If it were the Clinton people, they'd be sitting around figuring out how to pull themselves out. Instead the president is continuing to go around the country and peddling Social Security, which the needle is not moving on.

I knew early on that I wanted to be a reporter, but I didn't know I was a political journalist until my first job in Boston, in the '70s, covering the public school committee at a time when busing was a huge issue. Children's lives were being directly affected by political decisions, and that's when I realized that everything is politics.

Even marginal progress could be affected by investigations in Little Rock and in Washington.

Hope springs eternal, even in politics.

I want to see a Republican Party that is a big tent, inclusive party that welcomes all people to be Republicans and to contribute their ideas and support our position of providing opportunity to the American people. And I believe he goes in the opposite direction and deepens the divisions that are so pervasive in our society today.

I actually think agendas are more often found in State of the Union speeches than in inaugural speeches.

Change comes from listening, learning, caring and conversation.