John Dickerson

John Dickerson is co-anchor of "CBS Evening News" and anchor of "CBS Evening News Plus." He is also a Contributing Writer to The Atlantic and is co-host of the Slate Political Gabfest.

  • 03/15/2023: Faith and Hope

    At the end of 2020 I wrote about that pandemic year so I wouldn’t forget what it was like.

    I wrote about hope and Thomas Merton:

    “By hope…the abstract and impersonal become …intimate conviction,” wrote the Trappist monk Thomas Merton. “What I believe in faith, I possess and make my own by hope.” Hope in the unseen. Hope in a better future. Hope in heaven. This is worship. If you hope that hope will carry you through, it will. (You can also write that sentence a different way: If you hope, that hope will carry you through. It will. The first is an instruction and the second one is a promise. They are saying the same thing but also something slightly different which contributes to the liquid boundaries of hope.)

    The reading this past Sunday was one of, if not the passage, that Merton seemed to be relying on for that view:

    Reading II

    Rom 5:1-2, 5-8

    Brothers and sisters:
    Since we have been justified by faith,
    we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
    through whom we have gained access by faith
    to this grace in which we stand,
    and we boast in hope of the glory of God.

    And hope does not disappoint,
    because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts
    through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
    For Christ, while we were still helpless,
    died at the appointed time for the ungodly.
    Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person,
    though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die.
    But God proves his love for us
    in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.

    • More Notions

  • 11/03/2023: Thoughts on covering Donald Trump

  • 11/03/2023: Ray Bradbury punk rock graduation.

    Ray Bradbury was so poor growing up that in order to dress up for his graduation he had to wear his uncle’s suit. His uncle had died recently. The suite was the one he wore when he died. His uncle was shot. The suit still had the bullet hole in it. I learned that from […]

  • 06/14/2023: An artificial intelligence response to the Trump indictment

  • 06/07/2023: Presidential Restraint

    Matt Yglesias has a piece in the New York Times under the headline: “It’s Great to Have a President Who Knows When to Shut Up.” My favorite topic: presidential restraint. I spent a lot of time on the topic in my book, and why it’s necessary for the job. (Chapter 23: Restraint). There is no greater […]

  • 05/10/2023: How would Christ campaign for president?

      UPDATE: I tried the opposite:  

  • 05/06/2023: Campaign Short: Carter in Wisconsin 1976 and Cronkite asserts his personality

  • 05/02/2023: AI really gets to the point

  • 04/30/2023: Selling Candidates Like Soap

     

    View this post on Instagram

     

    A post shared by CBS News (@cbsnews)

  • 04/29/2023: The Magic of Music

    My cocktail chatter from the recent Gabfest: My chatter is on the magical properties of music. To me, musicians are the closest we have to actual Wizards. They can conjure a feeling and then make another human soul have that feeling or launch another feeling. Writing does this too, of course, but it’s rare when […]

  • 04/22/2023: Long Tail Interviews on Prime Time

    We cover the latest on Prime Time every day, but we also conduct a number of interviews that last beyond the move to fish wrap(*). Here are some interviews from the first four days of this week: 1. Why the fighting in Sudan matters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16ffhTXOsAQ 2. Evan Gershkovich’s friend explains his condition in a Russian […]