Fareed Zakaria: preference

Transcript context

…Fast-forwarding a bit, what did you learn debating at the Yale Political Union? Oh, I had great fun. I learned more than anything else, honestly, how to do politics because the Yale Political Union was like a mini parliament, but there were political parties, and you had to make alliances. You had to, especially if you were trying to rise up there. I became president my sophomore year, which was pretty fast. You had to be very good at politics. I discovered — if I can be totally honest — I was very good at politics, but it scared me. I did not like the person I became in doing it. You have to be pretty ruthless, pretty expedient. You have to make alliances. I wouldn’t say you have to be deceptive, but you have to do a little bit of overpromising and switching horses when it seems necessary. I don’t know if I decided this consciously, but I think one of the reasons I’m a journalist and not an active participant is that I saw what it does to you as a person, and I didn’t love that. I was very good at it, I will boastfully say. There was, I think, a 2003 piece in New York Magazine. I know you know it. This suggested you might someday be secretary of state. Now, this was never you saying that, but when that came out, no one laughed. Today, that would be unthinkable because our politics is somehow crazier. What did you think in 2003 when you heard people thought you could someday be secretary of state?…

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