It also has to do with how you look and how you sound. If you look like a mean SOB who's putting the other person down, that's different than if you're inquiring about the process they go through to make a decision on behalf of the public.

I've found increasingly less effectiveness with the man-on-the street type of stuff that was very standard fare for years. It can still be effective, but it's got to be done well.

I think I have a good eye for talent. I think I'm smart enough to figure out what the mission is and achieve it. I achieve it by hiring good people.

There was no news in the Dan Rather piece. They didn't say [to Bush]: "We found a piece of paper that was overlooked in the 300,000 pieces of paper that were covered in the Iran-Contra hearings, and we have a piece of news we'd like to ask you about." CBS decided to create a media event and cover it in its own fashion. This was unprecedented in American history. CBS cancelled two-thirds of the newscast... to get a guy and take him out.

There is a - deep down, underneath all the work I do, I think there's a laziness in me.

They [candidates] say, "I don't want to say anything controversial." And so nobody covers them. Then they blame the journalists, saying "Why don't they write down what I said?" In congressional races, 90 percent of the time the answer is, "Because you are boring and you don't have anything that makes me interested in listening to you. Why the heck should somebody write it down? There's nothing here worth hearing."

Just because someone thinks he is being attacked by the media doesn't mean he is. Many times the media actually is being fair, and they're attacking for good reason.