Women's particular experiences continue to shape not just their points of view but their actions, in the United States and around the world.

I think how pay gets determined is pretty broad - experience, how people look, what they bring to the job. But there's no question women are paid less. Women don't ask.

You as the press secretary have to protect the president's interests and the White House's interests more broadly. And a lot of people inside the White House, as you learned, sometimes with painful experience, have competing agendas, have differing points of view, have priorities they're trying to protect.

I am endlessly fascinated that playing football is considered a training ground for leadership, but raising children isn't.

Obama has become too dependent on formal speeches and set town halls. His idea of mixing it up is taking off his jacket.

Bill Clinton sitting on Air Force One getting his hair cut while people around the country cooled their heels and waited for him, became a metaphor for a populist president who had gotten drunk with the perks of his own power and was sort of, you know, not sensitive to what people wanted.

After I left the White House, I kept a foothold in the business of American politics; as a talk-show host, analyst, commentator, speechmaker, and occasional writer. I was no longer a practitioner, but I was still a partisan, a Democrat, a blue-stater through and through.