Thanks for being with us.

Tonight it's really good to have you here.

If you had been the Pentagon chief of staff,

recently, chief of staff to the defense secretary

of the United States,

if you had been the director of trade policy

at the White House, again, recently you would help that job.

If you had been national security advisor

to the president of the United States,

and recently, not in some past generation,

but just within the past few years,

if you had been the chairman of the intelligence committee

in the US House of Representatives,

again, not a long time ago, but recently.

If you had been the Attorney General of the United States,

recently, if you had had any of those jobs

in the very recent past,

you'd think that you'd kind of be a hot ticket, right?

You'd think that you'd have options.

You'd be moving in impressive circles,

you know, maybe not for the whole rest of your life,

the sort of impact of that high-falutin job

...