Tina Brown

Perhaps the most damaging aspect of the Obamacare tech nightmare is how wholly predictable it all was. Anyone who has been involved in building the most rudimentary of web operations knows nothing ever works as it's supposed to. Even awesome Apple, mighty Microsoft, and gargantuan Google miss deadlines.

Who was Amanda Knox? Was she a fresh-faced honor student from Seattle who met anyone's definition of an all-American girl - attractive, athletic, smart, hard-working, adventuresome, in love with languages and travel? Or was her pretty face a mask, a duplicitous cover for a depraved soul?

The no-secrets era of social media makes one consider the built-in risk factor of nominating high-testosterone men to positions of power at all. Everyone is under too much scrutiny now to take a chance on candidates who suddenly blow up into a comic meme, a punchline, a ribald hashtag.

I don't think of people as black or white. It's a question of are they photogenic or not? I don't think anyone says, 'Let's book her. She's black.' I think they say, 'Let's book her. She's good.' We've come that far.