One of the things that Africa needs, everybody seems to agree, is some measure of debt relief.

A lot of Democrats are not that upset with Howard Dean. Howard Dean gets out here and he says these inflammatory things, and he doesn't apologize. He doesn't back down a little bit.

When you are interviewing someone, you have a chance to follow up, to press, to dig in. In a debate there's 30 seconds for the other guy, too. And the goal is to get them to engage with each other, not to engage you necessarily.

I see a pretty bright line between analysis and opinion. And so, to that end, my goal on Friday nights is to try to assemble the smartest reporters who are available to me that week who have been involved in covering the news.

If you take the conflicts we are used to dealing with, race over the years in America, and you combine that with the desire or aspiration to political power or taking power from other people, which is what politics is all about, you end up with a lot more friction than you would normally see with just straight-ahead politics.

History shows that people often do cast their votes for amorphous reasons-the most powerful among them being the need for change. Just ask Bill Clinton.

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