Government & Politics

Jarhead tells the story of a Marine sniper whose unit is sent to the Middle East for the Iraq conflict of 1991. It stars Jake Gyllenhaal, who narrates the film; Jamie Foxx; and Peter Sarsgaard. It was directed by Sam Mendes, who won an Oscar for American Beauty.

Blurring the line between church and state threatens civil liberties and privacy, says former president Jimmy Carter. That's the case he makes in his new book, Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis.

Stuart Bowen is the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. His office has just released its seventh Quarterly Report to Congress. The report documents how $30 billion set aside for Iraqi reconstruction was spent — and how to prevent waste and fraud. Bowen has served in the post since October 2004. Formerly, he served in the White House and was a partner at the Washington, D.C., law firm of Patton Boggs LLP. Bowen's ties to Bush go back to the early 1990s, when he worked in the Texas governor's office. Bowen was also an intelligence officer in the U.S.

Writers Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon are the co-authors of The Next Attack: The Failure Of The War On Terror and a Strategy For Getting it Right. The book criticizes the Bush administration's responses to the terror attacks of Sept 11, 2001.

William Kristol is the founder and editor of The Weekly Standard. Kristol also wrote The War Over Iraq: America's Mission and Saddam's Tyranny. Kristol also led the Project for the Republican Future to help win Republican congressional seats.

Professor Cass Sunstein discusses the nomination of Samuel Alito to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Sunstein a professor at the Law School at the University of Chicago, is a former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.

In several ways, the age of "infotainment" is foretold in Good Night, and Good Luck, set in the 1950s. The film tells of newsman Edward R. Murrow's fight against Sen. Joe McCarthy -- but it also details "the inherent debasement of mass news in a commercial culture."

A need for foreign workers in Iraq -- and the flood of American dollars into the country -- have created a labor network that critics call misleading, illegal and even dangerous. Chicago Tribune correspondent Cam Simpson retraced the fatal journey of 12 men from Nepal.

As a former counterterrorism official in the Clinton and Bush administrations, Richard A. Clarke often had to imagine worst-case scenarios. His first novel — a thriller — does just that: set five years in the future, it envisions the United States on the verge of another war in the Middle East.

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has written about his interpretation of the constitution in the new book Active Liberty.

Martha Stewart turned her lifestyle advice into a billion-dollar business: Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. In addition to her magazines, Stewart has a new book, The Martha Rules: 10 Essentials for Achieving Success as You Start, Grow, or Manage a Business. She also has new shows on television and radio this fall.

Army National Guardsman Jason Christopher Hartley. While serving in Iraq, Hartley kept a blog of his experiences until his commanders forced him to shut it down. He’s now back from Iraq, and has a new memoir, “Just Another Soldier: A Year on the Ground in Iraq” (HarperCollins).

Rapper Emmanuel Jal was one of the "Lost Boys" — youths caught up in violence in Sudan. He later escaped to Kenya. Now he's making music about peace. His new CD is Ceasefire.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews Good Night, and Good Luck, a new film about Edward R. Murrow, tells the story of the famed newsman's clash with Sen. Joe McCarthy. The film, with David Strathairn in the title role, was directed by George Clooney.

Faced with a need for massive rebuilding in the Gulf Coast, President Bush has refused to estimate how much the effort might cost -- or to raise taxes to pay for it. To discuss the president's economic policy, we speak with columnist Paul Krugman and Stuart Butler of the Heritage Foundation.

Law Professor CASS SUNSTEIN on the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. President Bush has nominated Miers, White House Counsel, to replace Sandra Day O’Connor. Sunstein is the Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor of Jurisprudence in the Law School at the University of Chicago. Early in his career, Sunstein clerked for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. He has also been a visiting professor of law at Columbia and Harvard universities.

New York Times reporter Dexter Filkins has been covering Iraq... thoroughly. In April he received the George Polk Award for War Reporting for his riveting, first-hand account of an eight-day attack on Iraqi insurgents in Fallujah.

Time magazine's Mike Allen has co-authored a new investigative article on how the Bush administration appoints the officials who run vital government agencies. The article, spurred by complaints about ousted FEMA head Mike Brown, is "How Many More Mike Browns Are Out There?"

The new film A History of Violence stars Viggo Mortenson. Director David Cronenberg has made a movie that many viewers will likely find easier to approach than his other movies.

Anthony Shadid's new book is Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War. Shadid is the Baghdad correspondent for The Washington Post. The book culls stories from Shadid's many visits to Iraq over the past eight years.