I'd rather work with someone who's good at their job but doesn't like me, than someone who likes me but is a ninny.

I didn't come east of the Mississippi for the first time in my life until I was 26 years of age, but I knew. I read magazines, I listened to radio, I watched television. I knew there was something out there, and I wanted a part of it.

The President's very shrewd

But in 1941, on December 8th, after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, my mother bought a radio and we listened to the war news. We'd not had a radio up to that time. I was born in 1934, so I was seven years of age.

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

So when I cover the president, I try to remember two things: First, if you don't ask, you don't find out; and second, the questions don't do the damage. Only the answers do.

If you sent me to cover a pie-baking contest on Mother's Day, I'm going to ask dear old Mom why she used artificial sweetener or stole the apples!