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.

If acknowledging that racial misgivings and misunderstandings are still a part of politics and life in America, I plead guilty.

You cannot get before you give. Wood cannot give you warmth before you start the fires.

Sometimes, it is how you shine in the darkness during other people's misery that is remembered more than anything you could have said or done when you have suffered just as much.

At the end of the day it’s not ‘what looks good’ that matters, it’s ‘what feels’ good.

I don't want to make pompous, serious films.

Perhaps Americans should recognize that if they want to keep their privacy, they should ask the federal government to do only the things that the Constitution allows.

I never wear mascara; I laugh until I cry too often.

Some people try to paint in my style. Some simply sell pirated copies of my work. Some claim to be my publisher or agent or even my exclusive representative, when they are not.

Listening to music engages the previously acquired personal knowledge of the listener.

You're only as good as your last book.

You want to come home from a tournament with a winner's medal. That's not the fans or the media putting us under pressure, that's the pressure we put ourselves under.