Oct. 30, 2025, 7:07 a.m.
Question: What do the George Strait Talk Express, the Chad Mitchell Trio playing at President Lyndon B. Johnson’s election night party, and a Lynn Swann Song all have in common? Answer: They were all topics covered in Extreme Mortman, a pioneering online column from political history junkie Howard Mortman that Hotline published in the early 2000s. The column highlighted the absurdities of the political moment by drawing on ridiculous parallels in the past. After a few starts and stops—and a successful YouTube series—Extreme Mortman is coming back after 20 odd-years. Adapting to the times, this iteration of the column comes as an audio podcast from C-SPAN, where Mortman is the director for communications. The podcast debuts as the network known for broadcasting the unsexy parts of government branches out into more original programming under new CEO Sam Feist. This fall C-SPAN debuted new talk shows centered around bipartisan civil conversations (Ceasefire) and literature (America’s Book Club). The podcast is billed as “political history for political junkies" and will leverage Mortman’s near encyclopedia knowledge of the minutia of American politics and his playful sense of humor with jokes flying a mile a minute—think Robert Caro meets Rodney Dangerfield. “The mission: present political history from the past few decades in both an educational and entertaining way,” Mortman said in a statement to Hotline. “I hope these historical political stories will appeal to two types of political junkies. Those who remember and lived through these top moments as they happened—nostalgia! And those who are learning for the first time—education! The win: appealing to all political junkies at the same time—regardless of party or ideology." The first episode drops on Nov. 13.
