David_Maraniss: Hello, everyone. I'm delighted to be online with you all, especially the students from Texas, the place that I love!

David_Maraniss: I became a writer because I was a totally inarticulate speaker, so it was the only form of communication where I could convey my feelings. Also, I come from a family of writers. My father was a newspaperman, and my mother was a book editor. I grew up around books and words and always loved them.

David_Maraniss: I got started by writing for myself and for student newspapers at an early age. The best way to learn how to be a journalist is to just do it. Write as much as you can, and read as many newspapers as you can. Study the stories that you like and try to figure out what makes those stories great and separate them from the rest. This is actually a good time to be a journalist. Even here at the Washington Post, we have many vacancies that are looking for great young reporters, so it's not impossible to get a job.

David_Maraniss: I love writing about human nature--why people are the way they are and the forces that shape them. The culture, sociology, history, and geography that make people who they are.

David_Maraniss: My research is incredibly intense. I sort of think of it as setting up an oilrig over a subject and drilling down as deep as I can go. It entails interviewing as many people as I can, and going back to them as often as I can until I get the real story, and finding as many documents, letters, and other papers as I can about a story or the life I'm dealing with.

David_Maraniss: I do have plans for a new book. I will be doing a shorter book on Vice President Al Gore this summer. But my next big book, which I am very excited about, will be about Vietnam, and that will take three or four years to do. I'm going to take two days in October of 1967, and examine the war in Vietnam and the war in the United States through those two days.

David_Maraniss: Good question! Fear of failure, curiosity, a desire to do things my own way, gain freedom and show that there are different ways to do things. All of those are part of the curious mix of my motivations. Also, to try to lend a deeper understanding of human nature to my readers.

David_Maraniss: I guess if there is a 'special' message to my books, no matter what they're about, it is to sort of break through mythology and stereotypes and deal with the reality of human life and all of it's beauty and ugliness. The truth is important.

David_Maraniss: That's a very good point and a dilemma for a journalist. Particularly, in campaign years, it seems to be the small issues that get blown up the largest. I wish I knew ways to prevent that from happening, but I don't think there are any. What I try to do, myself, is to write stories that put everything in a larger and more complex context, instead of simple stereotypes and exaggerations.

David_Maraniss: I love a lot more than journalism and sports. I love literature, music, nature, and the environment. My wife's an environmentalist. So yeah, there's much more to life than politics and sports. A lot of my writing is much more than those two subjects. I've written about race relations in America, and immigration, poverty and many other subjects.

David_Maraniss: I picked Vince Lombardi, in part, because I grew up in Wisconsin and he was the great Football Coach for the Green Bay Packers in Wisconsin when I was an adolescent. So he was a huge figure in my early life. I also saw that by writing about Vince Lombardi, I could write about a lot of the themes in American culture that fascinate me the most, including the American fascination with winning and success.

David_Maraniss: Well, the interesting thing about the President is it depends on what part of him you're assessing. He's not a 5 in anything. He's a 10 in a lot, and a 1 or 2 in some. He's the most intelligent and charismatic politician I've studied. And in terms of campaigning, he's a 10. In terms of winning people over when he meets them, he's a 10. In terms of his ability to analyze issues, he's a 10. In terms of being forthright to tell the truth, he's a 1 or 2.

David_Maraniss: I think there will be a woman President soon. I think that Hillary Clinton is now, for the first time, thinking of herself as the possible President, but I'm not sure she has her husband's people skills. That's part of the job these days. She certainly has the intelligence to make a good President.

David_Maraniss: Thank you very much for that thought. Anyone who has an idea like that, feel free to contact me. My email is David_Maraniss@msn.com.

David_Maraniss: The most exciting and most dangerous are different things. The most exciting probably was covering Clinton's 1992 campaign. The most dangerous was covering an earthquake in Mexico in 1985 where I was out of contact with anyone for two days driving through the back roads in central Mexico in the midst of an earthquake.

David_Maraniss: It is possible. Results are important, and they do make a difference. My wife is an example of that. She started the coastal cleanups in Texas and the data cards people, including thousands of Texas students that used to record the types of wastes that were thrown into the Gulf of Mexico, and helped Congress change the laws. So it can be done.

David_Maraniss: I don't know that any of my awards are that important in the long run; they don't change who I am. Certainly, the Pulitzer Prize is the one that will be in the first sentence of my obituary. It's the ultimate award for a journalist in the United States.

David_Maraniss: Good question! They come from the same generation. They're both very smart. They both are very competitive. They have similar political philosophies, and they have very, very different personalities. Clinton is most comfortable dealing with people, and I think Al Gore is most comfortable dealing with information. Bill Clinton grew up without a father and was always trying to please people and win them over. Al Gore grew up with a famous and very strong father and is always trying to live up to his expectations.

David_Maraniss: Maybe someone (one of the girls) in your classroom!

David_Maraniss: I'm glad that you're doing that work, and it's important to make your results as clear and understandable as possible with a respected methodology to them. And then, I think the EPA would be interested to see your results. I encourage more work like that from classrooms. It might also be valuable to write a letter or make a contact with someone in the EPA and ask him or her what the most effective way of communicating your results would be. A third idea is to get the local newspaper to write about it.

David_Maraniss: What saddens me is the disparity between rich and poor in the United States and everywhere in the world. And if there were anything I would change, it would be that. Giving everybody a good chance in life.

David_Maraniss: As a professional journalist, I try not to reveal my own preferences. My goal is to fairly explain the candidates to the public, rather than to state my own choice. So sorry, I'm going to dodge that one.

David_Maraniss: LOL! I get an adrenaline rush all the time from my reporting. Usually, it's when someone has told me a story that I know will help eliminate a part of life that otherwise can not be seen in all of it's depth and beauty and any other way.

David_Maraniss: I'd had, surprisingly, few quarrels with my editors. The only fights I've had have been over the length where they wanted me to cut some of it out. We've usually been able to compromise. I have such a passion for detail that sometimes I write too much.

David_Maraniss: In both cases, it's the same person, my father. He was a tough, old city editor, a wonderful, clear writer, and I learned everything from him. I've also had some other great mentors in journalism, including Richard Harwood, who was my first editor at the Trenton Times in New Jersey and who brought me to the Washington Post. I have an enormous regard for David Halberstam, Phil Greider, and Garry Wills, among others.

David_Maraniss: I think that they have, occasionally. For the most part, he has a remarkable capacity to separate his personal problems from his public responsibilities. But during the year when he was facing impeachment, that was not as true as usual. And his ability to make decisions was more influenced by his own personal trauma.

David_Maraniss: I think that Al Gore is not the campaigner that Bill Clinton was and that his style does hurt him, but that it might not be decisive in terms of who wins the election.

David_Maraniss: I think it's going to be a very, very close election. Perhap s the closest since 1960 when John Kennedy defeated Richard Nixon.

David_Maraniss: LOL! In Austin, Texas? One of the wonderful things about my profession as a writer, particularly as an author of books, is that I'll be able to do it for the rest of my life. So I hope in 10 years that I'll be writing a book, traveling with my wife, and maybe even playing with grandchildren by then.

David_Maraniss: Every person and every writer has their own bias. I try to overcome mine through my fascination with why people are the way they are and the forces that shape them. It's my passion to explain someone that I think largely overcomes my own bias.

David_Maraniss: Most of my friends are journalists, not all of them, but most. It has taken me to every state in the United States, and my wife and I and my children, when they were younger, moved 14 times because of journalism. It brought us to live in Austin, Texas for 8 years when I was the Southwest Bureau Chief for the Washington Post, and we loved it there. And it has probably influenced the way I look at the world. Everything I see is a story.

David_Maraniss: I would love to interview Nelson Mandela. And Bill Clinton, again.

David_Maraniss: It's all on a professional level.

David_Maraniss: I recommend that they read not only their local paper, but they can go online now and read the Washington Post and New York times. I hope they would try to do that to see what the national newspapers are doing. The Washington Post, this week, won 3 more Pulitzer prizes, and one went to a woman named Catherine Boo, who is an absolutely amazing reporter. She spent a year studying how the Washington DC government ignored and abused mental patients, and wrote a powerful series of stories about it. I think anyone who wants to be a great journalist should read those stories by Catherine Boo.

David_Maraniss: We discuss everything from politics, to baseball, to the food in the cafeteria, LOL, to books that we're reading, to the latest lame brained things that various politicians have said or done.

David_Maraniss: My definition of responsible journalism is epitomized by the Washington Post's journalistic ethics. We strive to tell the truth in all of its depth and complexity, and to keep reporting until we're certain of our facts. To never get too close to our subjects or take any favors from anyone, and to write clearly and fairly.

David_Maraniss: I loved writing all of my books, but the Lombardi book was the most fun by far. Among other things, I got to interview a lot of football players who were my heroes when I was a kid.

David_Maraniss: My own feeling is that the war on drugs is misguided, and that the best way to diminish the use of drugs is to provide more interesting lives and better opportunities for people. Most kids that I know who use drugs do it because they're bored. I don't think that you'll ever win the war just by trying to prevent drugs from coming into the United States.

David_Maraniss: There are a lot of different types of good leaders. They all have some traits in common. One of those traits is that they're good teachers; that they are able to communicate a clear set of goals or values in a way that the people who work with them understand and appreciate. Good leaders are also able to inspire people to do their best.

David_Maraniss: It's doing both at the same time. On the one hand, I love the freedom that it gives to so many people to express themselves, and the quickness with which information now flows. On the negative side, there are no longer any ways to prevent misinformation from moving through the culture rapidly and dangerously.

David_Maraniss: The hardest part of my job is taking the first step, because it's a job where you're always starting over again. You've done a story; now do the next one. After you take that first step, make that first call, and do that first interview, then it becomes easier. The writing--I love to write, so I never thought of writing as the hard part of my job, but there are some days where I just don't feel like talking to people and you have to.

David_Maraniss: I think that my two biographies are the books I'm most proud of. "First in His Class," which is the biography of Bill Clinton, and "When Pride Still Mattered," the biography of Vince Lombardi.

David_Maraniss: No, I don't. I consider myself an independent thinker.

David_Maraniss: The biography on Bill Clinton took me three years. I spent a year and a half just doing research and a year an a half writing and doing follow up research. It's about the same amount of time the Lombardi biography took. I seem to work on three-year cycles.

David_Maraniss: The most difficult part of the job are those occasions when I have to write a story about a tragedy and deal with people who are suffering unspeakable personal loss. I try to do it sensitively, but it's never easy.

David_Maraniss: My feeling is that there were a lot of responsible protesters there and a few determined 'anarchists' who wanted to create a confrontation, and that the Seattle police mishandled the entire episode. And I hope that the events that are happening in Washington DC this week are handled better.

David_Maraniss: Whether it has a bearing on public policy, or on the lives of other people. The amount of power that person has is also a factor in determining how important aspects of his or her life are to the public. It's a decision that's a difficult and serious one, and there are no 'set in stone' rules about it.

David_Maraniss: I don't know that any profession is the most important. I think that any profession that deals with trying to better the world in some way, however it is or contributing an understanding or beauty. A poet or artist can be as important as a social worker.

David_Maraniss: Thank you. I've enjoyed it greatly, and I have tremendous admiration in what the students in Texas are doing, and wish you the best of luck!