1. Your book is premised on a comparison of modern government — specifically the Bush Administration — and America's Founding Fathers. But it's been more than 200 years — can that kind of comparison really hold any water?

It would, of course, be ridiculous to suggest that you can compare figures from the Revolutionary era, apples to apples, with modern politicians. The United States has changed radically since the late 18th Century, and we're dealing with radically different problems.

That said: look at the sort things that the Founding Fathers unequivocally pushed for. Checks and balances. A limited executive branch. Officials accountable to the public they served, not subjects accountable to their government. Freedom from unnecessary searches and seizures. A free press.

Everything that they enshrined in the Constitution points toward a sophisticated view of government — that it's necessarily comprised of flawed individuals with sometimes selfish interests that must be checked and monitored. The Bush administration's unofficial motto has been: "Come on! Just trust us. It's a war. You need to be safe, and we'll make you safe. Just trust us. Give us more power — power to torture, to spy, to make war at will."

The Founding Fathers didn't trust government, and for good reason — give any individual or faction too much power, and they will never willingly surrender it.

2. You can't deny that different Founding Fathers — Jefferson, Hamilton, Washington, Madison, Patrick Henry — had very different views on how to put this country together. Wouldn't some of them endorse Republican viewpoints, if not the Bush White House?

I think there's a strain of conservatism — best exemplified by the libertarian wing of the Republican party, or the Libertarian party itself — that directly hearkens back to Jefferson and Henry, among others. There's this rugged individualism / states' rights / "fight the power" impulse that people like Jefferson embraced wholeheartedly, and I think a lot of principled Republicans line right up with it.

The problem is that the Republicans currently in power are the authoritarian Republicans — Republicans for whom dissent is unpatriotic, and who never met a powerful government program they didn't like. Republicans who shrug off the crimes of Abu Ghraib by blaming a "few bad apples," instead of following the trail to the top, and accepting the resignation of Rumsfeld. Republicans who screen attendees at their rallies, so only those who follow the party line are allowed to show up.

Do the Founding Fathers "belong" to the Republicans or the Democrats? No. They're American, plain and simple. But they were opposed to tyranny of any kind, and that puts them squarely at odds with the current direction of government in this country.

3. You say the Founders were opposed to tyranny... does that include slavery?

I think the Founding Fathers have gotten a bad rap on the question of slavery. Many of them — Hamilton, John Jay, and Franklin come to mind — were actively and passionately pro-manumission. Washington was widely admired for freeing his slaves in his will. And although Jefferson and Madison both have much worse track records, they're not typical of the Founding Fathers as a bunch. And, ironically, they were both incredibly eloquent and influential on the topic of individual freedom.

Were the Founding Fathers flawed? No question — they have scandals and stains on their names, like any group of people active in public affairs throughout history. But did they transcend their own shortcoming to make an amazing leap forward in terms of government and individual rights? Yeah, I think so.

And when you look at the compromises and hurdles they faced when putting together the Union — small states versus big states, South versus North — you understand why trying to insist on an immediate end to slavery just wasn't politically possible. Even though, of course, the compromise planted the seeds of the Civil War.

4. How much of what the Founding Fathers said and did is really still relevant to today's voters and politicians?

Perhaps surprisingly, a hell of a lot of it is still relevant. Ben Franklin is an incredible example of what American entrepreneurship is all about — a guy who built new things that actually made life better for people. As opposed to the Cheney/Bush sort of modern businessman, who peddles influence and hoovers up corporate welfare.

Jefferson and Hamilton, as much as they hated one another were both intellectual giants who didn't simply depend upon staffs of experts — they became experts, in subjects ranging from history to Indian languages to the arcana of international finance. They made good policy because they understood good policy. They didn't have lobbyists and think tanks do their heavy lifting.

And Washington set an amazing example — he was one figure who everyone, whether they liked him or not, would acknowledge was an honest dude who was fighting the good fight. You didn't need to worry about Washington becoming dictator for life, because he essentially passed up his chance after winning the Revolutionary War. He was, in some ways, a reluctant leader — a guy who stepped up to a draining, nasty job because someone had to, and he knew that he could handle it. You don't see a lot of people like him in public service in any era.

5. Near the end of the book, you specifically call for putting Democrats into Congress in 2006. Are you just shilling for the left with this book?

There are many flaws inherent in the two-party system, and this book doesn't pretend to address them, nor does it suggest that electing Democrats in 2006 is a magical serum that will fix America overnight. The Democrats are a party in crisis right now, and one of the big problems is that they haven't been able to show a united front during troubled times.

That said: One of the big problems with the country right now — and opinion polls back this up, I think — is that people feel as though our government is on the wrong path, and is unaccountable. The reason is that without Democratic control of the House or Senate, there is absolutely no practical check on the power of the White House.

I suspect that if the Democrats had control of the House, Senate and White House (not to mention the Supreme Court) the country would be screwed up, as well — although probably in very different ways. Step one to moving back toward the vision that the Founders had for America is putting enough Democrats in office to put the brakes on the current mess we're in.

6. You read hundreds of letters by and to the various Founding Fathers while researching this book. What kind of impression did they make on you?

They were an amazing group of guys. Washington was one of my favorites — really down to Earth, honorable, fierce but clear-headed. Always looking for advice from people smarter than himself, humble enough to listen to their ideas, and wise enough to generally pick out the best ideas and let the others fall by the wayside.

Franklin was hoot — the original funny fat guy of the American Revolution. You can see a lot of Mark Twain and Kurt Vonnegut and H.L. Mencken (and Al Franken) in a lot of what he wrote — he was fierce and satirical and fearless.

Jefferson was a scary dude. Vast, brilliant, curious, well-organized intellect, but very cold-blooded at times — wrote some of the most racist stuff of any of the Founding Fathers about the capabilities and character of blacks. I must say that I wasn't crazy about him as a person, but you can't help but be awed by how smart and literate he was.

Hamilton might have been my favorite — simultaneously a financial genius, a war hero, and a warm, decent human being. You can see how he and Washington worked so well as a team (when Hamilton wasn't chafing for more authority) and how he single-handedly laid most of the groundwork for the federal government. Ron Chernow's biography of Hamilton was what got me started on "Saving General Washington" in the first place. I just naturally clicked with him, and thought: "Hey. This guy is a PROGRESSIVE."

7. Who on the American stage seems to really embody and understand what the Founding Fathers were all about?

The most prominent example I can think of is Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, who explicitly cited the Founding Fathers when he cast the lone dissenting vote against the PATRIOT Act. He's a courageous, intelligent dude who thinks through problems on their individual merits, sometimes defies the party line when principle is at stake, and seems to really understand what liberty is all about — and how fragile it can be.

Rep. Henry Waxman of California is another guy whose fearless attempts to provide oversight are in the best tradition of Tom Paine — speaking truth to power.

And in terms of his maturity, intellect, and basic honesty, I think Senator John Kerry comes awfully close to the founding ideal. Was he the perfect nominee for 2004? Absolutely not. But he's a guy who faced trial by fire in Vietnam, legitimately struggled with the big questions posed by that war, and fought a good progressive fight from within the Senate. He's intellectually curious and tough, two qualities that almost all the Founders had in spades.

I also think a lot of the citizen-soldiers in the US military have some of the best qualities of the Founders, too — first and foremost, a willingness to risk their lives for an ideal. I disagree passionately with the Iraq war, and thought it was a disastrous idea from the get-go, but when someone who's fighting over there says it's to further the cause of freedom, I don't doubt their sincerity.

8. What kind of an impact do you hope this book will have on its readers?

I really hope that reading this book makes people want to read other books. Not to take my word for who the Founding Fathers were, but to get out and explore them for themselves.

I'm convinced that the more you learn about these guys, the more you'll understand that the fundamental qualities of America — personal liberty, freedom of expression, respect for human rights — are in real danger right now.