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• About The Greatest Story Ever Sold
• Excerpt from The Greatest Story Ever Sold
• Mr. Rich's bio

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Tavis: Frank Rich is an influential columnist with 'The New York Times,' who for years served as the paper's chief theater critic. There were times when if Frank Rich did not like your Broadway production, chances were good that it might not make it through the first week. But these days, it's politics and American society that are his purview. His new book is called 'The Greatest Story Ever Sold, The Decline and Fall of Truth From 9/11 To Katrina.' He joins us tonight from New York City. Frank Rich, an honor to have you on this program, sir.

Frank Rich: I'm honored to be here. Thanks for having me.

Tavis: I wanna get to the book here in just a moment, but for those who did not know that you had a life before this column that we read every week in 'The New York Times,' that you were, in fact, the theater critic some years ago, how did you make the switch and why make the switch from that to this?

Rich: It's very strange. I grew up in Washington D.C. in a family that had nothing to do with politics as a sort of stage-struck kid. I've always been interested in the connections between politics and culture. I grew up in the Kennedy years when you had the Rat Pack at the inaugural gala. When I finished being drama critic, I'd done it for 13 years. I was getting tired of reviewing sort of the same things over and over again.

Starting to write about politics a little bit. Also a man of my generation, Bill Clinton, was becoming president, and I sort of wanted to cover that scene, see how my generation would screw things up, which they've done a pretty good job of. And so I made the switch to being a general columnist about where sort of politics, news, and culture all intersect.

Tavis: I'm told that today is your book event. Earlier today you had a book event in New York. I'm told that one of your honored guests, Steven Sondheim, I was in a conversation just last night with a friend of mine, Cornell West, the Princeton professor, who's a great Sondheim lover. And West argues that more than any other American, Frank Rich gets the contribution that Sondheim has made. Talk to me, speaking of Broadway right quick, speaking of theater, how you became such a Sondheim lover?

Rich: I'm very flattered, first of all, that Dr. West would think that. When I was a kid, I was a ticket-taker at what was then the one theater in Washington D.C. that had Broadway shows. And 'A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,' Sondheim's first show as a composer, tried out there. And it got terrible reviews in Washington, all my friends hated it.

I loved it. It went on to become an enormous hit on Broadway. I was about 12 or 13 years old. I said gosh, maybe I get this guy, and maybe I should do something with theater criticism when I grow up. And I wrote about him a lot and championed him when I was a drama critic, and I think he's not only a great Broadway writer, but really one of the great American artists of our time.

Tavis: Let me segue from the theater on Broadway to the theater on Pennsylvania Avenue. (Laugh) Would that be an accurate way to describe what's happening there these days?

Rich: Yes. I think that one of the things that I discovered in covering the Bush administration is whatever else is to be said about them, they love theater. They know how to put on a show. And you look at shock and awe, mission accomplished. The president's speech saying that help was coming to New Orleans and Jackson Square, when no help was coming right away.

They like to put on a performance. That's sort of what my book is about. That's how they tell their story and sell it.

Tavis: That subtitle is a strong subtitle when you're trying to sell a show, when you're trying to sell 'The Greatest Story Ever Sold,' you wanna dramatize it. But that's a strong line, Frank Rich, to say that what we are witnessing, what we are experiencing, is the decline and fall of truth.

Rich: I meant it to be strong, because I think we're living in a time, and it's not just the Bush administration that's guilty of this, although they have been guilty of it, of is what Stephen Colbert calls truthiness. Where people can get away with a memoir that's hyped, they can get away with all sorts of things in the public eye. And I think the shocking story about the Bush administration is it sold us a war, and against a country, Iraq, that as the president himself has now said had nothing to do with 9/11.

And it did it with fiction. It did it with WMDs that didn't exist. Links between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein didn't exist. How do you bring that off? How do you take a country as sophisticated, as media-centric as America is, and sell them a war that had nothing to do with the price of fish or the enemy that actually attacked us on 9/11? That's theater, and that's not truth. It's fiction.

Tavis: I think I've heard it all now. Frank Rich quoting Stephen Colbert. The world is coming to an end. (Laugh)

Rich: Or a beginning, whatever. (Laugh)

Tavis: Rich quoting Colbert. I've heard it all. That said, let me ask this question first. I did a lot of traveling over the summer and spent some time in various parts of the world, and everywhere I went, without question, Frank Rich, without distinction, I got asked this repeatedly. That is how it is that half of America still, according to polls, certainly a good number of Americans still believe what Mr. Bush and Rove and others in the White House have been telling us, or as you would put it, selling us?

How would you explain to someone outside of our country how it is or why it is that so many Americans still don't seem to get what seems so obvious to everybody else? That there's lying and spying, and a decline of truth?

Rich: Well, in a way, that's my subject. Because I believe that if you're a good showman and you sell something often enough, and repeat something often enough, to a public that by the way has other things to do in their lives. They have jobs; they have children; they have families; they have church. They are not always listening to all the details.

If you're told over and over again that 9/11 has something to do with Iraq, or they're just mentioned in the same sentence, you start to believe, as half the country did, that the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqis, when none of them were. If you're told over and over again that the smoking gun is a mushroom cloud, and you're told by people who are in power and who are relentless about it and do it over and over again, it's effective. It's like being sold a cereal or a car. It can be done, and it was done, and it's still being done.

Tavis: Who does Frank Rich blame for this greatest story ever being sold, this decline and fall of truth? You could blame the president; you could blame the Congress; you could blame the media; you could blame the American public for being gullible. Who do you blame for this, Frank Rich?

Rich: I think the blame can go several ways. Obviously, we have to blame a White House and administration that manufactured this propaganda and was so relentless about it. We also have to blame a press, including at times my own newspaper, 'The New York Times,' that in the run-up to the war in Iraq was not skeptical enough. Didn't quite fulfill its responsibility in a democracy.

Because they have to be a watchdog, even if that means taking the heat. And the press after 9/11 was not enough of a watchdog. The Democratic opposition, weak. Didn't challenge it until very recently. Didn't challenge the truthiness of what was being said. And the public, too, although it's easy to blame the public, and the public deserves some blame.

The fact is, this country was traumatized, and for good reason, after 9/11. We had been attacked. And I have a little bit of sympathy for a public that felt that they gave President Bush their support, 90 percent of the country supported him, and never dreamed that after a successful war in Afghanistan he would hijack it for this detour.

Tavis: Let me ask you a simple, a real adolescent question. Why do you believe this administration is this way?

Rich: I think that they do not fundamentally trust the idea of Democracy. They're arrogant. They're not stupid, as some people say, liberals say. I don't think that this president is stupid. But they really feel it's my way or the highway. They have their plan, they have the reasons. They don't like being challenged, and they don't care if the facts necessarily fit what they're doing.

So they're just gonna present it, and try to stuff it down the public's throat. And until the past year or so, they've had a great deal of success. But now it's fallen apart in other areas, too, like trying to sell Social Security privatization, for instance.

Tavis: We live in a nation where, to one of your earlier points, if there is a person or persons, or an entity that can show that something works, there are others who will try to do the same thing. If it works, there are others who will emulate it. I raise that to ask this question, Frank. What reason do I have to believe that the next administration, come '08, be it a Republican or a Democratic administration won't emulate some of the stuff we have seen come out of this administration with regard to fudging, with regard to hiding, and covert activity, etcetera, etcetera. Why, if it works, should I believe that the next administration won't do the same thing?

Rich: Well, I think you raise a good point, and it doesn't matter which party it is. Indeed, I end my book saying the Bush administration did not invent this kind of propaganda. They perfected it, but it's a bipartisan thing, and we have got to - you, me, and everybody who's listening, we have got to be more skeptical. We've gotta be better citizens, in terms of watching the information out there.

If we care about ecoli in our spinach, we've gotta look at what garbage is in our information stream too, and start to ask questions and not take Washington's word for anything. And I hope that's the one lesson we've learned. We have to let politicians now prove to us that they can be truthful and show their hand, and not try to manipulate us.

Tavis: Practically speaking, 'cause I wanted to ask you just a moment ago what it was that the public can really do about this, you've answered that question. Let me do a follow-up then to the question that I didn't get a chance to ask. (Laugh) The follow-up would be this, Frank Rich. Practically speaking, how do the American people do what you've just suggested we need to do as we head toward midterm elections and presidential elections in a couple of years?

Rich: I think what you've gotta do is spend a little bit more time on it. If we can go to 'Consumer Reports' to see how different cars compare, or how different toaster ovens repair, surely it's worth it for our society to check news sources against each other. We've got this wonderful thing, the internet, which allows us to get almost every newspaper in the world for free, and television news organizations and bloggers.

Do some contrast and comparing. Do a little bit of homework. See what makes sense. I'm not saying you have to believe 'The New York Times' or any news organization, but don't just take what lands on your television set that night, or on your front stoop that morning as gospel. Be proactive, not passive.

Tavis: Nobody turns a phrase quite like Frank Rich does. On the cover of this book, in fact, at the bottom, the print, no doubt too small for you to see on the television screen, but some words that I'm sure will trigger some memories for you on the cover. Mission accomplished, heck of a job, Brownie. Shock and awe. Slam dunk. Dead or alive. Bring ‘em on.

Last throes. The smoking gun is a mushroom cloud. Uranium from Africa. As the Iraqis stand up, we'll stand down. All part of the new book by Frank Rich, 'The Greatest Story Ever Sold, The Decline and Fall of Truth From 9/11 to Katrina.' Frank Rich, nice to have you on the program, sir.

Rich: So great to be there. Thank you very much.

Tavis: My pleasure. Up next on this program, the inspiring story of the New Orleans-based jazz group, The Dirty Dozen Brass Band. They've taken Marvin Gaye's album, 'What's Going On,' and put their own spin and flavor on it. We'll talk to them, and a performance in a moment. Stay with us.