In 27 years of reporting from Washington, I've never heard a President admit he made a mistake.

It wasn't until the late '70s that a lot of people knew me.

If you have a setback, and you're not doing well and then you overcome it somehow, it always sticks with you. You know it could happen again.

I don't know many people, if any, who have had some straight line toward success. I mean, they start here, they work hard, they've got what it takes, and they just go straight to the top over some number of years. Most people get a little failure.

And really, the basis, I think, of achieving some success in what I want to do today comes from my mother's push to get me to read and to make something of myself from the standpoint of an education.

And on election night I'd go down to city hall in El Paso, Texas and cover the election. In those days, of course, we didn't have exit polls. You didn't know who had won the election until they actually counted the votes. I thought that was exciting too.

The press . . . traditionally sides with authority and the establishment.