The idea that our son would be like Raymond Babbitt was a shocking reordering of everything. And something we couldn't quite fathom, really.

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

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

The fact is that in a way, journalists become a kind of default in the system when you don't have substantive two-party back-and-forth inside of the government.

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

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

Confidence is the public face of competence.