Gillespie on C-SPAN, Way Too Early (8AM ET) on Jan. 1

In what is certainly hopefully one of the worst-timed TV gigs of my career, I'll be appearing on C-SPAN's Washington Journal at 8AM ET on Jan. 1, previewing the fantabulous February issue of Reason, answering all sorts of questions about current events, taking ritual abuse from callers, and, given the early hour and a week just spent at the MLA convention, wondering who the hell took my frozen strawberries.

Comments

[Rick Barton]

Let’s see, that’s 6:00 here in Denver. We can always tape it. Is it gonna be re-shown? 8:00 is kinda early for me on a normal Sunday morning. Good luck Nick. What a dedicated guy you are! Happy New Year to you, and to everyone in the H&R community!

[Ruthless]

The audience will be exclusively old, white, nerds?
In other words, your disciple and eleven Judases?
You’re a brave man, Charlie Brown.

Speaking of which, has anyone here bought the Chick-fil-et calendar for 2006?
(eat mo’ chikin) It is tres funny.

[*]

Will you be wearing car-wash attire again?

[joe]

8:00 AM?

They know your’re still going to be drunk, right?

Wait a minute, you’re a libertarian. Of couse they know that!

[joshua corning]

Nick will not be preaching to the choir.

[Douglas Fletcher]

Anybody know if they run that again in the middle of the night sometime?

[JW]

I was up til 2 am partying hard and woke up to your gig on cspan and couldn’t get back to sleep listening. Very captivating. Consider me a new reader. It will take me some time to digest all of this but I can tell you your free market ideas deserve much attention. Best wishes for the new year Nick!

JW
Saint Charles, MO

[Ken Shultz]

We should be able to watch it via the “C-SPAN’s Washington Journal at 8AM ET” link Gillespie provided above. …within a day or two.

[Don]

I guess I’m an “Old, White, Nerd”? But even after going out with the family last night, (only 2 children, I’m still working on the .4)I surfed to the broadcast this morning to see if any of my New Years resolutions could be achieved.I am considering subscribing, but am worried that your average income and net worth demographics might be diminished. I’m not sure knowing that all of Capital Hill are readers, is good for subsciption sales. (I’m sure it’s great for advertising sales after all, Capital Hill is probably why my net worth is down). Happy New Year. Mr. G. I thought for being “drunk” you were very entertaining. I’d love to buy you a beer for some conversation. ( Oop’s forgot the venue, white wine).

[Qbryzan]

As a subscriber I suppose I am already part of the choir, and that appearance gave me every reason to continue to subscribe. Nick, you were well-spoken and handled the callers well (and apparently Godwin’s law applies to call-in shows as well as the Internet)

Great way to start the new year.

[Alan Vanneman]

Nick, you pathetic loser, this is what you get for passing yourself off as an expert on deconstruction. How many times to I have to tell you? Janet’s jugs! Janet’s jugs! They rule! They fucking rule!

[J. Krier]

I am an old white nerd and I love c-span and watched Nick this morning and loved it. Good luck and I will be looking at your mag on the net.

Judy

[Karen]

I thought Nick’s interview, and comments were interesting, but I don’t always agree with the ” old, white nerd” thing. Actually, what do you mean by that? That they are too conservative? Some older whites probably are nerds, and some probably aren’t. I’m glad to be informed about reason.com so I can read online. I thought the comments Nick made about public education in the US was interesting, and how they don’t have to provide ” customer service” like everyone else has evolved into doing now. I’ll be reading, Nick!

Thanks,

Karen

[thoreau]

I just caught part of the rerun. I loved the comment “Bush would kill to have Hitler’s approval ratings.”

Before anybody goes all Godwin on me, some context:

An old woman called in and compared Bush to Hitler. Nick disputed her comparison, and as a joke said that Bush has lower approval ratings.

A few calls later, somebody accuses Nick of comparing Bush to Hitler, and (even worse) said that Nick is “of the liberal Democrat persuasion.” Nick tried to explain that he dismissed the comparison made by the previous caller. Then the caller said that Nick should tell the leadership of the Democratic Party to stop making those comparisons.

I would love it if the leaders of one of the major parties took advice from Nick Gillespie. Too bad that ain’t gonna happen.

[Sandy Oppegard]

Very good show and thanks for straigtening the host out about your web address…..I would have been looking for you on .org. To the earlier poster….I’m white, but hardly a nerd at 60 years old…..just a “C-Span Junkie”. I live in the “redneck” part of southern Minnesota and am definitely libertarian leaning (independent in my politics….whatever that means). I might subscribe to your magazine if I have anything left after I pay for heating my house! I think we need some serious libertarian candidates who can tap into the disgruntled conservatives (the real republicans…not the fakes in office now) and the blue dog democrats. But you’ll have to convince the voters that you’re not just a bunch of old hippies who only want to legalize drugs 🙂

[cliff]

Sandy;

“But you’ll have to convince the voters that you’re not just a bunch of old hippies who only want to legalize drugs :)”

I think we Libertarians have done a very good job on many fronts to point out the bologna spewed by both sides of the aisle. Sadly, I have heard it said that Libertarianism requires too much discipline from citizens and that is what limits our ability to gain offices. People want stuff from government and are willing to give up many rights to access said stuff.

Regarding the WOsD, maybe we can do it with the same argument that the “pro-choice” (pro-abortion) NOW types use. It’s our choice to ingest whatever substances we see fit, because it is our body. It’s not about the drugs and the interstate commerce, it is about our bodies.

I think Ruthless said it best when he suggested that the defense of our bodies (and what we choose to consume) should have been tied to the 2nd amendment of the Bill of Rights. Damned founding fathers not thinking far enough into the future.

[Warren]

Bravo Nick!
Your best TV appearance to date, I’d say. Nice of you to get dressed (although? pajamas might have had a more Hefner/libertarian/new-years-party vibe).

I was impressed and delighted at how well you hit the key points. Handled every call deftly. From the above posts it would seem you made a bigger impression and have actually recruited a fair number of folks to check out Reason.com. Well done!!!

One bitch slap. Stop perpetuating the myth that Republicans hypocritically talk about small government. Once upon a time in an America long long, ago that was true. However no one has heard a peep from the small government Republicans for the past decade. The reputation of being advocates for small government is something Republicans still enjoy, but they rely on folks like you to perpetuate. Please stop doing that.

But enough quibbling. You did great, and so did C-SPAN. The magazine got lot of attention. You were given several set-ups to talk about things Reason has covered that most others ignore. And best of all, you pitched the libertarian philosophy in a much more illuminating and user friendly manner than the usual ‘machine guns and marijuana’ stump.

Attaboy Nick 🙂

[Rick Barton]

Thanks to Ken Shultz for the heads up on the link.

Speaking of nerds; the party I attended last night was called; Nerds Ball-Version 2.1 Enhanced. It was both quite creative and posh. Think Rocky Horror meets American Scholar…

Happy New Year, my fellow Reasonoids!

[Rick Barton]

OK, it seems that the carpet humping dude survived yet another year, so here’s another New Year’s cute 80’s New Wave girl antidote picture.

http://tinyurl.com/d49qf

[beverly cambell]

i’ve signed up for the reason newsletter alert. i want to read the first article mentioned on c-span this morning that nick gilespie wrote but i can’t seem to find it. i’m also interested in the Choices selection of articles from the magazine.

[Stan]

First time I had even heard of Nick Gillespie but I was impressed with his ideas and outlook on current affairs.

[beth curtis]

I’m still a fan. You were quite wonderful. I’m grateful to have a spokesman for my point of view. It gives me hope.

[Sharon]

I caught the show here in Florida. I enjoyed your interaction with the callers, Nick. How do we go about getting a free copy of Reason? (You mentioned a website during the interview)……I know alot of people who would be interested in the ideas Reason discusses and would like to share the free copy with them.

I thought your reception by the callers was quite tame. People in this country know “Things ain’t quite right” and are looking for alternative thinking.

Thanks!

[johnl]

Welcome everybody. Usually when we get a lot of newcomers they bring pitchforks and torches. What was Nick wearing?

[Aaron Guerami]

I want to thank you for being on at this hour. It was refreshing to hear a reasonable discussion on where we are going. I am going to re-evaluate my finances to include your magazine in my life.

[thoreau]

Welcome everybody. Usually when we get a lot of newcomers they bring pitchforks and torches.

Ain’t that the truth!

Finally, some friendly newcomers!

Thanks, Nick. Your appearance seems to have paid off for Hit and Run. Hopefully it will also net you guys some more subscriptions.

[Jennifer]

On the “New Year’s Resolutions” thread I was going to make some remark along the lines of “Nick Gillespie resolves never again to go on C-SPAN at 8 a.m. New Year’s Day,” but I see here that some good did come of it.

Welcome, newcomers! Don’t let Carpet Humping Guy scare you away.

[jp]

If being 46 makes me old, then I’m one of the old white nerds who watched this morning. Nick did an excellent job, as usual.

johnl — He was wearing a black Kramer-like bowling shirt with a few vertical grey stripes, IIRC. I think his pants were black, too.

Nick, you would make an old white nerd very happy if you could say “et-cetera” instead “ex-cetera.” (At least, that’s what it sounded like you were saying.)

[Kel]

Hello,

I just want to thank you for your appearance on C-SPAN this morning, it led me to this site. I feel a new sense of hope for America.

[zeiner]

I did not get the chance to see Nick on C-SPAN today (it was just too damn early). I’m going have to watch it thrpugh the C-SPAN website. I dread the day I have to install RealPlayer on my computer in order to watch the segment.

Happy New Year to all!!

[Robert Wesolowski]

Nick,

I did not record your appearance on CSPAN so please clarify your thoughts about teacher unions in public schools. Do you think unions are helpful to teachers and students or are unions merely obstacles to good education?

As a retired teacher and lifelong member of a union, I’m very happy we were protected from some of the sycophants who came after us over
the years.

Still, I would like your view of teacher unions or a bibliography which supports your view.

Thanks.
Robert Wesolowski,
3113 Archer Ave,
The Villages FL 32162

[Larry Edelstein]

I think there mere mention of Carpet-Humping Guy is enough to repel newcomers.

NOTE to newbies: he’s in one of the ads. You’ll see what we mean.

[Rick Barton]

Larry,

Yeah, I was just thinking that perhaps this wasn’t the most opportune thread to issue another cute New Wave girl antidote to that ad. But hey; Reason/H&R is just so stellar that there could be 100 obnoxious ads and it would still be the best.

[april]

saw the interview this morning on c-span (i’m a black, female c-span watcher who would love to see c-span mix it up a little bit…), but anyway, i think i may become a new subscriber. i appreciated your comments.

[Warren]

Well my oh my, goodness gracious. I can’t ever remember this many new folks dropping by Hit and Run. Oh and just look at this place. It’s such a mess. Gee if we knew Nick was finally going to go out in public and not embarrass us we’d have picked up a bit. [sigh] Oh well.

Welcome Newbies 🙂
Please come on in and make yourself at home. It’s pretty much BYOTFH (that’s bring your own tin-foil hat) around hear. But you can usually find a kindred spirit who will buy you a drink, pass the joint, put a round in the chamber, or whatever else you’re in to.

Don’t be afraid to jump right in and speak up. Quite frankly we could use a little fresh perspective. The conversation has grown a tad predictable of late. Still, you’ve stumbled on the most scintillating, brilliant, and (unintentionally) humorous bunch of socio-political wonks on the net.

[johnl]

Nick hasn’t embarrassed us yet, but I’m sure he’s capable. I suspect he’s holding back a closet full of skeletons hoping to spring them on us if he ever gets the LP Presidential nomination.

[mediageek]

“…if he ever gets the LP Presidential nomination.”

That…

Hmmm.

*strikes thoughtful pose*

You know, it could work.

Leather Jacket, smarm, disregard for authority…

The kids will love him!

[dhex]

VOTE FONZ

[Ken Shultz]

Nick’s appearance, by the way, is now up and streaming via the “C-SPAN’s Washington Journal at 8AM ET” link Nick posted above. …just click, “Washington Journal Entire Program (01/01/2006)”.

[Joe]

This is the first time I heard of Reason Magazine and I’m a libertarian myself. Go figure! 🙂

I happened upon it by watching Nick on CSPAN. At first, I didn’t know who Nick was but since I read some of the magazine I’m going to subscribe to Reason. Great stuff and good comments by Nick on CSPAN.