John Dickerson Quotes
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The math of durability in McCain's life is extraordinary.
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When she died, Mom left me her letters and journals. Windows into things I would have been too young to understand when she was alive, or too busy, or too much of a know-it-all.
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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.
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If people feel like the boss doesn't respect them, they don't stretch for the boss.
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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.
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I've talked to several who have been approached for short- or long-term duty in the Trump administration. The evidence of the work environment that mounts with each passing day makes them highly wary.
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Politics is not the nicest business, but there are still times when people do the right thing.
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Barack Obama's convention speech in 2004 had made him a political star, and he arrived in Iowa to crowds unseen in caucus history.
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I believe in Jesus Christ.
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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.
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You lose yourself in the to-do list and never tackle those big things you promised you would when the campaign came to an end.
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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.
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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.
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Talking to the press is not always good.
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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.'
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President-elect Trump says he's not even sure the Russians did the hacking.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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A president cannot grow a long-term lack of trust in someone with whom they had full confidence the day before.
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In addition to surviving the Forrestal, McCain has survived three other plane disasters, including being shot down over enemy territory.
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I couldn't wait to get out, and at 14, I moved into a three-room Georgetown town house with Dad. I never went back. When they eventually sold the house, in 1984, Mom had a goodbye party for 'Merrywood.' I refused to go.
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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.
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When the kids were young, they just wanted to be around us. We were units of comfort and support. As they get older, we work the turnstile, helping the exasperated customer pass whatever temporary obstacle is keeping them from their next exciting thing. Now we're the ones who just like having them in the room.