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My job is to be a spokesman - the spokesman, I suppose - for the President, for the White House, to do the daily briefings, to manage the press corps in terms of travel, day-to-day needs, access, interviews, all those issues.
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Women's particular experiences continue to shape not just their points of view but their actions, in the United States and around the world.
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People are inevitably disappointed, because no one's as good as Bill Clinton's first impression. Or, he's done things. He's disappointed people in a variety of ways. And so then, the fall is hard.
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On the day I started college in 1979, no woman had ever been on the United States Supreme Court or served as the Speaker of the House. None had been an astronaut or the solo anchor of a network evening news broadcast. Not one had been president of an Ivy League college or run a serious campaign for president.
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I am encouraged to see women are being elected in Chile, Argentina, Liberia, Ireland. More is more.
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To compare Whitewater to Watergate is a travesty.
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It never occurred to me that I wouldn't go to college and have a career - as well as a family - of my own. Both my parents, but especially my mother, encouraged me and led me to believe that it was possible.
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It isn't fate but fecklessness that has shoved Sarah Palin to the sidelines of national politics. The real tragedy is that she's taken a lot of other serious Republican women with her.
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Women communicate differently and process information differently, which leads them to resolve conflicts differently.
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The fight is always the same within the Democratic Party, isn't it? The more things change, the more they stay the same.
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Obama has made America cool again - and more than that, he's made his own brand arguably the most powerful the world has ever known.
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When I became White House press secretary, there were other limitations that were thrust upon me. Bill Clinton was under pressure to appoint women to visible positions. I was 31, I'd never worked in Washington. Was I ready for this large and visible job? Still he wanted the credit. So he gave me the job but diminished the job.
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After I left the White House, I kept a foothold in the business of American politics; as a talk-show host, analyst, commentator, speechmaker, and occasional writer. I was no longer a practitioner, but I was still a partisan, a Democrat, a blue-stater through and through.
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Even tax breaks that are supposed to help the middle class too often skew toward the wealthy. Consider the mortgage interest deduction. While political leaders in both parties have long considered it untouchable, it actually helps those at the top of the income scale far more than those at the bottom.
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Almost all first ladies have had tremendous power on personnel issues, whether the public realized it or not, whether it was Barbara Bush or Nancy Reagan or whoever.
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And Clinton was like that - he saw the whole playing field. He didn't just see the event that he was at or the circumstances of that week or that month. He saw the whole playing field all the time.
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One thing I think is least realistic is that there were five people that made decisions in the fictional 'West Wing.' In real life, there are about five million people that weigh in.
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I was supposed to be authoritative, but at the same time had to be likeable, a quality that is a bonus, not a requirement, for men in the same position.
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Democrats single out glaring examples of tax preferences or spending priorities that favor the wealthy and Republicans cry 'class warfare!'
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Many differences are rooted in biology and reinforced through culture, so it's important to acknowledge that. Because if you say men and women are the same and if male behaviour is the norm, and women are always expected to act like men, we will never be as good at being men as men are.
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Washington is still very much a male-oriented culture. Being from Los Angeles, I think it is less so there - there is less attachment to tradition, perhaps, there is more flexibility, more acceptance of change generally. That is partly because of Hollywood.
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Obama seemed poised to realign American politics after his stunning 2008 victory. But the economy remains worse than even the administration's worst-case scenarios, and the long legislative battles over health care reform, financial services reform and the national debt and deficit have taken their toll. Obama no longer looks invincible.
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President Barack Obama would do well to take a page or two from Clinton's playbook.
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I think a lot of presidents learn to be president by being president.