Keyes Hits the Air
Alan Keyes and his new gig.

Sarah A. Maserati, an NR associate editor.
January 21, 2002 10:00 a.m.

lan Keyes's new TV talk show, Alan Keyes is Making Sense, premieres Monday, January 21, at 10 PM on MSNBC TV. The show, which will air Monday-Thursday, will cover military tribunals, evil, capital punishment, and Harry Potter in its premiere week.

NRO: What do you think of other TV personalities like Bill O'Reilly, Chris Matthews, and Larry King?

Alan Keyes: They're fine as far as they go. What I'll be trying to do is a little different. Instead of just talking about current events and bringing on the usual suspects, the core of the program is a small panel — what we're calling "people just like you" — just ordinary Americans. We'll start the show with an information section, where we'll give basic facts on the topic of the day. Next we'll have our panel of ordinary Americans discuss the issues based on their common sense, without pretending that they have some expert credential or special knowledge or the usual pretense.

The idea is to showcase common sense. I wanted to do that because I deeply believe that this country should be about self-government. A lot of times television programs are based on the notion that the people watching don't have an attention span and can't understand anything beyond the seventh grade. Well, the implication of that is that the people of this country are now too stupid to govern themselves. It's devastating, in fact, if all that's true. And I guess part of what I would like to show is that it's not true. I've heard more sense from ordinary Americans than I generally hear from all of the people who pretend to be so smart about the different issues of the day.

NRO: So, will your show be less sensationalistic than other talk shows, given that the emphasis is not on the showy guest?

Keyes: Oh no, no, I'm not finished yet! The group discussions will be the core of it. After that, we will have a segment called "Cutting to the Chase" and a typical big-name guest will appear in that segment. And then we'll have some segments where I'll be talking with folks back and forth, on the phone, or in the chat room, and then we'll close out the show.

In addition to guests who are diametrically opposed to me, I'm going to bring on conservatives, like myself, but in an environment where they won't be fighting all the time, so people can see what often is not shown in the media, that conservatives are thoughtful, compassionate, loving people who think more clearly than liberals!

NRO: If you could ask Bill Clinton one question, what would it be?

Keyes: Why am I thinking about Bill Clinton?!

NRO: What do you think about the recent controversy surrounding plans for a statue version of the famous photograph of three firemen hoisting the American flag over "Ground Zero" that would alter the faces of the men to include a black man and a Hispanic man?

Keyes: It's an illustration of the hubris of our time. We think it's okay to manipulate history. I think it results partly from the fact that we no longer believe that God is at work in human affairs. Instead of believing that you should take events as they are and try to understand their meaning, we believe that we can just manipulate those events any way we want according to our agenda. It's a deep-seated flaw in our understanding of ourselves. The statue at the Vietnam memorial is very different — it was made to be representative — but that made sense, because by making it representative you are actually trying to use it to capture historical reality, to reflect the facts. In the New York case, rather than accept the truth, they falsified it. The people who messed with the image missed the point — they think that we represent our unity in physical ways, when, in point of fact, the real firemen in that photo represent our unity of spirit — the things you can't see, can't touch, can't put color on, and yet unite us anyway.

NRO: What is your opinion of the recent controversy at Harvard with Cornel West?

Keyes: Cornel West? I'm sorry, I have to put that back with my Clinton question: Why am I thinking about Cornel West?! He never says anything one can understand. No, I'm sorry, I didn't say that, did I? Don't quote me on that!

NRO: What is missing on television that your show will provide?

Keyes: Most shows are based on the approach that everyone is entitled to his opinion and we'll just show the clash of those opinions. I think, yeah, everyone's entitled to have an opinion, but I'm also entitled to realize that an opinion is a stupid one. The folks on my show will apply the basic premises of common sense and intelligence to make judgments so that when people don't make sense one can see that. Look, if I have a thought and it doesn't make sense, I don't have the right to get all self-righteous and opinionated about it. Somewhere along the way we turned the freedom of opinion into the right to be self-righteous about opinions that make no sense. And that's just not true.

NRO: You've hosted a radio show — how will TV be different from radio?

Keyes: The difference between the radio program and the television program is that with the television program, in terms of structure and content, you have to think it through more carefully. It has to be consciously structured. Within that structure, spontaneous things can happen. Radio is pretty much about spontaneousness — you have to know what you're talking about, in terms of what interesting topics might be out there, but then you just let it happen, and it does. With television, the need is to do a lot more thinking and planning beforehand and then to discipline the presentation to fit within the framework that results.

NRO: Have you given up your presidential hopes? Will we see Alan Keyes in primary races again?

Keyes: Well, I am going to continue to speak out on issues I care about, support people I believe in, promote things I believe in. What the future holds in that regard I don't know. But in the next several years I'm going to be concentrating on making sure the show goes well and hopefully informs people and provides some examples of how we can engage each other in a thoughtful way