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I think I've earned a reputation of being fair and that I'll hear all sides from the entire political spectrum.

For instance, Clinton who was unquestionably the smartest of the bunch I talked to - both the ones who made it and didn't. He had a great interest in policy.

In America, we may acknowledge Washington and Lincoln as great men, and probably Franklin and Jefferson and maybe Franklin Delano Roosevelt and possibly even several more, but we would probably disagree about precisely what it was that made them great, what it was that enabled them to give a lasting direction to the course of events.

Eisenhower was my war hero and the President I admire and respect most.

Well, I was always a bit of a political junkie. Even as a kid I would read biographies of presidents and of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King and Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington.

My first cousin, by the way, on my father's mother side was John Marshall Harlan, who was a Supreme Court justice, as was his grandson. And I think a lot of my fight and my work to struggle for fairness and the techniques of theater and in subject matter probably stems in some way from some sense I have of his issues in life.

Well, I don't know about objectivity, but I know for certain that it's always possible for a professional journalist who understands what he or she's up to to be fair, and that's the key word. Fairness to individuals, fairness to ideas, and to issues and whatever - that is critical, and that is also part and parcel of what the job.

Take heed of critics even when they are not fair; resist them even when they are.

Even with the best of intentions, even when they're very smart and knowledgeable - as opposed to George W., who is neither - it doesn't seem to matter.

The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand. The fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism.