The level of trust is extraordinarily low and the level of suspicion extraordinarily high, and with good reason and on both sides. The press has hunkered down for very good reason, because it's being treated like a mushroom.

I love the idea of a shield law; I don't know of any journalist who doesn't love the idea of a shield law. It's all in the details. Some of the shield laws that were floating around sounded good, but when you looked at them, exceptions or exclusions or broadness in the language really invited some problems.

I don't think that the problems or the issues relate to any single piece of legislation. I think that they really do relate to the mindset that after eight years is pretty deeply embedded. It is not going to be easy to reverse itself.

One of the things that will probably need to be addressed is in the treatment of history, i.e. the Presidential Papers Act. If they can act with impunity, if they know that what they're doing is not going to see the light of day anytime in their lifetime, if they have the right to withhold information from the public, then presidents are given a vastly freer hand.

It will be important to restore those provisions, those disclose provisions, those release provisions so that presidents are indeed held accountable and their information and papers are made public.

There's no faster way or surer way to consolidate power and disenfranchise critics than to operate in secret. So this plays squarely into the promotion of the unitary executive. That's one factor.

...In the vast majority of drug experiments, it is not uncommon for none or one or two of hundreds of patients to benefit from the drug.