A panel discussion at the 2008 Aspen Ideas Festival featuring Amy Goodman, David Brooks, Stuart Rothenberg, Arianna Huffington, Jonathan Capehart, Jim Wallis and moderated by Jonathan Alter.
Bio
Jonathan Alter
Jonathan Alter is a senior editor at Newsweek, where since 1991 he has written an acclaimed column on politics, history, media, and society at large.
He is also an analyst and contributing correspondent for NBC News. He lives in Montclair, New Jersey, with his wife and three children.
David Brooks
David Brooks has been an op-ed columnist for The New York Times since 2003. Previously, he was an editor at The Wall Street Journal, a senior editor at The Weekly Standard, and a contributing editor at Newsweek and The Atlantic. Currently a commentator on PBS’s “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,” Brooks is also the author, most recently, of The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character. His earlier books are Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There and On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense. He has contributed essays and articles to many publications, including The New Yorker, Forbes, The Public Interest, The New Republic, and Commentary. He is a frequent commentator on NPR, CNN’s “Late Edition,” and “The Diane Rehm Show.”
Jonathan Capehart
Jonathan Capehart is an editorial writer for The Post, specializing in national politics and environmental issues.
Capehart joined the editorial board in 2007. Prior to joining The Post, he was a member of the New York Daily News editorial board from 1993 to 2000. He then became National Affairs Columnist for Bloomberg News from 2000 to 2001, and left to work as a policy adviser to Michael Bloomberg in his successful campaign for Mayor of New York City. He returned to the Daily News as deputy editor of the editorial page from 2002 to 2005.
Capehart and the Daily News editorial board won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing for their editorial series on the Apollo Theater in Harlem.
Amy Goodman
Amy Goodman is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!. She is co-author of the national best-seller The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media that Love Them, written with her brother David Goodman.
The book was chosen by independent bookstores as the #1 political title of the 2004 election season. The book was also chosen as one of the top 50 nonfiction books of 2004 by the editors of Publishers Weekly.
Democracy Now! is a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on over 300 stations in North America. Pioneering the largest public media collaboration in the U.S., Democracy Now! is broadcast on Pacifica, community, and National Public Radio stations, public access cable television stations, satellite television (on Free Speech TV, channel 9415 of the DISH Network), shortwave radio and the internet.
Arianna Huffington
Arianna Huffington is a nationally syndicated columnist, author of eleven books and co-founder and editor of the HuffingtonPost.com. She is also co-host of "Left, Right & Center," public radio's popular political roundtable program.
Her weekly commentary is syndicated in newspapers across the country by Tribune Media Services. Huffington's many books include On Becoming Fearless...in Love, Work, and Life, Maria Callas: The Woman Behind the Legend, Picasso: Creator and Destroyer, Pigs at the Trough: How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption are Undermining America, and Fanatics and Fools: The Game Plan for Winning Back America.
Stuart Rothenberg
Stuart Rothenberg is editor and publisher of the Rothenberg Political Report, a non-partisan political newsletter covering U.S. House, Senate and gubernatorial campaigns, Presidential politics and political developments. He is also a twice-a-week columnist for Roll Call, Capitol Hill’s premier newspaper. He served during the 2006 election as a political analyst for CBS News, and prior to that, he was an on-air political analyst for CNN for over a decade. He has appeared on Meet the Press, This Week, Face the Nation, Nightline, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and many other television programs. His op-eds have appeared in many publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. He has taught at Bucknell University and at The Catholic University of America.
Rev. Jim Wallis
Jim Wallis is founder of the Sojourners Community, a 30-year-old Christian ministry focused on social justice and peace, and editor-in-chief of Sojourners magazine, which covers faith, politics, and culture.
He is a speaker, author, activist, and international commentator on ethics and public life. In 1995, Wallis was instrumental in forming Call to Renewal, a national federation of churches, denominations, and faith-based organizations from across the theological and political spectrum working to overcome poverty.
Wallis's columns frequently appear in The New York Times, The Washington Post and other major newspapers. His most recent book is God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It; he has authored five in total.
He offers regular commentary and analysis for radio and television and teaches a course at Harvard University called "Faith, Politics, and Society."
Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman argues that this election is not as much about the individual candidates as it is about the issues and calls on the voting public to demand that the candidates make their positions clear.
Arianna Huffington details changes she has perceived in John McCain between 2000 and the current campaign and expresses her disappointment in his recent alignment with the conservative agenda.
Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart explains his column in which he cautioned Barack Obama from choosing Senator Sam Nunn as a running-mate and alienating gay voters over his stance against gays and lesbians serving in the military.
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