Walter Isaacson's Book "American Sketches," About Great Thinkers, Does Not Include Sid Rosenberg

New Orleans native Walter Isaacson is the President and CEO of the Aspen Institute in Washington, DC, where he sits in a room and thinks about stuff all day. Formerly the editor of TIME Magazine, Isaacson is also an author whose current book is American Sketches: Great Leaders, Creative Thinkers, and Heroes of a Hurricane.

The hurricane he mentions is Katrina, which ravaged his hometown more than four years ago. "We've got a whole lot of entrepreneurs, young people who came down and started charter schools," he said. "We've got a new mayor's race, which is good, because I think we could use a new mayor."

Isaacson is also grateful to the New Orleans Saints, whose undefeated season has only helped the city. "It's nice to know the good lord is a Saints fan!" he added.

For American Sketches, Isaacson looked back at the people he'd written about, and asked himself this question: what makes somebody a great leader?

"There are a lot of smart people in the world, half the time they don't amount to much," he said. "What makes somebody special is when they can think out of the box, be creative, and balance that ability to hold true to their principles, and yet also try to find common ground, when necessary, with other people."

He called Benjamin Franklin his "patron saint" of that ability, and said he feels bad for President Obama, whose goals to reform health care have unraveled. But that's not all.

"I feel sorry for him on Afghanistan, because there's no right answer there," said Isaacson. Imus supposed the right answer would be to get the hell out of Afghanistan, and Isaacson took about 15 seconds to come around to this thinking as well.

In today's New York Times, Maureen Dowd's point, as Imus saw it, was that at least when President Bill Clinton stuck it to you, he made you feel good, unlike Obama.

"I think it does take Obama to make Maureen nostalgic for Bill Clinton," said Isaacson.

He thinks people are being too hard on the President. "This is a pretty terrible time we're in," he said. "We were about to fall off a financial cliff a year ago, and at least we've been saved from that."

In American Sketches Isaacson writes about a conversation he had with Woody Allen after the discovery of Allen's relationship with his then-stepdaughter, now wife, Soon-Yi.

"He's telling me all of these things, and he touches me on the knee and says, 'I hope you don't mind I'm telling you all these things,'" Isaacson recalled. "I'm thinking, this is what I do for a living!"

The lesson there, he said, is that people love to talk. And don't we know it.

-Julie Kanfer