To be the windowpane - this is basically a bastardization of what Orwell said about good writing - so you can get the conversation going and frame it the right way and make sure people aren't lost. And then you let the candidates illuminate the issues themselves.

John Dickerson

George W. Bush said the reason the Oval Office is round is there are no corners you can hide in.

John Dickerson

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.

John Dickerson

Politicians have done some grim things in pursuit of the office. President Franklin Roosevelt was a philanderer; nevertheless, he pushed aides to use his opponent Wendell Wilkie's affairs to hurt him. He even tutored aides on how to spread rumors without getting caught.

John Dickerson

Chess masters don't evaluate all the possible moves. They know how to discard 98 percent of the ones they could make and then focus on the best choice of the remaining lot. That's the way expertise works in other fields, too: Wise practitioners recognize familiar patterns and put their creativity, improvisation, and skill toward the marginal cases.

John Dickerson

In the modern presidency, the Chief Executive is expected to respond to anxious national moments with words that stabilize the country. President Trump chose a different route. He did not give a stirring speech of unity or create a national gathering point around common ideals. He spent his passion on other things.

John Dickerson

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.

John Dickerson

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.

John Dickerson

An old theory holds that air conditioning ruined Congress. Members no longer had to flee the Washington heat to spend the summer back home. The long vacation forced them to bond with their constituents.

John Dickerson

In 2008, Senator John McCain forbid his staff from using an ad that referred to his opponent Barack Obama's inflammatory former pastor Jeremiah Wright or from raising that issue in any other way. He believed it was a sneaky way to use Obama's race against him.

John Dickerson

Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life.

John Dickerson

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.

John Dickerson

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.

John Dickerson

A number of Donald Trump's supporters told me during the campaign they had faith that he would be a good president because he would be helped by the experts around him. But the president's improvisation saps experts of their key skill: pattern recognition.

John Dickerson

Inaugural speeches are supposed to be huge and stirring. Presidents haul our heroes onstage, from George Washington to Martin Luther King Jr. George W. Bush brought the Liberty Bell. They use history to make greatness and achievements seem like something you can just take down from the shelf.

John Dickerson

The culture of undermining sends signals of disrespect. This approach not only saps motivation and undermines teamwork, it also lowers the motivation to work extra hours anticipating what can go wrong.

John Dickerson

In the end, Obama won, stealing the change message from John Edwards and beating back Hillary Clinton's focus on experience. And the race turned on a remarkable speech Obama gave on the night of Nov. 10, 2007, in Des Moines.

John Dickerson

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?

John Dickerson

When former Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrote his recent book, 'Duty', it was full of tough assessments and candor.

John Dickerson

Comey worried that the pressure from Trump to end the Flynn investigation or remove the 'cloud' of the larger investigation would 'infect' the investigation if he let others working on the case know about it. You don't need to believe the particulars of each exchange to see that this mode of management was not productive to a larger purpose.

John Dickerson

When the news broke that John McCain had been diagnosed with brain cancer, the outpouring of well wishes all hailed his toughness.

John Dickerson