Wars tend to be very public things, they are visible. There are correspondents traveling with the troops and you get daily dispatches.

Who besides guys like me are part of the reality-based community?

I don't have to deal with the issues of the daily news cycle.

Confidence is the immaterial residue of material actions. Confidence is the public face of competence.

I think that there's a lot of anxiety out there in people wanting their children to be part of the mainstream, to achieve based on the well-worn yardsticks.

Many years later, a psychiatrist friend of mine said something to us. He said, "Respect denial." It's a powerful force.

[Barack Obama] says at one point, "[Jimmy] Carter, [Bill] Clinton and I suffer from," what he called, "the policy wonk's disease."