A picture excites the love of parenting that comes through meditation on a child.
— John Dickerson
When Barack Obama was asked about his lack of executive experience in 2008, he pointed to his successful campaign as proof he could manage the presidency.
It's hard to say what the Founding Fathers would think of the modern presidency.
Campaigns maybe encourage us to pay attention to attributes that maybe aren't that important in the presidency.
CBS's Major Garrett writes in 'National Journal' about a new version of the 'stray voltage' theory of communication in which the president purposefully overstates his case knowing that it will create controversy.
The locker rooms that Donald Trump is in are not at the cut-rate gym with the broken treadmills - they are at his swish golf clubs. They are places of stature.
For Hillary Clinton, Iowa was a tough state for her in 2008, and she's put a lot of effort into fixing those mistakes.
There are a lot of plans out there for fixing health care.
If you have children and want to give your future self a present, record their laughter as toddlers. When they're older and away from you, you might find that clip in the middle of the day, and it will transport you as surely as if you had a time machine.
One of the great things about children is that they have no other concern than to be simply interested in things. It is considered by some the height of mindfulness to approach the world afresh like a child.
Not everybody gets a chance to go fly around the country and spend time in places with people who aren't like them, where, again and again, you realize we're all generally alike.
Talking to the press is not always good.
The math of durability in McCain's life is extraordinary.
If Michael Flynn lost his job because of a gradual erosion of trust, shouldn't the easy and frequent production of official statements that are so many connecting flights from the truth also be concerning?
Every president makes the Oval Office theirs.
President-elect Donald Trump says he's looking for a simple plan for defeating ISIS within his first 30 days of taking office. But even as ISIS has suffered setbacks in Iraq and Syria, its violent ideology continues to spread.
Mr. Obama said that he personally told Mr. Putin to knock it off and vows to retaliate. But the Obama presidency is coming to an end, and his successor still won't accept that Russia is guilty of tampering with U.S. elections.
The walls of our upstairs hallway testify that we once had photogenic children. There are rows of framed pictures that show them playing baseball, basketball, holding a toad, and smiling in the sunlight at their eager parents. Everything is orderly and bright.
Today, campaigning isn't an 'interruption' but a permanent condition. Indeed, if you are a successful campaigner, it's expected you'll be a successful president.
In 1840, William Henry Harrison is the first one to really campaign as a candidate, and the campaigns were totally frivolous. I mean, people were drinking hard cider all day. They were big parades; no one was debating the issues.
After President Obama took office, his campaign book 'The Audacity of Hope' receded into his past fast. Its sweet, naive, bipartisan 'let's reason together' passages fell away, too.
Expectations shouldn't be lowered, even if Donald Trump was just telling stories to impress the crowd around him and never grabbed as many women as he suggested. Lower the bar for what you can talk about, and you lower the bar for what is acceptable behavior.
Some of us do talk about women like objects, which dehumanizes them.
The goal of the moderator is to illuminate the views of the candidates on the issues that matter the most to voters, and you don't need to be on the side of the party to do that.
We've seen, in Washington, both sides say they don't want to give up much of anything.
I am always looking for material - whether for my notebooks or for Twitter or Instagram - which means I'm looking for meaning.
When former Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrote his recent book, 'Duty', it was full of tough assessments and candor.
There's the human side of people who are in public life that connects people. Whether it's favorable or unfavorable, it gives them some connection with the person who's onstage, and I think those connections are edifying.
In addition to surviving the Forrestal, McCain has survived three other plane disasters, including being shot down over enemy territory.
When the news broke that John McCain had been diagnosed with brain cancer, the outpouring of well wishes all hailed his toughness.
A president cannot grow a long-term lack of trust in someone with whom they had full confidence the day before.
George W. Bush said the reason the Oval Office is round is there are no corners you can hide in.
One of the things that voters have said about Donald Trump, since he has no government experience, is that he will be able to surround himself with good advisers.
My mother, Nancy Dickerson, was a reporter for CBS and NBC and the first female star of television news; my father, Wyatt Dickerson, was a successful businessman. Their parties, from the '60s to the '80s, attracted cabinet officials, movie stars, and presidents.
My children are vampires. I don't mean that they are going to dress as vampires for Halloween. I mean that, like vampires, they cannot be captured on film.
In their day, no man worthy of the presidency would ever stoop to campaigning for it. George Washington was asked to serve. Decades later, his successors were also expected to sit by the phone.
The challenge with Donald Trump is that he'll deny things he said the day before or even in the same interview. And then sometimes when you try and talk about a fact that he misstated or something that he said out loud that he now disagrees with himself on, it's very frustrating.
Officials in every White House crowbar the facts to make their cases.
Using the term 'locker room talk' blurs the line between what is criminal and what is simply oafish. That's not a line anyone should want blurred.
There's kind of a Tom Harkin aspect to Bernie Sanders, even though Harkin is supporting Secretary Clinton.
You're basically like glass: People see the candidates through you.
One of the ways usually that you build a bipartisan agreement is one side gives up a little, and the other side gives up a little.
If we practice hard enough, we can become thoroughly interested in even the simplest things of daily life, the way a child would. The smallest things would become so meaningful, they might even be worth a few words or a photograph, whatever method you use to capture them.
During the 2008 campaign, Hillary Clinton ran a blunt television ad asking whether Barack Obama could handle a foreign policy crisis.
When I interviewed John McCain in 2000 about whether he had taken medication for his anger, I remember thinking, 'Let's see how this is going to work.'
There is a basic idea to this fighting spirit: that there are standards worth devoting yourself to that are more important than your self-interest.
What is the appetite for truth in the Trump White House? That's not a question about the untrue things the president says. It's about the level of truth the system expects.
Michael Flynn was forced to resign, we are told, because he told a big lie. But what about the little ones?
One of the worries about a presidency is that everybody tells you yes. Nobody helps you figure out where your blind spots are.
President-elect Trump says he's not even sure the Russians did the hacking.
