The media has become more forceful, has begun to recognize its traditional historic role and act on it, and truth is infectious.

If you happened to be born on third base, you didn't rub it in the face of the guy who wasn't even born in the stadium. Self-interest was generally checked at the door with your coat and hat.

If you write something that gets a bad response, or someone commits candor or is off message, there are often consequences almost immediately when it appears in the paper or a magazine, that somebody gets called into the boss's office. And sometimes it can result in a loss of access for the reporter.

To try to be authentic these days, to ask questions of the people in power - it's difficult. This administration has evolved new techniques to handle people like me. Their strategy, in a word, is simple: ignore them.

I think that [Barack Obama] does say something that's - that is telling on that score, when he talks about the [George W.] Bush tax cuts and the swap he makes after the midterm elections, which is he doesn't agree with the Bush tax cuts.

When you get people standing up saying, 'I'm going to just tell the truth; what do we have to fear?,' it encourages others, and it creates a counterresponse.

I absolutely reject that idea that the press is liberal and what it does is liberal. In my view, it's like accusing a doctor of malpractice or a lawyer of malfeasance.