The pressure to compete, the fear somebody else will make the splash first, creates a frenzied environment in which a blizzard of information is presented and serious questions may not be raised.

For the first time, the weird and the stupid and the coarse are becoming our cultural norms, even our cultural ideal.

In the John Paul II days, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had the advantage of staying in his cupboard - the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - exchanging views only with the Pope, and speaking publicly only through carefully written missives on doctrinal issues.

I think all good reporting is the same thing - the best attainable version of the truth.

Even at the end of a presidential election campaign, we have no way to know what Mitt Romney really believes.

The Congress is a dysfunctional institution; its broken. One of our three branches of government is broken.

June 17, 1972. Nine o'clock Saturday morning. Early for the telephone. Woodward fumbled for the receiver and snapped awake. The city editor of the Washington Post was on the line. Five men had been arrested earlier that morning in a burglary attempt at Democratic headquarters, carrying photographic equipment and electronic gear. Could he come in?