Jim Lehrer, until very recently, seen nightly on the respected PBS nightly news hour, also finds time to write. He has to his credit 20 novels, two memoirs and three plays.
Published in 1995, The Last Debate begins with the managers of the Democratic and Republican campaigns wrangling over which journalists should be on the panel. They finally agree on Mike Howley, “an esteemed political correspondent of the capital’s leading newspaper” as moderator; Joan Howley, a news anchor for a major network; Henry Ramirez, a radio reporter and child of illegal immigrants, and Barbara Manning, a writer for This Week magazine.
In a closed session where the panel is sworn to secrecy, they agree to ask questions hoping to expose Meredith, the handsome and charismatic Republican candidate, as the demagogue, fundamentalist and racist they think he is. At the moment, in the polls he is far ahead of Democrat Greene, “liberal, earnest and utterly colorless.”
One of the journalists covering the debate is Tom Chapman of the The New American Tatler. Villain of the piece?
The central question of this interesting and entertaining novel is, what is the role of the journalist/reporter?
The role of Book Bites is to persuade you to take this book out of the library and decide for yourself. You won’t be bored.
ADDENDUM: This just in as this Book Bite was going to press: On Tuesday, September 13, Jim Lehrer released Tension City: Inside the Presidential Debates, from Kennedy-Nixon to Obama-McCain, which illuminates the 10 presidential and one vice presidential debate Lehrer has moderated.
Maria Wood says
I am persuaded to go to the library and decide for myself!
Rissa K. says
As per the addendum, I think most people would really enjoy his latest book Tension City. You can hear a great interview of him on the book report radio show from this past week that gives some great insight to the world of political debates. https://bookreportradio.com/archives.html
It’s an extremely interesting interview conducted by Elaine Charles and I think it will give you great perspective on this article.