I learned another valuable lesson about asking good questions from Condoleezza Rice. When she was secretary of state, she would invite me to her office every other month or so for an off-the-record conversation. I didn’t cover foreign policy much, or know much about her day-to-day activities, so my questions were ill-informed and kind of dumb. I finally asked her why she kept inviting me back. She said it was because my questions were so broad and general that they helped her step back from the minutiae of her job and see the big picture. Sometimes a broad, dumb question is better than a smart
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