David Gergen

I think that's the question raised in part by these photographs.

That's what comes with being, you know, when people begin to think you're Obama, you could change everything.

Charisma was a great asset for both John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan in their governing both here and abroad. But it can raise expectations.

That raises a lot of security questions in my mind.

When an outsider can so easily penetrate his privacy, how easy is it going to be an outsider to penetrate his security?

I think for most of the country, this Rick Warren issue is fading. In the gay and lesbian community, there's no question it has left a deep wound.

It's not just because it's right. It's the right thing to do.

To be fair, a lot of these bonuses were in 2007 before everything hit the fan. But even so, they have been living at the trough and -- for so heavily so long that that's what's caused this huge negative reaction and why the public is so…

Well, I think first of all, there's a lot of responsibility that rests with Washington and passing a plan that really did not have these accountability provisions in it.

It does build confidence across the board. And look, he's got these huge problems ahead, but he also has the support now of about 70 percent more of the public who really want to see him do well.

If he's going to break through this polarization that we had now that has plagued both the Clinton administration and the Bush administration, he's got to try some things that are different.

If you look at the totality of what he now faces, he's got to make decisions for about -- over a trillion dollars in new government spending and commitments in the next 90 days.

Not unless he wanted to go home as Herbert Hoover on Christmas Eve, he had no choice.

I think it would be a good idea for her, as you suggested, to -- to give a major speech in the next few days, to let us know what her vision of the country is.

I think we should give this poor man a chance to try something new, to reach out across divides, to see if he can't find common ground among people who may disagree on some issues, but agree on others, so that he's going to do, as a…

I think a public speech is a very good idea and then answer some questions after it's over.

I think that part of what the role is going to be for the next two year's -- let's remember, we're only talking about somebody who's going to fill a seat for two years until there's a general election.

I'm not sure Caroline Kennedy as well meaning, well intentioned, the good public servant that she is, I'm not sure she fits that bill.

I think to go out upstate and talk to the Mayors up there and begin to take some questions from the press, she wants to see how much she really enjoys the rough and tumble.

It's almost done, Anderson, in my view. But David Paterson the governor, now finds himself caught in the cross fire doesn't he? He's probably going to be damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.

I think we ought to give both these men a more generous understanding of what they're attempting to do. They're attempting to build bridges.

I think we have to look at the larger picture. Barack Obama is becoming President of one of the most divided nations in the industrialized world; one that has been almost paralyzed in acting on a variety of fronts because of our deep, deep…

You know, they shouldn't. But it's not as if Caroline Kennedy is coming in from the entertainment world.

Do we have too much dynastic power in American politics? Yes. Bush, Clinton, all the rest of it.

When people were asked to look at all of the names who might run, she ran away with it in the public polls a couple of weeks ago.