But when we started Style, it was so experimental and so over the top. We couldn't do a lot of the stuff that we used to do then now.
Even Colin Powell who was everywhere before he became secretary of state, just stopped going out. I think part of it was he didn't want to be viewed suspiciously by the other people in the White House who rarely go anywhere.
Every poll shows that most journalists are Democrats.
Everyone seems to be searching and yearning for answers whatever they may be. And that ends up being some kind of spiritual or religious belief.
Funny you mention my dinner parties when I have just suggested that inviting close friends over to share a meal with candlelight and wine at your table could be a form of religious experience for some people To me it's a form of sacrament.
I agree with you that newspapers don't write enough about serious religious issues.
I am currently working on a book about religion in Washington. It is a subject that has intrigued me most of my life.
I don't think reporters are nearly as cozy with sources as they used to be. Reporters used to be called in to give advice to the President and to the people on Capitol Hill. A lot of them succumbed. It made them feel important that the President wanted to know what they thought.
I first came on the scene during the Johnson years and that crowd was out all the time enjoying themselves. Nixon wasn't particularly social but a lot of the people in his administration were.
I had cottage cheese for lunch and a glass of wine when I got home tonight.
I just had a thought that perhaps religion is so vibrant here is because of the melting pot aspect to our society. WE have so many cultures here in the US and they all bring something new to their religious experiences. So those who are religious or who have any beliefs have so much to choose from.
I know the Washington Post is making a major effort to do a lot more comprehensive coverage of religion and people's beliefs.
I like Ben's energy. And, as much as it annoys me, I like his sense of invincibility.
I never know what I'm going to do for the Post next. Two weeks ago I had a piece on Homeland Security. This is one of my pig ongoing projects. How unprepared we are for a terrorist attack.
I think, certainly in the more civilized societies, women's roles are growing in power all of the time.
I was brought up by an Episcopalian father and Presbyterian mother in nondenominational Army chapels all over the world and never really had much religious experience.
It is only in the fundamentalist religions that women are relegated to second class. Radical Evangelicals, Muslims, and Jews all have the same view of women.
It's always in the second administration when things start to go sour. They circle the wagons.
Last week I did a piece for Style on advice to Laura Bush about how to help her husband. This week it's religion. It just depends on what I find interesting at the moment.
Most of the people who live in Washington come from other places and you can learn something from them.
My sister, Donna Quinn Robbins, works for retirement communities in the Bay Area.
Often what we do is open our house for various charity events. I don't seat according to protocol. I don't invite people because of who they are in the administration or their positions of power. The few who do come, are there because I like them.
The first term of the Clinton administration was very jolly. Everybody was running around meeting people and of course, in the second term, everyone went down the black hole, which also happened at the end of the Reagan administration.
The football season is like pain. You forget how terrible it is until it seizes you again.
Then my mother had several strokes and my father, who was 85, couldn't handle it, so Donna came back and we went through the same thing here. She lives in Mill Valley; her group is organizing this event.
This morning in the Washington Post there was a statistic about how 85% of Americans are Christians.
We had one big party in the spring for Kofi Annan who is a really old friend of mine from college. We had a seated dinner party for 40 people when David Ignatius came back from Paris.
We're at the age now where everyone is losing their parents or moving into retirement communities. It's a huge trauma.
We're newspaper junkies; I can't imagine life without a newspaper.
We've been together 32 years and married for 27.
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