They wanted to audition people for the Middle East correspondent on 'The Daily Show.' They wanted to hire somebody ethnic for that slot. Helms had left, Cordry had left, and they felt that they needed an ethnic face. So, I went in and auditioned, and I got the job.
My dad originally wanted to be a foreign correspondent before he got into politics. We have very similar personalities, so I think I get a lot of that interest from him.
When I came back to Washington to be The Times' chief congressional correspondent in 1991, I was looking for a book subject, and Ted Kennedy stood out for two reasons.
The idea of being a foreign correspondent and wandering the world and witnessing great events, having adventures and covering the activities of world leaders, appealed to me greatly. It was a very glamorous life in those days.
My husband is a Dutch television correspondent. He's not taking any job away from an American. Because I don't really think there are any Americans that can speak Dutch and explain American politics to a Dutch audience.
Actually, my correspondent's language is better than mine. He can put his sentiment into words.
I had been a foreign correspondent in Japan for the 'Wall Street Journal' when my editor there became Washington bureau chief - this was 2007 - and he said, 'How would you like to go to Iowa and cover Hillary Clinton?' I was 28. I went to Iowa.
I don't ever think of myself as coming from a particular class because my father was working class but made his living as a newspaper foreign correspondent - someone of no fixed abode, as he used to say - who was as comfortable dining with the Mountbattens in India as he was having a pint with the boys. He was very gregarious.
I'm not besotted with the notion of being on CNN to the point that I'm going to suddenly morph into Anderson Cooper or Christiane Amanpour. I'm not a foreign correspondent.
On the flip side, I enjoy covering the Arab world, I've spent my entire career here in the Middle East, but I would never call myself a war correspondent.
