Civilizations rise and fall on confidence. America had figured out a way to borrow money to manufacture it.

The President [Barack Obama], I think if you look at it from his shoes, you know, was facing a very difficult situation where he had to own Washington, tame New York, save a collapsing economy, with a collapsed financial system. He moved, I think, to a team that he felt was tried and true, in terms of dealing with financial crisis. That was his decision.

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

The fact is, most journalists I know are not particularly political. They move around a lot.

I've been a reporter for 20 years, and I don't ever get things wrong. That's important in terms of my professional status.

Two sons, they'll both be presidents after they win their Nobel Prizes. And the daughters, they'll be prima ballerinas before they become the president of Princeton and start their Internet company. And I just started to think about What's the conventional load of those expectations you carry around? You have to pull them out one by one and smash them in the corner. You realize the pile is quite high. But in a way, it becomes oddly liberating to do that.

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