That was the title of Timothy Crouse’s famed book of 1973: The Boys on the Bus. It was about reporters covering the 1972 presidential campaign. These included Johnny Apple, Bob Novak, Walter Mears, Haynes Johnson — many of the biggies.

Well, this year, Robert Costa is a boy on the bus. A biggie. He’s a reporter for the Washington Post. Previously, he was with us, NR. I am a great fan of his, and he is my guest on Q&A.

We talk about covering the campaign: not just Hillary ’n’ Donald, but, until a short while ago, Bernie, too. We talk about the news business. What can one read, to get the straight dope? Do we all have to design our own media packages? How much power rests in a reporter’s hands? And so on.

At the end, I ask Bob a mega-question (as the late John McLaughlin would say): Will the republic survive? Are we still a nation of laws, not men, so that Hillary and Donald don’t matter all that much? Is the Constitution still über Alles? Or trampled underfoot?

Trust me — buh-lieve me, as one of the nominees would say — if you like presidential politics, you will love listening to Bob. Again, here.

P.S. What I said to Bob, I will say to you, here on the Corner: I may not think much of Mr. Trump, but, as a journalist, I appreciate that he gives interviews, compulsively. He gives interview after interview after interview. He gives more in a week than Hillary gives in, what? A year?