THE CAST

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Robert Putnam

Robert Putnam is a professor of public policy at Harvard University and has been described as one of the most influential academics in the world today. He teaches both graduate courses at the Kennedy School and undergraduate courses at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. He has written a dozen books, including the best-selling Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community.

Tucker Carlson

Tucker Carlson is a conservative pundit, best known as a former co-host on CNN’s “Crossfire.” Carlson currently hosts PBS’s “Tucker Carlson: Unfiltered” and is a frequent contributor to Esquire magazine and The Weekly Standard. Currently, Carlson hosts his “Tucker” for MSNBC.

Al Franken

Al Franken is the host of “The Al Franken Show” on the liberal radio station, Air America. He has received five Emmys for his work on “Saturday Night Live” and has authored four New York Times best sellers, including, “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right.” He is currently running for the United States Senate for the state of Minnesota.

Bruce Bartlett

Bruce Bartlett is currently a Senior Fellow for the National Center for Policy Analysis. Previously, he served as a deputy assistant secretary for economic policy at the U.S. Treasury Department and also was a senior policy analyst in the Office of Policy Development at the White House in 1987 and 1988. He is a national columnist and has published four books.

Norman J. Ornstein

Norman J. Ornstein is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy He also serves as an election analyst for CBS News and writes a weekly column called “Congress Inside Out” for Roll Call Newspaper. He has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs and other major publications and regularly appears on television programs like The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Nightline and Charlie Rose.

Rev. Jesse Jackson

Rev. Jesse Jackson is one of America’s foremost civil rights, religious and political figures. He has played a pivotal role in various movements for empowerment, peace, civil rights, gender equality and economic and social justice. He was a presidential candidate in 1984 and 1988 and is now the Founder and President of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, a progressive organization fighting for social change.

Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky is one of American’s leading dissident political scholars. A renowned professor of linguistics at MIT, he has authored over 30 political books dissecting such issues as U.S. interventionism in the developing world, the political economy of human rights and the propaganda role of corporate media.

Doug Bailey

Doug Bailey is recognized as one of the pioneers in political consulting. He served as media director for President Gerald Ford and has run winning election campaigns for politicians nationwide. A vigorous of civic engagement, he has launched organizations to encourage online dialogue between candidates and the public including Rolling Cyber Debate, Freedom Channel and Youth-e-Vote.

Nicholas Kristof

Nicholas Kristof, a columnist for The New York Times since November 2001, writes op-ed columns that appear each Wednesday and Saturday. In 2000, he covered the presidential campaign and in particular George W. Bush and he is the author of the chapter on President Bush in the reference book, The Presidents.

Scott Reed

Scott W. Reed is the Chairman of D.C.-based lobbying firm, Chesapeake Enterprises and heads the Republican Leadership Coalition. Prior to founding Chesapeake Enterprises, Mr. Reed was Campaign Manager for Bob Dole’s 1996 Presidential campaign and the Executive Director of the Republican National Committee.

Amy Goodman

Amy Goodman is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, a national, independent, award-winning radio and TV news program. She has co-authored the national best-seller, The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians. This book was chosen by independent bookstores as the number one political title of the 2004 election season.

Ted Rall

Ted Rall is a political observer and cartoonist. His cartoons have appeared in over 140 publications including The Philadelphia Daily News, The Village Voice and New York Times. He has authored four prose and graphic novels. In 1996, he was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize.

Jack Hitt

Jack Hitt is a contributing editor/writer for the New York Times Magazine, Harper’s and the public radio program This American Life. He also writes for Rolling Stone Magazine and Wired. Hitt was an active journalist of liberal politics in the 2004 election season, doing several radio shows on Enemy Combatants for This American Life and writing op-eds for the LA Times.

Thomas Frank

Thomas Frank is the editor of The Baffler, a journal of cultural criticism and a frequent contributor to The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times. His novel What’s the Matter with Kansas, an analysis of how conservatism, once a marker of class privilege, became the creed of millions of ordinary Americans, was a New York Times best seller. His latest title is The Wrecking Crew, How Conservatives Rule.

Mark Green

Mark Green is the president of Air America Radio and also president of the New Democracy Project, a New York City-based national/urban affairs public policy institute.. He is also an author/editor of 19 books, a public interest lawyer, a former New York City Public Advocate and was Democratic nominee for Mayor of New York City in 2001.

Geoffrey Nunberg

Geoffrey Nunberg is an adjunct full professor at the UC Berkley School of Information. He is also a researched at the Center for The Study of Language and Information at Stanford University, and a consulting professor in the Stanford Compartment for Linguistics. The author of Talking Right and Going Nucular, he is a frequent contributor to Fresh Air and the New York Times Week in Review.

Linda Kauffman

Linda Kauffman is a Professor of English at the University of Maryland, College Park Maryland. She has authored several books, including her latest, Bad Girls and Sick Boys, an investigation of the role of fantasy in art, politics, and popular culture in which she shows how technological advances in medicine and science have altered concepts of the human body.

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