... trash talk ... Washington floats on a river of aspersion.

The things that make them similar - their machismo, their expansionary braggadocio - is going to turn them I think into bitter and dangerous enemies. We will look back on this moment where we thought Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump were sort of close as a moment of bitter irony, when they get into a schoolyard display against each other, amping up each other's worst tendencies and putting the two countries in some sort of scary position.

[Donald Trump] will be the one on offense. He will be the one serving volleys, and it may be some weird stuff about the Russians, but he will be controlling things a little more than he probably did over the last two weeks.

If you just rely on one model, you tend to amputate reality to make it fit your model.

I don't blame the Democrats for fighting. They have got a very energized base. And there is a lot to complain about a lot of these nominees. But I think, if you are actually going to turn someone down from a president's [Donald Trump] own Cabinet, it better be a lot more egregious than the cases we have seen.

A wise soul once declared that the ultimate power of the writer is that he has the choice of whom he wants to be co-opted by.

Would [Betsy DeVos] be my first pick? No. Is she someone who has dedicated her life to education policy? Yes, actually, she has.