Susan Stamberg

He said at the end, let me tell you something about Washington.

In this town, there's one king of the mountain, and everybody else in this town is out to shoot him off that mountain.

That's Washington.

That was Watergate in a nutshell, you know.

That was all the paranoia of the Nixon White House right there.

And if I'd said to him, weren't you all terribly paranoid in that White House, he never would have said anything.

So sometimes, you know, just through that sort of softer approach, that comes, that comes.

I like listening to good arguments on the air.

I'm just not very good at it.

Sandy's good.

What a wonderful question.

I guess I won't answer your question because something else is occurring to me.

So let me tell you this story.

I think I won't name a name, but it was a time when I had to go and interview a writer whose work I very much respected.

And I got to see the writer and we talked for hours and everything.

I'm trying not to even reveal sex, let alone identity in all of this.

the writer would talk and go on and on and on and on and on and go into a million different directions and corners and angles.

And I couldn't make any sense out of what was being said.

Sentences would never be finished.

Ideas never completed.