Every president makes the Oval Office theirs.

One of the worries about a presidency is that everybody tells you yes. Nobody helps you figure out where your blind spots are.

President-elect Donald Trump says he's looking for a simple plan for defeating ISIS within his first 30 days of taking office. But even as ISIS has suffered setbacks in Iraq and Syria, its violent ideology continues to spread.

One of the things that voters have said about Donald Trump, since he has no government experience, is that he will be able to surround himself with good advisers.

President-elect Trump says he's not even sure the Russians did the hacking.

My mother, Nancy Dickerson, was a reporter for CBS and NBC and the first female star of television news; my father, Wyatt Dickerson, was a successful businessman. Their parties, from the '60s to the '80s, attracted cabinet officials, movie stars, and presidents.

The house was big enough for my brother and me to have firecracker wars at one end and leave Mom and Dad undisturbed at the other. When firecrackers weren't available, we attacked each other with pennies and marbles and clumps of Crisco, which made brilliant greasy asterisks when you missed and hit the wall.

I couldn't wait to get out, and at 14, I moved into a three-room Georgetown town house with Dad. I never went back. When they eventually sold the house, in 1984, Mom had a goodbye party for 'Merrywood.' I refused to go.

I believe in Jesus Christ.

Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life.