Uncommon Knowledge with Pat Sajak

this time he'll do the spinning today an uncommon knowledge leading entertainer who is also a normal human being and an unapologetic conservative wheel of Fortune's Pat Sajak from Beverly Hills uncommon knowledge now welcome to uncommon knowledge I'm Peter Robinson a native of Chicago Pat Sajak got his start in show business as a teenaged disc jockey in 1981 mr. Sajak began hosting Wheel of Fortune as of last week's statistics that is more than three decades after he began hosting the show Wheel of Fortune remained in the top three syndicated programs in all of television and was viewed by an average of nine million Americans a day one of the most popular entertainers in the history of television mr. Sajak is also remarkable for a second reason in a town so heavily Democratic that Barack Obama has so far raised more than five times as much Hollywood money as Mitt Romney mr. Sajak represents an unapologetic conservative Pat Sajak welcome I'll accept unapologetic conservative normal I'm not sure I'm ready to accept it but I intend to establish that I've talked to friends who say that this is one of the leading character is we Peter I'm well well first things first does Vanna White get to keep all those clothes she wears it is you know it's funny when when when any I'm with her and someone comes up to her or we're in the studio and someone has a question for the audience that's question one and then question two is are you sure you get to get enough don't get II mean there's now that's the that's the quiets pretty much the focus and the answer is no she doesn't I get to keep her close it's a very unusual arrangement all right segment one learning about America when I mentioned on ricochet that I'd be interviewing you one member put up a post saying and I thought it was really quite striking quote my impression is that Pat Sajak is from a part of the country close quote in other words you don't seem like a media creation you seem like an American who bears the imprint of the time and place where he grew up Chicago in the 50s and 60s what kind of family what did your dad do tell us about it I suppose you know there's certainly no show business in my blood at all and yep it is something I've always aspired to I grew up watching Jack Paar on television on The Tonight Show and he was sort of my idol and I would sneak sneak out of bed at night not to not to go out with the guys or grab a beer but it was to turn The Tonight Show and see what Jack was up to we came good became good friends later in life by the way but so I can't explain exactly where that came from but yeah our life was was I don't know how to describe it today I guess you'd say lower middle class and we were from an industrial part of the city I used to come home after school and flip on the TV work because back then all the Cub games were on television every day games and rather than the cartoons I would turn on the Cubs and when I would come home and and I would see Beauty shots of downtown Chicago and it looked like Oz to me I thought there are people with sailboats and they they're rich people live down there and what are they because I've you know we were in our little little neighborhood the very neighborhood oriented city we rarely left well I got a little older I found out we were like eight minutes from downtown Chicago but I thought it was the other side of the Moon Sajak is what kind of name it's polish Polish name there's a there was a D in my think of it when in Warsaw my name is spelled SI je dak I think it would have been a pronounced sie doch if I'm not mistaken so I grew up with that extra D and it was pronounced Sajak and I drove the teachers crazy but I kept it all my life when I started in television I didn't use it on the air but I kept it it was all my credit cards and everything and I like the separation but but then when I got married and we had children I thought I don't want for my kids through the same thing I went through so we dropped that there's a D out there somewhere that used to belong to me so already there's a mystery Polish background blue-collar fair to call it blue-collar neighborhood Chicago that should have stamped you as a Democrat for the rest of your life yeah and we were oh I can't say where there was a politically active family we were we were from Chicago of course we were Democrats and I uh I swear I didn't think I didn't know there were elections I just thought Mayor Daley had been crowned somewhere along the way and there he was I find that I'm not joking about that I don't recall elections they may have happened I'm sure they did there's some probably some regulation to that effect but it certainly didn't affect our lives and but yeah I I can't there's no epiphany here I do we were nominally Democratic my father would gripe about all politicians I read the paper in the corrupts they're all crooks and he was probably right in that especially that group in that city at that time maybe even now but anyway we would I remember I do remember a moment I was I was get I was probably 18 17 18 years old didn't care much it in fall of politics real closely Johnson and Goldwater right 64 64 I would have not had been 18 and I sort of figured Johnson was going to win and Goldwater seemed a little goofy to me and I didn't it's an odd thing happened I picked up the Chicago sun-times and i na editorial cartoonist her block he was right sure sure the worst editorial cartoonist in the world by the way because he labeled everything if he drew a picture of a glass he'd write glass on there and then an arrow pointing to so you to understand that was a glass he would do that with the Soviet Union there'd be a bear it would say Soviet Union there'd be a sickle he didn't want to make any mistakes anyway Goldwater had made as I'm sure you remember a famous remark he was being painted as this extremist and his line was extremism in defense of Liberty is no vice right strikes me as a pretty okay thing to say I pick up the paper and there's a SATA toriel cartoonist and in a cartoon it showed two bank robbers I know because it said bank robbers with arrows pointing to them and they were they were leaving the scene of the crime they were shooting at the police behind them and one of them was turning the other saying extremism and defense of Liberty is no vice and I thought and it's the first time I remember saying that's not right that's not what he was saying that's not the point he was trying what are you doing here and for some reason unfair yeah for some reason it started to attune me a little bit to that kind of coverage of thing and that's that's about I mean it's a strange thing to point to but but it did begin and by the time the campaign was over I was you know putting Goldwater stickers on the window for all the good it does all right Columbia College in Chicago a professor teacher of yours says look there's a little station over here that's got an opening and so you start as a doing the night shift as a disc jockey and in 1968 you join the army and go to Vietnam and when they discover your background you become the voice of armed forces radio and how did you begin the day I would yell good morning Vietnam which very loudly at 6:00 in the morning which is really silly to do when the enemy is like nearby you should be quiet in hushed tones you should speak but yeah I did that for it was it was same strange to say being in Vietnam but it was terrific duty I mean it was the biggest biggest market I ever worked in we had half a million American soldiers all these civilians there most Vietnamese 'lest wanted to hear American and you were in Saigon I was inside Vietnam broadcasting I was oh yes indeed when I first went to Vietnam they made me a finance clerk and sent me out to some fort about 30 miles outside the city and I'd made repeated it it really wasn't the army discovering my background it was it was repeated attempts to to get transferred and they finally allowed me to do that and yeah I did it for for about a year and a half I was I was the the guy not the guy depicted in the film that was a guy named Adrian Cronauer and I was one or two guys removed from him but that was the format if you did the morning show you yelled good morning Vietnam and I did and what did you learn about America in Vietnam not a thing and I you and I I am reaching for something profound here now said it right up I know and what is strange because I was obviously very close to what was going on and the war and the whole thing that was going on is is not any more clear to me than anywhere else in fact in some ways less clear because the whole anti-war movement back here I was gone I I didn't see that I and we didn't have satellites and instantaneous television I mean I heard the moon landing on radio and saw pictures the next day so it was a different era so I'd hear about these protesters and it didn't it seemed like it seemed it was happening in another country I happen to be my country but I wasn't there at the time so if I have an odd view of the war it seemed we were all sort of pulling in the same direction and it seemed it seemed I don't want to say noble but it seemed the right thing to do to us because we were that we were either in some cases asked told to be there draftees or we agree agreed to go as so when you came home was there another kind of her block Goldwater moment when you hear the war as it was understood and described by anti-war protest there's a little cognitive dissonance in Pat Sajak's myosin no no that wasn't what it was yeah and and and I you know I have no trouble most Wars I think he could sit down and you could you could have a debate and you could decide why this was a good thing to get into it wasn't what the results were how we did it how we executed this or that my hackles were raised when I got back and and I you know I wasn't a combat guy so I didn't come back and that people weren't spitting on me or what it would have it but I know a lot of guys from that period who are still messed up from the experience not just not just the experience itself but the aftermath they're only now be could being taken into the American family if you will there was always I mean if you would call for I must have been twenty years after if you were from another planet you came down and watched television and went to the movies you would think everyone who served in Vietnam came back crazed and was taking hostages because that was always the villain in in these in these pieces now i go to i go to veteran's events and i'm not i'm not a real veteran activist i will say that to you but on occasion i'll go to them and guys are still dealing with all that and they're still coming to terms with it and coming to peace with it's been a very difficult road for them huge success with wheel of fortune but let's get you from vietnam to wheel of fortune because there's a surprising amount of hard work and struggle really as i read it you go your demob so to speak in washington you stay in washington DC take a job as a night clerk at the Madison Hotel and try to find work you end up finding work in a small station in southeastern Kentucky then you move to the big time which is a small station in Nashville before coming out here is a weatherman to Los Angeles so there's a lot of there's some small towns and late hours and hard struggle yeah yeah yeah you know I have I have a real low threshold for for celebrity sob stories you have no impulse to romanticize no I don't look though I went from place to place I was trying to find work some places I did in some place you go the path of least resistance sometimes I dunno I was working in this little town and Marie Kentucky and I went there because a friend of mine knew a guy who owned the station I couldn't get work anywhere in d.c Baltimore that area and so I I said I'll go it was a 250 watt minimum wage kind of thing and I was there about a year I was working from 7:00 to midnight playing rock and roll records and one night it hit me I guess I was 25 probably by then and I said my career is not really taking off at this moment so I packed up what little I had and drove to the nearest big city which was which was Nashville where I was enormous ly successful immediately I began at a Howard Johnson's and worked and worked there for a good six months while I banged on every door and and finally someone got tired of my banging and and and hired me so it's but it's no different it's no different than than anyone else in any other profession I mean they're always there yeah it's not a tragedy and and it you know I when I couldn't get job in broadcasting I'd work somewhere else and it didn't seem horrible at the time okay so here's what I find striking as we sit here in Beverly Hills this this heavily Democratic town that when you talk about your upbringing in Chicago and when you talk about Vietnam and when you talk about this and even give me a little push back and say no no no I'm not going to romanticize my hard work and my professional struggle by the time you become the host of wheel of fortune you become through your life experience is something of an expert on middle America and there's no contempt in you for small towns or for working people in Chicago this there is you have had 30 years of fame and big income and living in a nice house here in Los Angeles and you have not developed any distaste for middle America at all well I think you're right and it's great for me because I can go anywhere and be comfortable I mean I have you know I have friends of means and and and high station and I'm and I and I'm welcome in their midst and I have a good time and they're great but I can I'm happy to go you know I'm happy to go sit at a fast food place in in in the Midwest somewhere and talk to people and I'm comfortable with that the the the hardest thing for me to get used to in this whole political thing that's raging around us is this idea of you know it's that it's it's that it's the Liberal Democrats and the little man and this this great bond they if there's no bond there and I and I hate to paint with a broad brush but I will anyway there is such disdain for the four flyover country and and I said I have a lot of you know you can't work here not have a lot of liberal friends most emotion of them are and and well and we don't sit around talk politics much but when they do you could it just the distain drips off their lips I'm I was talking to someone about the sort of superior attitude that that I detected in and instead of defending it or or arguing against it it was well of course we're superior we travel we go to we go to other countries where you know is very paternalistic and and and aggravating ah to me and that's that that troubles me the most that that this put this Protectorate of the of the little guy can't stand the little guy right segment to the conservative member of the board of the Claremont Institute a conservative think-tank remember the board of Eagle publishing which owns the conservative newspaper Human Events and the conservative publishing house Regnery vice chairman of the board of Hillsdale College the great college in southern Michigan that dedicates itself to instruction in American political philosophy and refuses to accept a penny of federal funding which by the way allows them to do things like teach like teach so you're not just temperamentally conservative it's not just that you like middle America whereas some of the Liberals in this town feel disdain for middle America you are actually a committed and well-read and articulate conservative and I would like to know how that happened books people who got you started on the intellectual side of of your political thinking you know man back into that lack into again anyway me first of all I might write ooh be careful with it because I have no trouble I have no trouble with celebrity politics I mean this is America and anyone even if he's a movie star can could be about involved in politics I'd object to bait and switch when it comes to celebrity like if I go to see a concert you know shut up and saying as Laura Ingraham I think title the book and and you know don't don't lecture me about whales don't tell me what to do it my recyclables don't I can take I'll take care of that now so I try to be political in political situations when people people come to an event where I've where I'm in my political mode they know what they're getting so I would never go on wheel and start proselytizing I just wouldn't do it it's not fair to anyone it's not why they're paying me and and so so I've always tried to maintain a bit of a wall not because I'm ashamed of my politics but because I just don't think it's fair to mix them where were they where they don't blow so as we like to say now having said that I think you know you you referred earlier to my struggles as I was trying to get established and and I think that I think that had a bit to do with how you develop in terms of your philosophies and your political philosophy because there's there's no reason I should be sitting here but there's no there's there's maybe no other country in the world where I would be sitting here doing this given my beginnings which were which were humble with a small age and and and I'm proud of that and I'm not complaining about that and then most people are in that position or or even a smaller age but I every now and then it really hits me without getting corny about it what I mean what a place where I can do this and have had the kind of success I've enjoyed and and and things are open to me that that I never dreamed could be open to me I now know we're downtown Chicago is I know where most downtown's are and I know how to use them and and so it's it's more is it really wasn't a I didn't sit down and I'm reading an r and and I didn't know I did it wasn't right it wasn't that it wasn't an intellectual ok I'll press you on that sure a little bit more not press you but just talk it through a little bit more I used I was always struck that when this is in the old days when I was a speechwriter in the White House and quite often staffers in the first few years in the Reagan administration some staffer or other would say well having trouble getting time with the president but I'll get in the limousine with Ronald Reagan and we're going from the White House to the hotel where he's delivering a speech and I'll have 15 minutes to talk about this or that policy or show him this or that briefing paper and it never worked now why did it never work because Ronald Reagan loved to look out the window and wave to people and it became clear that he liked America I know that sounds trite or or obvious in some way but I actually think it's quite a profound point that Ronald Reagan wanted the country he had aspirations for the country he knew it had faults he wanted to take it places but he liked it as it was and yeah that's what I sent in you as well there's no struggle between Pat Sajak in America you like the place you know we've done this what we have accomplished in this little nation of ours in a relatively short time span is just absolutely incredible and and and that's why another the the whole the racial issues that we face they really trouble me because look look I would do have we had issues over race and absolutely do we continue to have absolutely but I but I you know thousands of thousands of white people died fighting a civil war where that was a pretty key part of the whole thing and I and I'm not sure that sometimes I worried that stories but told we have a friend whose name is Lionel Chetwynd a terrific writer and in this directory we're in this town and who is really talked about someone who's put himself in the line over the years I was griping about this Jim a couple years ago I said Lionel here's some money go write a script on this subject and he wrote him he wrote a script on Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass and I said because I want to tell that I want to tell the story about racing and he wrote a beautiful script and we're actually out trying to sell the darn thing but I mean that's how how I get bothered by that that vision it just troubles me that in the last coincidentally last three and a half years I I was not I was not an Obama supporter but I did say well at least at least we can begin to bury this right this issue now and we haven't it is it is festering now I'm not sure how this happened I well I have some ideas I think I think a lot of it has been done for political expediency I think a lot of it has been done for in a way that has been detrimental to this nation as a whole and it really really troubles me I went to a school that was 90% black when I grew up in Chicago high school I was the minority kid so when when I hear conservative Republican and racist and the same I I get a little I get a little annoyed okay segment three Hollywood talked about your views help me to understand this place a couple of statistics 1992 Bill Clinton is elected to the presidency with 43% of the vote in the country and a very reputable reputable poll of writers and directors and producers in film and television showed that 83% of them voted for Clinton 20 years later what's changed not much apparently by the according to the statistics I've got Barack Obama has outraised Mitt Romney in Hollywood by at least 5 to 1 so here you have a town which is in business to sell ideas and stories to the rest of the country but is just fundamentally out of sync in its own thinking and in the stories it tells itself from the rest of the country yeah I mean I well I you know I get asked that question a lot whenever I'm in any other part of the country they asked some version of that and it and I and I don't have the definitive answer either I have some answers if you are and I look it's hard to get inside other people's head and I and and there are people who believe what they believe for very strong and personal reasons more let's stipulate we're talking about people who are your friends yeah you know is community yeah and denigrating anyone however there is a there's a rarefied air out here if you've been successful and and you you travel in in these circles and you're you got a home here and I'm there and you're flying here when you're meeting this kind to do and that and people are bowing and scraping to you given that and you rely on the on these this America we're talking about to keep you at that level right you so the so the way I think that what happens inside a head is I'm going to demonstrate what a regular guy I am by supporting the little people and we know what that means it means we're voting Democratic because we're liberal and we believe in in in we want every we want everyone to pay their fair share now I may be paying my accountant a lot of money to make sure I'm paying as little as possible I always tell my friends who are I'd say we don't pay enough taxes I say you know the tax rates are just legal minimums you you can write a check and some people do weather with our PA really there are people who were right you can write a check to the Treasury tomorrow and you send all your money to them and so I say if you're if you feel you're not pay if you feel we're not carrying out go ahead just go ahead but I'm guessing they're not doing that so I think that's part of it I think there's a I don't wanna say guilt is there is a driving force but there's a little bit of that you know I'm doing so great night humble beginnings and how can i how can I show and to me it's perverse because the way you show it is to create a situation the country will help create a foster of a situation where anyone can accomplish what you but accomplished and the way to do that is we know the free market way and all that kind of thing but they their idea is if I show that I'm willing to if I stand up for them by defending them against these big nasty and then you get into that stereotypical it's the big it's the big the big nasty and business-oriented Republicans who don't care about the little guys and and that's and Hollywood likes a story and that sort of the story and that's that's the script that's been laid out um Michael Medved talk-show host a friend of mine I you may know him too as far as I know I know what Michael I remember he was a writer in Hollywood for time sure Michaels explanation quote in the entertainment industry you have to have your emotions constantly available to you so the actor has to cry on cue the writer is worried about eliciting an emotional reaction you have to have your emotions constantly available to you and a town that operates on emotional self manipulation will lean to the left we support the Democratic Party because they give more money to poor people and that feels good immediately whereas the Conservatives says well where does the money come from are you're depressing economic growth the conservative position actually requires three or four steps of thought you buy that the soda great there is what you can that they're also extremely smart people these are the script writers and there's a you know what's it it's it's not as it's not as interesting a story just dramatically you know way as you just described it you know where does the money come from doesn't make as good a script except this poor bag lady off the street and in and into a shelter and a way because the big business next door isn't helping we're going to help that's a better story you know that's that's so I it's probably always going to be this way and I think you're just you know I think you're spitting into the wind to try to change it what is changing I think is other than the the money which can help a campaign I think people are tuning out celebrity endorsements I mean if you know everyone has an opinion especially now in these internet age where everyone's blocking you don't have to be a celebrity to have your own to talk to the world everybody's doing it so I I'm not sure how much influence they have I guess on the social side of things certainly when they you can you can move opinion with with a particularly popular movie I suppose last question I know you've mentioned your friend Lionel Chetwynd and I know he's been working as you said he's out there Lionel Chetwynd has spent several decades of his life talking about politics in this town has he have the folks have you do you feel a change I have I found a quotations googling around film producer called Frank D martini who blogs on a website called Hollywood Republican Hollywood used to be about 8020 Democrat over Republican now I'd say it's closer to 6040 close quote you feel a change and so it's I'm not sure which is right but it's it's it's it's somewhere in that it's it's let it's is probably less than 80 now and and maybe a little more than 60 yeah a little bit I mean I know that nothing terribly dramatic about I still think at the at the sort of big star level that there that liberalism will prevail because again it's if you're a big star that's how you show that you're you're not you're not you may enjoy you may enjoy all your homes but in truth you're really aching for people who don't have these right okay George Clooney is not going to get a nice headline in People magazine by saying I think I pay too much in taxes right got it you know the there is there is there's an interesting thing here and it's generationally this may finally be changing we forgive we're a very forgiving country we forgive we forgive a tax on our you know we forgive a tax on our harbors we forget we forgive it you know it were very forgiving this town will never as long as a certain generation just never get over what has come to be known as the blacklist that's a drew that's still it's still a dry you can say my five decades it's incredible I would say half a century of more than that a go and and you better explain the blacklist during the communist the McCarthy anti-communist period there was what - what does the Hollywood ten isn't that what they were yeah and and that and it Studios refused to deal with them because of their communist associations yeah and and and a lot of them had but then there was also if you name names you didn't name it right not to unearth that whole thing whether it was right whether is wrong we all have our opinions on that you get into Whittaker Chambers all that good stuff but it's still you say McCarthy and that's what it's McCarthy McCarthyism McCarthyism McCarthyism again generationally that that may finally be starting to change which may account from 80 to 60 segments for the these sayings of Chairman Pat as I said you're not just a committed conservative you are an articulate conservative I would like to read a few quotations and have you explicate them this is Pat Sajak on Obamacare or actually on Frank rich of the New York Times comment on Obamacare quote New York Times columnist Frank Rich I'm quoting you has apparently been able to get the bottom of the vocal opposition to Obamacare as the ever tolerant rich reasons quote you're quoting Frank rich the conjunction of a black president and a female Speaker of the House would sow fears among a dwindling and threatening minority no matter what politics were in play close quote now it's backed in quoting you would it be too much to approach the matter on its merits and leave the psychobabble to dr. Phil close quote yeah I you know I don't know where that's that's first of all you're going back to how you feel about America what a damning thing for Frank Ridge to say about his fellow citizens are there are there misogynists out there are there races up solutely and there always will be and what are you going to do but the idea that that we're where that white males you know especially those those the gun-totin bible-thumping are opposed to to a piece of legislation because what was it there is a black president and the female Speaker of the House and then the original cook there's also gay Chairman of an important congressional committee Barney Frank I mean I don't care much for Harry Reid and he's none of the above so you know it's just I don't know where that stuff comes from and and and and if it if that had come if if it were possible to find a conservative version of that you'd snot comment on - I would smack them around and they would get smacked around right they would be as I mean that's this is the impulse for everybody that's hate speech to me what he does there that's and I don't I don't get that I don't get that I don't like that this is her block being unfair to Goldwater and then some yeah I mean it's more than unfair it's it's it's just it's just unspeakably vile to make that kind of general statement about your fellow citizens you want to talk about a particular thing that somebody wrote that reflects that fine but to to make this blanket statement as I'm not sure a lot of big a blanket was but anyway it's can you tell them troubled by yes yes no I you're you're you're an angry white man pat pat sajak quote I'm not making an argument to ban pornography but its omnipresence in this information age certainly makes it worthy of discussion as for the left their argument that the government should stay out of the bedroom is one that would be easier to support if only they weren't so anxious to welcome the government into every other room in the house close quote it's an interesting the left has an interesting idea about what it wants to keep hands off and what it wants to keep the hands on and that that's that would that's what that was all about uh and that's it that's not an anti pornography that's not pro pornography that's just that but there is no doubt that it's a big that it should be an issue now not to not do we not do we ban and not do we go back to being a Victorian but but what do we do when when any kid can pick up any device and sometimes whether he wants it or not search for something and there it is it is a valid issue anywhere just discuss you there just some things you that if you even want to discuss I always think about a tipper gore back when when her husband was running trying to get the nomination some some cycles ago she suggested that rock lyrics be printed on them that's all just don't ban them just if I'm a parent okay here's what my kids do I like this or not well I mean it practically derailed Gore's campaign it's such you talk about Social Security being the third rail there that the left has third rails all over the place they skip one into all the time it's all third rails and to even discuss them makes you want to tear up the First Amendment you know in that race this is on Mitt Romney in a piece and ricochet this past February in the middle of the GOP primary battle so this is in the context of Romney going up against Gingrich and Rick Perry and Rick Santorum and others quo this is for me this is from you I'm quoting I'll pay attention four years four years john mccain was the left's favorite republican but a strange thing happened to Senator McCain when he became his party's nominee for president according to the Democrats and their media friends the Maverick was suddenly marching and lobst lockstep with the most radical fringe of the right I Pat Sajak I still haven't made up my mind as to which candidate would be best for the Republican Party but sometimes I wonder if the person with the are next to his name will always be called a wild-eyed conservative should we just go ahead and nominate one well you do wonder you know we do and this is there's this battle that goes on within the party about you know how pure a conservative you are and and then the week isn't as well he's got to be electable whatever that means I got to appeal to these unka having been an uncommitted voters I don't know what these people are I they maybe they maybe I should I don't know anyone who's uncommitted they're people pretty much know how they feel but putting that aside yeah I wonder sometimes because you could take what I'm McCain to me was a perfect example because he would tweak bush and the lower left left left loved him uh and then and then suddenly he became this demon and to my eyes he didn't shake it change at all just the the the the adjectives changed when you when they wrote about last quotation from chairman Pat here even the liberal hysteria and this is a piece in which you quote Nancy Pelosi saying she's trying to save life on the planet as we know it and Paul Krugman the New York Times columnist who describes a budget deal as a catastrophe on multiple levels and then you write quote in 1975 Newsweek famously ran a story on the the impact of global cooling of course now we are warming ourselves into oblivion I actually don't think the left is dealing in scare tactics with these pronouncements I believe they mean what they say and they may be right their world may end on November 6 2012 why is the lift so hysterical I don't know I there is you know it's strange to talk about talked about earlier I would talk about the anti-war movement I do think there's a segment of the Pappas youth I don't know what it is but there's there is a there's youth and then there's sort of a a permanent protesting class who needs to find the next issue you know apartheid was good for a while we've got climate change now it's ok this is let's find somewhere you know I don't even know you know there this monetary stuff they're always writing about I don't even know what it is I don't even know if they're writing for or against I think every now and then you just need a good riot alright segment 5 fan mail a few questions came in when I mentioned on a ricochet that I would be and I didn't pick you I didn't you play did not be good for you ok ok from Aaron Miller Pat's it quote had I know an errand I would it be Pat Sajak is a consummate gentleman why does being a gentleman matter um I I don't know and I and I and I appreciate the thought but it but I try to be I mean I tried to be in my personal life I'm just more comfortable that way I'd like to be treated nicely and I so and I really and I try to be on the show I I do think I'm troubled by a lot of not a television basher look I'm playing hangman and spinning a giant multicolored wheel and I'm not doing you know Shakespeare in the Park but at least we are respectful of our players if someone screws up as they do I try to get them through it and not make it worse for them we're in a strange time in entertainment general it's not just that it's crude and crafts it just mean it's really mean and yeah you know everyone wants to run to the YouTube video to see you know to see the guy you know bang his head against the wall after he fell off the bike I don't I don't know what that is it's troubling to me on some level I don't know what we do but yeah I like I'd like ladies and gentlemen which I mean I have a crass side and I and I use it in selected moments and once we start rolling the tape I'll tell you a couple of jokes all right from Chris I'm not sure I can pronounce his name correctly cursor Chris her Toby's quote has a Hillsdale College alum life as Hillsdale College alumni my wife and I are curious to know how mr. sage I came to be on the board what are his thoughts about the trajectory of our College Hillsdale an American higher education in general well Wow first of all Hillsdale happened really because of Larry Arne who you mentioned the college yeah you mentioned Claremont and I I met Larry that a few events and ended up serving on the board of Claremont Larry then moved on to become president of Hillsdale and he's my Pied Piper if he I come no I visited the campus a few times and I just love the place and this idea of not taking federal or state money is not just to make a point it's really to allow that it's if it's shocking how much time and effort and paperwork is devoted to is about these rules and regulations that's it's crazy it's just great the the administrator colleges are so expensive and it's all administrative it's taking care of this the stuff so he'll sail doesn't have to do that which does free it up to do I joked earlier to teach but that's that's the focus there roughly 5,000 colleges and universities in America to Hillsdale and Grove City in Pennsylvania refused to take federal money house Hillsdale doing well good financial shape very good in fact in fact schools come to ill sales how do you do this because they're envious of the school's financial safe and part of the reason is people are attracted to that philosophy and so we have I'm one of them we have a lot of people I mean I'm on the bomb the vice chairman of the board I've died in Cote Hillsdale none of my family did and most of the supporters unlike most most schools rely on alright sure and and that web that goes out the vast majority of people who support Hillsdale not I have never set foot on campus this is a separate show but the question dealt with American higher education in general and in some ways the questions we've been asking about this town apply to the Faculty of every fancy school in the country they're they're overwhelmingly liberal poll after poll you look at the financial country have any idea what that is uh you know it's another mystery it is a bit of a mystery although III think the these sort of protesting class of the sixties are kind of running things in the in academia now uh so I thought I think we have a generational chance to change all the right people are about to retire and die yeah I did and you know there's something to be said for death if when when when it happens at the right time to the right people from dogsbody what's Pat's favorite Shakespeare play Nia has he acted in one I've never acted in a Shakespeare play and I don't know that I'm capable of doing it uh but I I could read Hamlet once a week could you really uh well maybe I'm exaggerating one let me twist the question what's Pat's favorite Neil Simon play and has he acted on one yeah well oddly enough I have actually just did we did a Odd Couple up at the Connecticut Repertory Theater doesn't that sound - but that was great fun I I have I have a and I do got a good review in the New York Times ecology it does it makes me very worried about you pets just a little bit yeah they were very nice they're they and I confess that I haven't read it because I'm I've learned to stay away from those things and I will eventually but I know it was good because my co-star wasn't sulking so I know I heard it was and I heard from people like you saying how come you got a good review in The Times so I'd give them credit to be able to separate borrow they didn't know so this leads to a larger question which is Pat Sajak 30-years host of wheel of fortune you're famous you have nice houses in a couple of places that I know of several watches and several watches and so what's Pat Sajak do next serious acting Congress Congress uh no no and no you know what what what I I'm gonna I'm gonna speak to that you know what Pat Sajak's going to do I've always wanted to do this he is going to do wheel for three more years or four more years or six more years or whatever that ought to break any records and then we'll put already broken records with wheel it could be I mean 60 minutes have been on longer than we have so other shows have been on longer prices right I think it's been on longer but but that anybody's counting no exactly but we've been on a long time and it sure will go long after I'm gone because it's got it still in these days of splintered audiences as you pointed out in your very generous opening it still has a very big national audience every night I think I'm guessing that wheel will be the last big public thing I do I mean I'm not going to sit on the porch necessarily and Whittle but there's other business stuff I'm interested in that I do and I there's no point moving on anything else I mean to put in a career since I mean what am I going to you know what am I going to do the acting is fun but I'm not if I were 45 instead of 65 I would you know think more about that I mean I'm very happy with my lot in life look I I didn't intend to be a game show host it was if I had made a list of the 30 things in show business I thought I'd end up doing game shows would have been like 28 nothing against it I just didn't think that was my thing and when Merv Griffin hired me I said that to him and he said because I said yeah I'm kind of low-key and I don't do that back then it was more of it hey you want $10,000 I say I don't do that he said no you don't understand I'd like what you do and just and to Merv's great credit he never once said to me why don't you do this why don't you do they just let me do what I did so I'm happy with the way it all turned out I mean how could he ask for something more than that so I'll probably just maybe I will sit on the front porch and when I close by discussing my theory of Pat's age' I I didn't know it's just like the unified fear I had something like that something like that my theory of Pat Sajak is based on an email I got the other day from our friend Larry are in the president of Hillsdale College let me quote Larry ever he's talking about you everywhere he goes people interrupt him to get his autograph his way of coping is in every facet of his life to assert the normal he raises his children normally he has a normal marriage he lives in Maryland mainly not Hollywood so as not to be in that pressure cooker close quote so here's my theory of Pat Sajak which gets to your politics that you're a lot like Ronald Reagan Ronald Reagan grew up in the Midwest he spent his career as a radio announcer and then as an actor always focusing on ordinary Americans as his audience Ronald Reagan never lived in New York he never spun spent a moment worrying what people thought of him in the faculty lounge at Yale or Harvard and Ronald Reagan liked leading a normal life because he understood that normal American life is pretty darned good and I think that's in you as well am i onto something you had me at you're like Ronald ray you don't you you don't have to say anymore that's fine I can I'll sleep with a smile on my face night I know I know what you're saying and I think I think there's something to that and I don't know what that is and I'm not going to bow and take any credit for it I think I think it has to do with with the people I've come in contact with my in my life the the in us in a way time with the struggles in a way the slow steady March which I mean the show's been really big but for a long time things were the decade of really hard work young and so you had time to get used to it along the way and and not think too much myself and realize that you know I'm lucky to be at this point now I'm lucky to be at this point I'm lucky to be at this point so it wasn't as if I was bagging groceries one day and you know flying around the private planes the next so but I'll any anything anything that would tie me in any way to to President Reagan is okay with less question watching the show there's going to be some 18 year old kid a couple eighteen year old kids in Chicago let's say who want to do what you've done they want to come to this town they want to make it one of those kids will make it and one of those kids won't what would you say to each one Wow listen to the first of all you only you only don't make it if you stop trying to make it so people who don't make it in a weird way it's it's kind of their own doing and I don't know me I almost said their own fault it's not that it you you at some point you'd say I'm going to stop banging my head against the wall and I'm going to try something else maybe if you banged one more time you know maybe if I did maybe you know I went to that the station I finally hired me in Nashville I went there you know 18 times if I stopped in 17 oh yeah they would finally if they would oh it's him again and they were very nice to me today a sandwich or something and talk there's nothing here for you and blah blah blah so so that's part of it and so I would I mean to the to the ones who make it we've been we've been a little tough on Hollywood but I anyone who makes it in in my business that's business I know best I salute because it's a it's a very difficult business it's difficult to to succeed in it's difficult to maintain success so whatever political differences we have boy if you're if you've been doing something and you're working in this town my hat's off to you because it's it ain't easy okay truly this is the last question after beginning with the most important question on the planet does Vanna White get to keep those clothes shoes where she wears - let me end with the second most important question who will be in the World Series this year oh boy it's increasingly difficult to tell because of this as well what Joyce isn't gonna be one for sure but but I'm going to say that the Rangers will be in it for the third year in a row and the and the Washington Nationals really well I don't really I don't know for sure no but you feel that or are you just yeah I'm I'm trying to I'm trying to wanted to get that look from me no I think I know I that's that's what that's what I'm going to say and of course the irony is as you probably know is that the second coming of the of the Washington Senators move to Texas and became the Rangers all that so there there will be a certain symmetry there it'd be an all Washington game it could be an if you could throw Minnesota in which was the first Washington team to move that would if you could have a three-way to bid pet only Pat Sajak would know that much about who used to be the Washington Senators Oh Pat Sajak thank you Thank You Pierre for uncommon knowledge I'm Peter Robinson

Channel: Hoover Institution

Views: 78,283

Rating: 4.7767143 out of 5

Keywords: HooverInstitutionUK, Pat Sajak, Wheel of Fortune, Hollywood, Conservative, Liberal, Republican, Democrat, Celebrity

Id: ghBxrVFZ-2Q

Length: 48min 53sec (2933 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 04 2012