'Argo,' 'Lincoln,' and 'Zero Dark Thirty,' three films honored with Best Picture Oscar nominations, lionize their Washington-anchored protagonists as crafty, competent, and virtually incorruptible.

At the start of his second term, one wonders less about Obama's fitness than his willingness: Why doesn't he do more to build and maintain the relationships required to govern in era of polarization?

It's a deft trick to turn American exceptionalism into an exceptional political tactic.

According to a Public Policy Polling survey, most Americans find lice and colonoscopies more appealing than Capitol Hill.

With gridlock the norm, Congress's approval rating is below 10 percent and the public has lost faith in its national leadership.

Blending hard-bitten realism with long-view optimism, Obama said that every 20 or 30 years brings a new cycle of pessimism in America.

Although we were never pals and occasionally butted heads, my relationship with Clinton and his wife, Hillary, made me a better journalist.

President George W. Bush won reelection in 2004 largely because he was seen as comfortable in his own skin, while rival John Kerry was viewed as a flip-flopping opportunist.

Obama might do well to remember that his fast rise from the Illinois state Senate was due in large part to an uncanny ability to make friends and find mentors.

I'm hearing echoes of Bill Clinton, circa 1996, in President Obama's reelection rhetoric.

For a man who has compared himself to Theodore Roosevelt and the nation's challenges to those of the Gilded Age, Obama put forward a tepid agenda.

Uncertainty and fear and ignorance about immigrants, about people who are different, has a history as old as our Nation.

Poverty doesn't imply necessarily violence.

The day after tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life - that way you've always got a couple of days in hand.

The height of success is when you break your business, that is what I say! Just when you think things are really really going well that's the time to change.

Craft against craft makes no living.

The running backs are the strengths of their football team. They have quality players who can do a number of things for their team.

You can order yourself to treasure a moment, to cling tight to a feeling and never let it fade, but it's your brain, that three-pound lump of hamburger, that makes the final call.

I don't have this fantasy about marriage anymore. Everyone says it takes hard work. Well, it kind of does - and I'm much more pragmatic about romance than I used to be.

Be a gentleman farmer.

Never bully anyone because Karma has everyone’s address and a motherf**king stamp!