This weekend, all of Washington will be celebrating the White House Correspondents’ Association at their annual dinner. To honor the work of journalists in D.C., this week I am hosting Carl Cannon, Washington Bureau Chief and Executive Editor for RealClearPolitics.com, one of the most respected news websites in America. For this episode of the Pickens Podcast, we discuss the state of politics in America today, as well as my favorite topic: energy.
During our wide-ranging conversation, Carl stated, “the public is so tired of politics as usual that they don’t care whether you have the qualifications to be president.” Carl also said, “Obama changed the measuring stick” in terms of whether experience was crucial to winning the White House. Obama had less than three years of U.S. Senate service before he won the Presidency in 2008. “In what other job,” he asked rhetorically, “would experience be considered a liability?”
Carl’s dad, Lou Cannon, was the highly respected White House correspondent for the Washington Post. Carl has served in the same post for the National Journal. Carl and Lou co-authored a well-regarded book about Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, “Reagan’s Disciple.”
More than 5.9 million unique visitors click on RealClearPolitics.com every month, which is considered one of the top five influential news sites on the Internet. In addition to political news, the RealClear family features 14 other sections including economics, health, technology, sports and energy.
On the energy front, Carl is a realist when it comes to transportation fuels. He said that we are not “going to fuel cars like in “Back to the Future” with coffee grounds and banana peels.” He accused most American politicians who say that they are for an “all of the above” energy program of just paying lip service. He pointed out, though, that “the Chinese really are all-of-the-above.”
This is a fascinating conversation with one of the most respected journalists in Washington whose clear-eyed view of what’s going on is well worth your time.
Subscribe to the podcast on AudioBoom or iTunes and let me know what you think via Twitter @BoonePickens.
– Boone