John Dickerson

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John Frederick Dickerson is chief political correspondent for Slate magazine. Before joining Slate, he covered politics for 12 years for Time. His last four years he was the magazine’s White House correspondent.

The Washington Post once wrote about his talent for asking questions: “The master of the game is John Dickerson of Time magazine, who has knocked Bush off script so many times that his colleagues have coined a term for cleverly worded, seemingly harmless, but incisive questions: ‘Dickersonian’.”

Dickerson (during April 13, 2004 press conference): “In the last campaign, you were asked a question about the biggest mistake you'd made in your life, and you used to like to joke that it was trading Sammy Sosa. You've looked back before 9/11 for what mistakes might have been made. After 9/11, what would your biggest mistake be, would you say, and what lessons have you learned from it?”

President Bush: “I wish you would have given me this written question ahead of time, so I could plan for it.”

A native Washingtonian, Dickerson graduated with distinction from the University of Virginia with a degree in English. On Her Trail, Dickerson's book about his relationship with his late mother, Nancy Dickerson, a pioneering television newswoman, was published by Simon and Schuster in 2006.

John appears weekly on The Al Franken Show on Air America Radio on Wednesdays.