Q: I want to ask about this best-selling book, but I have to ask you about Sarah Palin first. And maybe, by the way, she's won, because I'm calling her "Sarah Palin" and not saying to you "Governor Palin."

Carr: I think she's got the kind of appeal we haven't seen in politics, a connection -- I mean, when she talks about snow machines and eBay, I don't think we've really seen that in politics. I think it's the kind of thing that's going to appeal to voters on a human level, sort of a woman's magazine level, in the way that a normal politician would not. That life story is very compelling.

Q: Do you think that if Hilary Clinton spoke the way she spoke, she might have done better?

Carr: Well they're very different people. Hilary Clinton is a politician who happens to be a wife and a mother. Sarah Palin, Governor Palin, is a wife and mother who happens to be a politician, and that sort of difference is a very critical one in the minds of voters.

Q: But does it change -- part of it's performance, David? That you just have to be able to perform well to the media? I mean, you cover media every single day. Is part of it just surprising us so we catch our breath and we give someone a pass for a little longer than someone we know, like Hilary Clinton?

Carr: Part of what happened is they started roughing up the media two days before she came on and did a good job of sort of getting some asbestos on her, so to beg questions about her record was seen as unseemly. I thought it was -- you know, watching the McCain campaign has been like watching, for the most part, a man fall down a staircase. It hasn't been very impressive. And then just before the convention, they made move after move that I thought was incredibly impressive, including going outside the box with Governor Palin. But also landing her in a way where they reduced expectations, knocked us down, meaning the media, and then dared us to take issue with her.

Q: Were you in the hall when NBC was booed at the Republican Convention?

Carr: Yes I was.

Q: What was your reaction?

Carr: I was glad it wasn't the New York Times.

Q: (Laughs) For the first time it wasn't the New York Times.

Carr: No, I got plenty out in the hallway. People would grab my name tag when I was trying to interview them and say, "Why in the world would I speak to you?" I felt as if I was, you know -- it's a weird thing, although I met wonderful, fun people, and I found over time that the more badges and hats and gewgaws that somebody had on, the more likely it was that they would speak to me.

Q: More likely to speak to you positively?

Carr: You know me, I'm happy for negative attention [host laughs]. I mean, I wanted any level of engagement -- you know what, that convention -- let's face it, Tammy, you were there for two days -- was it just wouldn't start. It was so boring. We were all bumping into each other, wondering sort of what we're going to do. And, you know, Palin was like a Roman candle in the middle of it. And I think a lot of us were pretty excited when she got up there.

Q: Absolutely. The reason I think this book has done so well, on the best-seller list for what, three weeks...

Carr: Yeah.

Q: ...is because The Night of the Gun is maybe the most harrowing story I've ever read about the drug abuse, about your daughters, and about how you changed your whole life and really changed the world around you. And I think as a producer, I have to ask you, the other thing you did is that you went -- not only wrote this book, but you videotaped your own friends and family talking about it. And the Web site that goes with it has all of these interviews. How could you possibly be so brave to one, revisit your drug abuse, and two, show the world everything you did?

Carr: Well, I don't know if it's bravery or stupidity, and I really do mean that. I didn't really know -- I sent the book around to everybody that was in it and so they were all ready for it to pop out. I think the person who was least prepared for it to pop out there was me. I didn't realize how dark the book was. I mean, I'm sitting here in New Jersey, I've got a nice house, a wonderful family, a good job, and I figured, Well, as long as the story ends in a hug, no big deal. But other people were like -- including my whole family -- were just like, "Whoa! Dude! What are you doing?" [Laughs]

Q: [Laughs] The subtitle, "A Reporter Investigates The Darkest Story of His Life: His Own." What was the biggest surprise when you went back from what you remembered versus what you lived through? And you should tell people a little bit about it who haven't read the book.

Carr: Well, the book is about, you know, how that guy, which was a poly-addicted, low-bottom, crack head, the lowest of the low, the most hopeless case, ended up, you know, getting custody of his kids, living through cancer, getting a couple of good jobs -- and before I knew it, when my luggage came down, around the carousel, it had a business card form the New York Times on it. I'm always surprised when I pick it up, like some terrible mistake has been made. And it's, it's just trying to explain how that guy became this guy. And I didn't think I could sit in my basement and figure it out. So I went out and reported for two years; talked to people who I knew 20 years ago. And I guess the biggest surprise for me was I thought I was the nice boy who took a short detour into substances and eventually righted himself. And it turned out to be -- I was not a nice guy. I was a brutal, violent person, multiple arrests. And yes, I knew I had had some trouble, but I came across -- you know, 11 arrest reports, multiple treatment admissions. All the kind of stuff you glaze over once it's over.

Q: The front page of the Washington Post today has a big story about Cindy McCain and her earlier drug problems. When you see people that have had drug problems, is it some sort of club? I'm Syrian, and when I see another Syrian person, cause there aren't that many, I always feel some sort of a kinship. Is that how you look at it?

Carr: Well, keep in mind we are everywhere. Twenty or 30 Americans are in recovery, they meet in little rooms with bad coffee and crummy store-bought cookies, and we know each other and recognize each other. So whether it's at the convention or at the New York Times, we do have little secret hand signs that we give each other when we see each other. I haven't exchanged that signal with Mrs. McCain, I haven't had that opportunity. But I think when somebody's in public life like that, and they have had such a significant fall, I of all people am going to be the last person to judge.

Q: How about scrutiny, though? Because I know just covering Cindy McCain the last couple weeks, you know, you're looking at her all the time, and people talk about her eyes, what about her focus, what about this and that. The constant scrutiny once you publicly -- you've told the entire world you had a huge drug addiction to really bad drugs, David, do you worry that people look at you differently and worry that you're going to fall off the wagon?

Carr: I haven't noticed, I haven't noticed that. I mean, the proof is on the page. My book is not about journalistic pathology. I never came up bad on the work and don't plan on doing it anytime soon. My book and my daily work for the New York Times is both founded on the principle of journalism, taking those very basic tools and using them as efficaciously as I can to get at some kind of truth. None of that has changed in the fact that I have a fairly textured back story. People can judge as they wish, but I'm proud of both the book and the work I do. You know what they say: "What other people think of me is really none of my business."

Q: I know at one point I read that one of your editors gave you the secret handshake or tie sign and you were somewhat protected, but this was pretty brave to put this right out there, because you are such a public person. I mean, you're a columnist; you're not just a reporter reporting. You have this signature column that everyone reads on Monday.

Carr: Well, when I gave it to him I did use a pair of oven mitts and warned him that it was going to be a little tangy, and it made for a nervous few days. But you know what, I gotta be honest, it was barely a blip. Bill Keller is a careful and a very -- he's lived in the public eye for a long, long time and I'm pretty sure it isn't the kind of book that he would ever do, but he had no issue with it. He felt it, you know, stuck to the standards that we do at the New York Times. And they've been incredibly supportive, including give me the time here and there to write the book and give me the time now to do readings. I'm going to be up in New England doing some readings this weekend and in Washington next week. And they've been fine with it.

Q: And how much a factor do you think all your multimedia efforts have been to make this book a bestseller? Because your Web site -- it's one of the best book Web sites I've ever seen. And you touch on it, it's nightofthegun.com, you touch it, and these interviews come back, jump out at you.

Carr: You know, I don't think I was lecturing Simon & Schuster, who funded the Web site, about how important it was gonna be and how it was gonna be this paradigm shift in how books were seen. None of that happened. I don't -- I think the Web site has been an important and good companion to the book. But I'm of a belief that the real estate that a book occupies in our culture needs to be expanded, so that when you're reading a line on the Kindle and you see this drug dealer telling me that, "Yo, back in the day you were a problem to deal with," that you should be able to hit on that and a video should pop up and that dynamic media should be embedded in books. I think I'm a little bit ahead of my time, but I'm thrilled that I took the time to both use, you know, ubiquitous, cheap technology to report on -- record all my writing, and then toss it up transparently on the Web. I think it's a reflex that's going to come in handy in the future.

Q: David Carr, thank you for being with us.

Carr: Oh, a pleasure as always, Tammy. I'll see you out on the campus somewhere.

Q: I look forward to it.

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