E.J. Dionne Jr.

And I'm very sad that this reunion that we've had recently is going to come to such a quick end.

But if I may cite a musical source, the Beach Boys, I still hope that we can get back together and do this again, again.

So I'll miss you, David.

When we were talking, Robert, you said we were going to look over this 22-year period.

period.

I think the two times in that period that David and I came, we weren't close to coming to blows, but when we were really angry at each other in a way that was unusual for the way we talked about this.

One was during the recount in Florida, where I actually remember having to join All Things Considered

stopping at the side of the road on the Beltway.

I was on my way to somewhere and the Supreme Court ruled that we're just going to stop counting the votes in Florida.

And then the other, some during the Iraq War.

Those were two really difficult periods.

But when you think about, you know, David talks about correctly a certain loss of confidence, a loss of ability to argue about real things in a way where argument is seen as leading you somewhere as opposed to just continuing on indefinitely.

Think about what people in their 30s or 20s lived through in that period.

We came out of a period of enormous prosperity.

We thought peace would last forever.

The Berlin Wall was down.

And quickly, we had 9-11 and then endless wars, first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq that went on and on.

Then we had the economic collapse of 2008.

So the country itself has gone through a lot of trauma.

Yeah.