Great weight should be given to the judgment of professionals on what information, if disclosed, would harm national security.

When I was at the CIA I asked my civilian advisory board to tackle some tough questions. Among the toughest: In a political culture that every day demands more transparency and more public accountability from every aspect of national life, could American intelligence continue to survive and succeed? That jury is still out.

There is no part of the executive branch that more exists on the outer edge of executive prerogative than the American intelligence community - the intelligence community, CIA, covert action. My literal responsibility as director of CIA with regard to covert action was to inform the Congress - not to seek their approval, to inform.

Intelligence is often viewed as a profession that steals secrets and then knits those secrets together for policymakers in order to inform their judgments.

We're headed towards a fascist economy in which you have big government, big corporations and big labor, and they're all in cahoots to strangle the entrepreneur.

Whether she planned it or not, the path that Pelosi took to the House is the one most women used to follow. Women raised their kids, and then they went into politics.

Our founding fathers could not have foreseen that freedom of the press might eventually be threatened just as much by media consolidation as by government.

In my mind, the re-election of Richard Nixon, compared with what was available on the other side, was so much more important that I put it in just that context.