Why would Anyone Hate Daddy?

And other Questions from my Senate Confirmation Hearing

I will begin by relating the following story, which sounds like one of those things that people will make up to post on the Internet. My only excuse for doing so is that it is appropriate for the moment, and it is absolutely true.

Earlier this month, about a week before my Senate confirmation hearing to be an Assistant Secretary of State, I was with my nine-year-old daughter, the youngest of our five children. While she listens to occasional talk at the dinner table about politics and occasionally asks about my work, generally speaking, she has the typical interests of a nine-year-old girl, which is to say thankfully that politics is not at the center of her world.

I was talking to her about the fact that I was going to go to Washington, D.C. the following week to testify at the hearing that she had heard me talk about before. I had explained to h…