Ronald Brownstein on "The Hollywood-Washington Connection"

National Political correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, Ronald Brownstein. He has collaborated on a new book, Storming the Gates: Protest Politics and the Republican Revival (Little, Brown and Company, written with Dan Balz, national editor of the Washington Post). In the book they look at how the Republicans captured Congress, so shortly after the defeat of George Bush in the presidential election, and how the Republican party has changed dramatically in the last ten years.

Public intellectual George Scialabba contemplates the role of great — and not so great — thinkers in his new collection of essays, What Are Intellectuals Good For? Critic Maureen Corrigan calls it "a pleasure to read."

His new book is Politics: Observations and Arguments, 1966-2004. He's a writer and editor for The New Yorker magazine and frequently contributes to its "Talk of the Town" section. Hertzberg was on the staff of the New Republic magazine for much of the 1980s. Hertzberg also spent time in the White House from 1979 to 1981 as Jimmy Carter's speechwriter. In the introduction to this book, The New Yorker's David Remnick says "as a writer he has tone control the way Billie Holliday had tone control."