Losing the presidency is not like losing any other office. More than any other office, it's a vote about you as a whole human being.

People think of DiMaggio as the exemplar of a 'golden age,' and in some ways, he was. But in the most fundamental ways, he was really the first modern athletic superstar because, number one, he ushered in the era of big money; and number two, he never did anything except that - he never really took another job in another industry.

There is not often much policy discussion with the Bushes. There isn't much introspection. Several generations of Bush men could pass by in which the great questions of humankind will go undiscussed.

We strove for more than 60 years to give Joe DiMaggio the hero's life. From his debut at Yankee Stadium in 1936 until his death in 1999, DiMaggio was, at every turn, one man we could look at who made us feel good.

At every step in his life, DiMaggio was what New Yorkers wanted in a hero.

The expectations for a nonfiction writer are awful high.

DiMaggio was never a rube. He was very smart and very urban. Coming out of the Great Depression, he was the immigrant boy who made it big. Coming back from World War II, he had all the wealth and power that New York aspired to. When New York saw itself as the center of the world, he was its paragon of class.

This book-promotion stuff is like a political campaign. You work your butt off, and at the end of the day, you can't tell if it's made a damned bit of difference.

We're still in the ditch, and the Gennifer Flowers story about Bill Clinton says it all. A tabloid fired several bullets into the air, and the rest of the herd began to stampede.

I used to think that the image of the press in the 1940s - a bunch of guys in hats screaming on the courthouse steps - was all baloney. I used to say, 'I know reporters. We're not like that.' But we are.