Government & Politics

Film critic David Edelstein reviews the new Matt Damon movie The Bourne Supremacy. It's a sequel to the 2002 hit The Bourne Identity, shot in a fast-paced style that heightens the tension of the storyline.

The son of the late President Ronald Reagan has been invited to speak at the Democratic convention next week. He and his mother have become outspoken proponents of stem cell research. Reagan has edited the book, If You Had Five Minutes with the President.

His new book is America the Vulnerable: How our Government is Failing to Protect us From Terrorism. Flynn is a senior fellow in national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He was a commissioned officer in the U.S. Coast Guard, and served in the White House Military Office during the senior Bush administration. He also was director for global issues on the National Security Council staff during the Clinton administration.

Los Angeles Times journalist Greg Miller and military interrogation supervisor Chris Mackey talk about The Interrogators. The book provides an inside look at methods used to extract information from prisoners in Afghanistan.

What does it say about electoral politics that "values," formerly a political bromide, is now a battle cry?

Allen writes for the National Catholic Reporter. He's a Vatican analyst for CNN and NPR, and he writes a weekly Internet column called The Word from Rome. His new book is called, All the Pope's Men: The Inside Story of How the Vatican Really Thinks.

Moore is the president of the Club for Growth and contributing editor for National Review. The Club for Growth has a political action committee dedicated to elected conservative politicians who carry on the Reagan vision of "limited government and lowered taxes." Moore was the Cato Institute's director of fiscal policy studies, and is now a Cato senior fellow.

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."

Diamond is a professor of political science and sociology at Stanford University and an expert on democratic development and regime change. He is the coordinator of the Democracy Program of the new Center for Democracy, Development and Rule of Law at Stanford's Institute for International Studies. Diamond spent three months earlier this year advising the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.

Exum's new memoir, Man's Army: A Soldier's Story from the Front Lines of the War on Terrorism, recounts his experiences fighting in Afghanistan. In 2002, Exum fought with the 10th Mountain Division in Afghanistan, where soldiers were often fighting a brutal guerilla war against the Taliban and al Qaeda.

Trippi was the campaign manager for Howard Dean during his bid to be the democratic presidential nominee. Using the Internet, Trippi turned a little-known candidate into a frontrunner. His new book is The Revolution Will Not be Televised: Democracy, the Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything. Trippi worked on his first presidential campaign for Sen. Edward Kennedy in 1980. He also worked with the presidential campaigns of Walter Mondale, Gary Hart and Richard Gephardt.

The Fresh Air linguist comments on the speaking styles of 2004 presidential candidates John Kerry and George Bush.

Journalist Jennifer Gonnerman's new book is Life on the Outside: The Prison Odyssey of Elaine Bartlett. It's an account of Bartlett's struggle to get out and stay out of jail. Bartlett spent 16 years in prison for a single sale of cocaine. Gonnerman follows Bartlett as she is released from prison at 42.

His new book is Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. It's a biography of the former Soviet leader. Stalin was often described as an enigma. This exhaustive account of his life seeks to banish the mystery. Montefiore has traveled extensively through the former Soviet Union, and has written for many publications, including The New York Times and The Spectator.

He'll address the strict drug regulations that put Elaine Bartlett, the subject of the book, Life on the Outside, in jail. The regulations are known as the Rockefeller Drug Laws. Clyne is the son of Albany County judge John Clyne, who handed Bartlett a sentence of 20 years to life in state prison.

He's just published his autobiography, My Life. Clinton talks about what he knew about Osama bin Laden during his administration and how he tried to strike a balance between informing and terrifying Americans. Clinton currently lives in Chappaqua, New York and works in Harlem.

Critic John Powers reflects upon recent media attention on former presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan.

Pritchard is a retired U.S Army colonel and the former point man on North Korea for Colin Powell. He worked on North Korea issues in both the Clinton and Bush administrations. Pritchard resigned from the Bush administration in August 2003 and has criticized the administration for lacking an effective strategy. This week the United States is participating in six-party talks in an attempt to freeze North Korea's nuclear programs and restart inspections.

Beilin is the leader of Israel's social democratic party, a member of the Knesset and a former government minister. He was an initiator of the 1993 Oslo Accords, and 10 years later, was an architect of the Geneva Accord, a framework for peace between Israel and Palestine. Beillin has written a new book, 'The Path to Geneva: The Quest For a Permanent Agreement, 1996-2004.'

In his new book, Cronies: Oil, the Bushes, and the Rise of Texas, America's Superstate he charts the history of the relationship between the powerful Texas oil industry and politics. His last book, Pipe Dreams, documented the infamous rise and fall of Enron. Bryce's work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Guardian.