Richard Parsons called me into his office and said, ‘Mr. Howard, I do not know what your private life is like, but your public persona is on a par with Senator Barack (Obama).’ He said, ‘I want you to talk with Quincy.’ So I left his office and went to see Quincy Jones. He said talk to her… as a human being, as a friend. That’s what we’re supposed to do. The media may attack, but my responsibility is to this black woman who has established something amazing [and] opened up doors for other people, and my responsibility is to my elders, so if they say, ‘Do this, do that,’ I’m going to listen to them. I’m going to keep my friendship with her, and hopefully one day people will be able to remember her contributions and stop remembering her only for her faults.”