If Rudy Giuliani`s offense was that "Wallstreet Journal" did a round table where he openly campaigned for it, and said he didn`t want to be attorney general and that he was better qualified for it, then certainly Senator [Bob] Corker would seem to be, you know, among the best choices.

[Bob] Corker was an early endorser.

You`ve got David Petraeus who, yes, did, you know, something for which he pleaded guilty.

[On reporters trying to cajole a smile from her husband, Alan Greenspan:] For a Federal Reserve chairman, that was a smile.

Socially, Philadelphia was still a fairly provincial city, its business community governed by the mores of the Main Line. Politically, it was a cauldron of ethnic rivalries, dominated by competing Irish and Italian constituencies.

When it came to political power, blacks need not apply. Add to this steaming stew the growing tensions over the Vietnam War and the movement for civil rights, and you had plenty of elements to fire the imagination of a novice journalist.

I learned everything I ever need to know about questioning artful dodgers by covering the most artful of them all, Ronald Reagan. For Reagan, performance was as much a part of governing as understanding the details of the federal budget.