http://www.gq.com/news-politics/blogs/death-race/2012/04/do-not-ask-what-good-we-do-a-gqa-with-robert-draper.html
GQ correspondent Robert Draper embedded himself with the freshman Republicans in the House of Representatives for his new book Do Not Ask What Good We Do, an inside account of congressional dysfunction in the first term of the Obama administration. At the time, our correspondent Marin Cogan was a Politico reporter covering the freshmen beat. In an interview, the two talk about the most memorable freshmen members, who's really to blame for the debt ceiling crisis, and what Anthony Weiner's up to now.
This interview has been edited for length.
Marin Cogan: So let's talk about your new book. To report it, you spent the last year immersed in the House.
Robert Draper: The timing went like this: On the evening of the midterms I was watching TV rather wistfully because I had an existing book contract to work on race relations in America during the forty year period between King's assassination and Obama's election, and watching these Tea Party freshmen who'd just been elected I began thinking 'These are my people.' They seemed like such great characters, particularly the ones that never had political experience at all, and so I thought that their own narrative, following them into Washington to watch them try to change the institution or possibly be changed by it was an irresistible story ... From that point onward I embedded myself within the House and what this meant was that every day they were in session I was on the Hill following these guys around, was often at their town halls when they were not in session, like where you saw me for first time in Fort Lauderdale. That's where it began. I finished the last word of the book the day after Obama's State of the Union address on January 26th of this year and then we published it less than three months later.
*much more at link*
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