Mark Leibovich's portraits of Citizens of the Green Room

Someone once remarked that when they saw a snake and a vulture having sex in Washington, and thought it was just business as usual. Fitzgerald said that he rich were different, because they have more money. Politicians are different, usually because that they have more insecurities

The fact is that most politicians and other high profile inhabitants of our nation's capital are just flesh and blood human beings. And yes, they may be different than you and I, they are certainly more caught up in their unbroken series of successful gestures, but most do care about their work.

In fact, some care too much. As the late, great journalist Richard Ben Cramer once wrote, that feeling you can make a difference is like a drug. Also a great journalist, Mark Leibovich, has been been giving us great insights about the power players in Washington for the NY Times Magazine. Those profiles are part of his new book Citizens of the Green Room: Profiles in Courage and Self-Delusion.

My conversation with Mark Leibovich:

Washington - Two Parties and a Funeral in America's Gilded Capital

When we try and conjure up a place that is all about power, ego, success, money, hard work, personal baggage and branding, most of us would think first of Hollywood. As Orson Wells said of Hollywood, "Hollywood is Hollywood. There’s nothing you can say about it that isn’t true, good or bad. And if you get into it, you have no right to be bitter — you’re the one who sat down, and joined the game."

Much the same might be said of Washington D.C. The difference is that we mistakenly think Washington should be a place of sober reflection on policy and ideas. But was it ever? Is the Washington of today any different than it has ever been; from the preening and egos of our Founding Fathers to the cronyism of FDR’s advisers, to the highfalutin schmoozing of Camelot?

It was the wise and sagacious Marilyn Monroe who said, “I don't know if high society is different in other cities, but in Hollywood, important people can't stand to be invited someplace that isn't full of other important people.”

That's the beginning and the backdrop for NY Times magazine's chief national correspondent, Mark Leibovich's  new book This Town: Two Parties and a Funeral-Plus, Plenty of Valet Parking!-in America's Gilded Capital.  In it, he fully pulls back the curtain on the great and powerful Oz, that is our nations capital.

My conversation with Mark Leibovich:

California Nightmare

Previously we talked to California's preeminent historian, Kevin Starr about the '50s and the golden age of abundance in California. Today we have a state whose economy is in shambles, and yet there are politicians who still want to be the Governor of California. It's a little like asking to captain the Titanic? New York Times Washington Correspondent Mark Leibovich, in his NY Times Magazine cover story last week, looks at Newsom, Brown, Campbell, Whitman and Poizner and their quest to replace Arnold.

My conversation with Mark Leibovich:

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