Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I went into journalism to do journalism, not advertising.
General McChrystal wanted to be on the cover of Rolling Stone.
Look, I went into journalism to do journalism, not advertising.
When writing for a mass audience, put a fact in every sentence.
General McChrystal wanted to be on the cover of 'Rolling Stone.'
I want to be the greatest investigative reporter of my generation.
I thought Gen. McChrystal was unfireable, that his position was secure.
By the second sentence of a pitch, the entirety of the story should be explained.
I think it's very difficult to make people care about natives in another country.
My younger brother is a decorated combat veteran and was a platoon leader in Iraq.
The genius of David Petraeus has always been his masterful manipulation of the media.
During the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the military conducted only a handful of drone missions.
I welcome all interviews with 'Rolling Stone' magazine, and I'm sure people will talk to me in the future.
I have a deep-seated skepticism about the morality of violence. Violence is almost always morally corrosive.
The State Department is essentially... I was going to use the word useless. But I don't know if that's correct.
I've been in this business now for almost ten years. I've done a lot of stories. I have a pretty good track record.
Despite failing to get bin Laden, the U.S. government and media portrayed the early Afghanistan war as a great victory.
The fact that our largest presence in the world is our massive military is going to dictate how we engage with the world.
I write for fun. I had written a kind of media satire, but I doubt it will see the light of day. It was just a personal project.
I think when war becomes your life, I think its very difficult to have the proper perspective to be able to create a fully balanced policy.
If someone tells you something is off the record, I don't print it. If they don't tell me something is off the record, then it's fair game.
You basically have to be willing to devote your life to journalism if you want to break in. Treat it like it's medical school or law school.
I think when war becomes your life, I think it's very difficult to have the proper perspective to be able to create a fully balanced policy.
Look at the violence in Pakistan and the presence of U.S. troops in Afghanistan: the more troops we put in the more violent Pakistan becomes.
The only thing I've ever regretted is not writing more; not being more honest; not saying how it really is in Baghdad. It's hard to get there sometimes.
After a decade of war you have this Pentagon-military apparatus run amok using resources that they shouldn't be to try to manipulate U.S. public opinion.
The fact is, psychiatric help is not widely available to CIA agents - and as in the military, there is a stigma attached to admitting post-traumatic stress.
In late 2009, I returned to Baghdad after a lengthy absence. I was living alone, in the Hamra Hotel, the twice bombed-out de facto international news bureau.
The guys on the ground are the guys I care about. I've had the most satisfaction telling their stories. But when you're in combat with somebody, yes, a bond does grow.
Obama's drone program, in fact, amounts to the largest unmanned aerial offensive ever conducted in military history: never have so few killed so many by remote control.
If Bill O'Reilly is calling you a far-left critic, in my book, no matter what your political persuasion is, that's probably - that probably means you're doing a good job.
A woman I loved [Andi Parhamovich] was killed in Baghdad in January 2007 – al-Qaeda in Iraq took credit for it … The memorial service with me crying over an empty coffin.
The humanitarian argument is so selective I find it difficult to swallow. It's not even so much about the choice as to where we should get involved and where we shouldn't.
Whether or not Afghanistan would be a peaceful nation-state had we not gone into Iraq I doubt. Afghanistan is going to be Afghanistan, no matter how hard we try to make it something else.
Whenever you're reporting, there's always something you can't say or write, but the questions, you always want to get as close to that line as possible. You want to ask the tough questions.
If the thumbnail version of the Iraq war was that Bush lied about WMD, the thumbnail version of Obama's war in Afghanistan is that the generals pushed him into a war he didn't want to fight.
For me, when I go in to write a profile, and no ground rules are laid down, and I'm there to write an on-the-record profile and cover readings while in the room, then that means it's on the record.
Obama's people will all often complain about how trivial and silly the media is, but there's no president who's probably benefited from this sort of trivialness or superficial nature as President Obama.
General David Petraeus was so successful at getting on covers of magazines, having journalists fall in love with him, that in fact he was able to use that power to go around the normal chain of command.
I have to admit that the empty prestige and the stupid glory - yes, the horrible rush, the deadly sense of importance that war brings to life - are hard illusions to shake off. Look at me, a war correspondent.
There is not much of a bureaucratic leap, if history is any guide, between a seemingly benign call for 'continuous situational awareness' and the onset of a covert and illegal campaign of domestic surveillance.
Despite the absurdity and the silliness and the triviality of the entire campaign experience, there is also something, as non-cynical as this sounds, kind of uplifting and strange about watching democracy unfold.
Usually when reporting on powerful public figures, the press advisor and I would have had a conversation that established what journalists call 'ground rules,' placing restrictions on what can and cannot be reported.
A state department official once told me this about the role of the president. He said: "We wage war for realist reasons, we justify wars for idealist reasons, and it's the president's job to balance the two." I agree.
The idea of aerial military surveillance dates back to the Civil War, when both the Union and the Confederacy used hot-air balloons to spy on the other side, tracking troop movements and helping to direct artillery fire.
As for the like of Hillary Clinton, I - you know, I've covered Secretary of State Clinton before. I covered her during her campaign. And she's a very likable and charismatic person once you get the chance to spend any time close to her.
The night before I began my career as a presidential campaign reporter, in September 2007, I finished Theodore White's 'The Making of the President,' the classic account of the 1960 race, which opened up a new era of campaign reporting.
The way the Pentagon and its defenders have pushed back against this story is to say: "They weren't doing psychological operations, they were doing information operations and public affairs. They were just helping us spin senators like we normally do."
The first time I met President Obama was 2006 in Baghdad. He was the senator from Illinois; it was a month before he actually ended up declaring. He had to come to Baghdad to kind of check that box, and I was the correspondent for 'Newsweek' at the time.
An information operations team was sent to Afghanistan to conduct various psychological operations on the Afghans and Taliban. The team was then asked not to focus on the Taliban but on manipulating senators into giving more funds and troops [to the war].