not of my making." But he doesn’t have or has not yet had his own
crisis. And he’s then going to be defined by that crisis.

Read that full transcript here. See also: The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008, Bush At War, Charlie Rose - Bob Woodward / Bradley Graham (July 16, 2009)