Government & Politics

His new book is The Working Poor: Invisible in America. Shipler is a former reporter for The New York Times. He's also written for The New Yorker, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times. His book Arab and Jews: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land won the Pulitzer Prize.

He is the editorial page editor of The Rutland Herald in Vermont, where he won that paper's first Pulitzer for his series of editorials in support of same-sex unions. He's the author of the new book, Civil Wars: A Battle for Gay Marriage. Vermont became the first state in the country to make civil unions legal for gay and lesbian couples. In 1999, the state Supreme Court ruled that gay couples were due the legal rights of marriage, and told the state legislature to decide how best to do that.

Lewis is The Boston Globe's state House reporter. He'll discuss the ruling by the Massachusetts high court yesterday that gay couples in that state will be accorded full equal marriage rights rather than civil unions. The ruling is a clarification of the court's November decision that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry. The state Senate asked for clarification on the decision, because they felt it was worded vaguely.

Critic David Bianculli reviews "Tanner '88" — the fake documentary series about a fictional candidate for president rubbing elbows with actual candidates. It was created 16 years ago for HBO by director Robert Altman and Garry Trudeau, the creator of Doonesbury. The 11-part series will be rebroadcast on Tuesday nights, beginning today, on the Sundance Channel.

Phillips is a former Republican strategist and a regular contributor to The Los Angeles Times and National Public Radio. And he's the author of nine books including The Politics of Rich and Poor. In his new book he takes a look at the Bush family legacy, American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush.

He just won a Golden Globe for the film Osama, which he wrote and directed. It was shot in post-Taliban Afghanistan. It's based on a true story about a mother who disguises her 12-year old daughter as a boy so that she can work and earn an income under the Taliban regime. Barmak also runs the Afghan film organization and is director of the Afghan Children Education Movement, an association that promotes literacy, culture and the arts.

Lewis and a team of researchers at the Center for Public Integrity have investigated the financing of all of this year's presidential contenders in the new book The Buying of the President 2004: Who's Really Bankrolling Bush and His Democratic Challengers — and What They Expect in Return.

Critic Maureen Corrigan reviews the new biography Elizabeth & Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens by Jane Dunn. It's about the rivalry between Queen Elizabeth the First and her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots.

He is a founder of the conservative group rightmarch.com. According to the group's Web site, rightmarch.com "is an umbrella Web site for many conservative organizations." The group has launched media and e-mail campaigns, some of them against Moveon.org. They are planning to sponsor TV ads criticizing the liberal group. One of the group's members recently released a country song entitled "Hey Hollywood." The song pokes fun at so-called liberal actors and country musicians, like Willie Nelson and The Dixie Chicks, who speak out against the war in Iraq.

The group was founded by Boyd and Joan Blades, two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, in the late '90s as a liberal political force. MoveOn.org recently sponsored the "Bush in 30 Seconds" ad contest. Some 1,500 contestants submitted ads and more than 100,000 people voted for them online. Moveon.org is now raising money to air the winning ad on TV this week and is even trying to get the ad aired during the Super Bowl.

Cowell is one of the judges on the talent show American Idol, a spin-off of the show he co-created in Britain, Pop Idol. The show has made him famous for his brutally frank criticism. Cowell has spent 25 years in the music industry, and is currently with BMG. His new book is Simon Cowell: I Don't Mean to Be Rude, But...

O'Neill and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Ron Suskind speak about the new book on which they collaborated, The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House and the Education of Paul O'Neill. The book chronicles his nearly two years with the Bush administration. O'Neill was the administration's top economic official and a principal of the National Security Council. The book has created a firestorm because of O'Neill's assertion that President Bush was intent on invading Iraq as soon as he took office, nine months before Sept. 11.

He directed and choreographed the new film adaptation of Chicago. It stars Richard Gere, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Renee Zellweger and Queen Latifah. Previously, Marshall won an Emmy for Best Choreography for his work on the movie-musical Annie. He also directed and choreographed the acclaimed revival of Cabaret.

In this week's New York Times Magazine cover story (Sunday, Jan. 11) he writes about Maj. John Nagl, a professor at West Point and a counterinsurgency expert who is putting into practice for the first time his theories about counterinsurgency. He is in Iraq with a tank battalion in the Sunni Triangle.

Frum is former assistant to President Bush and a former White House speechwriter who helped coin the phrase "axis of evil." Perle is a former assistant secretary of defense under Reagan, and a member of President Bush's Defense Policy Board. The two have been influential in helping to shape foreign policy for the Bush administration. They have collaborated on the new book An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror.

In December he was part of a USO tour performing for troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Kuwait. The tour lasted eight days, and he returned Christmas Day. He'll talk about the tour and do some of his routine from it. Franken's books include Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right and Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot. Franken is an alumnus of Saturday Night Live, where his most memorable character was the simpering self-help sap Stuart Smalley.

John Sifton serves as Afghanistan researcher with Human Rights Watch. His articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine and the International Herald Tribune. Since 2001, he has made nine trips to Afghanistan. Sifton is also an attorney.

Corrigan's choices include: The Company You Keep by Neil Gordon; Family Circle: The Boudins and the Aristocracy of the Left by Susan Braudy; and They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and America, October 1967 by David Maraniss.

Journalist Vernon Loeb covers the military for The Washington Post. He just returned from five weeks in Iraq. He discusses the situation there and the capture of Saddam Hussein.

He's starring in the new film The Cat in the Hat with Mike Myers, and in the upcoming film The Cooler with William H. Macy. Baldwin's other films include State and Main, Glengarry Glen Ross and The Hunt for Red October. He's appeared on Broadway in A Streetcar Named Desire and Loot. He is also serves on the boards of People for the American Way and the Carol M. Baldwin Breast Cancer Research Fund, named for his mother.