Nancy Gibbs
Nancy Gibbs
Nancy Reid Gibbs is an American essayist and managing editor for Time magazine, a best-selling author and commentator on politics and values in the United States. She is the co-author with Michael Duffy of The New York Times Bestsellers The Preacher and the Presidents; Billy Graham in the White Houseand The Presidents Club: Inside the World's Most Exclusive Fraternity...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
CountryUnited States of America
behind complexity editors glimpse parachute
When U.S.-based editors and columnists parachute into a news storm, it is often the stringers who keep us out of trouble, helping us glimpse the complexity behind the headlines.
pain fear practice
Maybe as times get worse we get better. Our pain makes us feel other people's too; our fear lets us practice valor; we are tense, and tender as well. And among the things we can no longer afford are things we never really wanted anyway...
miracle faithful doubt
For the truly faithful, no miracle is necessary. For those who doubt, no miracle is sufficient.
suicide sex school
Studies show that the more often families eat together, the less likely kids are to smoke, drink, do drugs, get depressed, develop eating disorders and consider suicide, and the more likely they are to do well in school, delay having sex, eat their vegetables, learn big words and know which fork to use.
wise kids nimble
Kids are more nimble than wise...
illusion live-by knows
Illusions are the truths we live by until we know better.
normal heroism sept-11
On a normal day, we value heroism because it is uncommon. On Sept. 11, we valued heroism because it was everywhere.
christian challenges way
Some Christians worried about a faith that was so embracing as to be meaningless, that exalted not the Almighty so much as the American way of life. When civil religion bleached the challenge from faith and left behind a watery patriotism, there was room for concern.
challenges subtle harder
The challenge was that it was harder to be subtle than strident.
rip sight smell
Death will never be pretty - its sights and smells too close and crude. And it will never come under our control: it gallops where we tiptoe, rips up our routines, burns our very breath with its heat and sting.
senior running responsibility
Eisenhower had run the Army; he knew all the ways decision making can go off the rails, and insisted on collective debate precisely to prevent senior officials from freelancing, or putting their departmental interests first. For all the formal machinery, Eisenhower was very literally the commander in chief, making the key decisions himself and monitoring closely how they were carried out. Even years after D-Day, when critics needled him for not being on the front lines with the invading forces, he retorted, “I planned it and took responsibility for it. Did you want me to unload a truck?
ideas white giving
You know, when a president is about to leave office, most of the time most people are dying for him to go on and get out of there. But there are a few little rituals that have to be observed. One of them is that the president must host the incoming president in the White House, smile as if they love each other and give the American people the idea that democracy is peaceful and honourable and there will be a good transfer of power
ukraine russia liberty
Nixon urged Clinton to maintain his relationship with Yeltsin but make contact with other democrats in Russia. He warned Clinton away from some ultranationalists and toward those interested in liberty and reform. He pressed Clinton to replace his ambassador in Kiev and concentrate future U.S. economic aid on Ukraine, where it would matter most.
christian country religious
For God to be kept out of the classroom or out of America's public debate by nervous school administrators or overcautious politicians serves no one's interests. That restriction prevents people from drawing on this country's rich and diverse religious heritage for guidance, and it degrades the nation's moral discourse by placing a whole realm of theological reasoning out of bounds. The price of that sort of quarantine, at a time of moral dislocation, is - and has been - far too high.