ANDREA MITCHELL

Philadelphia reflected the national turmoil over race and the Vietnam War, often exploding on my watch.

It was a presidential election year, and as a member of a consortium of Ivy League radio stations, we participated in 'network' coverage of election night.

Someday perhaps I'll have to get a grownup job... but for now I'm having too much fun being a reporter.

Finally, I told them I'd drop out of the management program if they'd give me an entry-level job in the newsroom for union wages, about fifty dollars a week.

All they expected me to do was rip and read the wire 'leads,' without doing any original reporting. It was pretty basic, but gave me a taste of how to combine my love of politics and broadcasting.

Once again, no one in charge had given any thought to the possibility that a woman would be involved.

When it came to political power, blacks need not apply. Add to this steaming stew the growing tensions over the Vietnam War and the movement for civil rights, and you had plenty of elements to fire the imagination of a novice journalist.

As kids, we traded 'I like Ike' and 'All the way with Adlai' buttons in elementary school.

When I entered college, it was to study liberal arts. At the University of Pennsylvania, I studied English literature, but I fell in love with broadcasting, with telling stories about other people's exploits.

They put me on the shift where they thought I could do the least harm, midnight to eight in the morning. Although the hours were lousy, they were perfect for an apprentice reporter.

One advantage to covering the Congress rather than the White House is that no one is controlling the agenda.

People want divided government.

Free and fair elections does not mean democracy.

... I still have sympathy for some of the people who've fallen from grace in Washington. The feeding frenzy can be so unforgiving, especially in this day of nonstop cable news.

[Mitt] Romney looks the part and is well known around the world and has a lot of experience.

Washington was not just a city of marble buildings and smoke-filled rooms and power brokers, but also a town full of people who do care about each other, in good times and bad.

[On women in previously all-male fields:] I think it will change in a lot of workplaces. I'm not so sure it will ever change on Capitol Hill until more women are in powerful positions. Because this is the last plantation for men.

You've got James Comey on camera on Capitol Hill saying, - no, it is not much less of an offense than Hillary Clinton. In fact, it is far more serious. It was prosecuted.

Senator [Bob] Corker has been, first of all, discreet and loyal. He has not signaled the internal mechanisms. He's been pretty honestly saying, I wasn't a real insider in the campaign.

If Rudy Giuliani's offense was that "Wallstreet Journal" did a round table where he openly campaigned for it, and said he didn't want to be attorney general and that he was better qualified for it, then certainly Senator [Bob] Corker would seem to be, you know, among the best choices.

Haiti is the kind of place that grabs your heart, and never lets go ... When you arrive in Port-au-Prince, the first thing that strikes you is how vibrant the colors are. Buses, buildings, fences, clothing, everything is brightly painted in primary hues. On closer inspection, you see the reality behind this brightly colored landscape: a dark, grinding poverty, the worst in the Western hemisphere.

... there was a part of me that wanted to be liked, and despite all my years of reporting, I never quite adjusted to the role of skunk at the garden party.

journalism was for me more than a business or a profession. It was a way of living, of experiencing the world even as I instantly distanced myself from it, in order to recreate what I'd witnessed for the public.

Nobody is talking about the different - until you raised the issue.

If you think you can do two full-time jobs, people will expect you to do three.