I think as long as you're straight with people, as long as you honor ground rules, as long as you serve your readers, you're going to get the door opened for you.

I think the job of a good journalist, especially in Washington, is to create discomfort, and I think for a certain class of people, and for whom life is quite comfortable, I've created discomfort. So I take that as a badge of honor.

I think that part of being a good journalist, part of being an awake member of the world youre in, is to view yourself as an outsider, and I always have, to some degree.

I violated apparently an unspoken rule that we are supposed to take care of our own. Frankly if that invites discomfort, I welcome it. I don't think there's enough discomfort in journalism, especially in Washington.

To cover politics in Washington allows you to live in the very, very wide gap between what the actual truth is, and how people are trying to manipulate the truth. They speak in the language of spin, obsequiousness, obfuscation. The meta of politics is just this endless source of material that can shed light on the psychology of the process.

Washington has always had a pretty healthy amount of self-loathing.

I'm just a journalist. I shine a mirror to the culture. I give the cop-out answer.