There's a nastiness out there that wants to harm me with words. These are my enemies - the ideologues the populists the columnists who don't like the fact that I take them on toe-to-toe. What I try to do is tell the truth. It's not the coin of the realm in politics.

My dad was a sports writer when I was younger and then he became just a general columnist. But I grew up with him literally getting into brawls with football coaches.