Charles Krauthammer & Robert Reich
"THE AMERICAN SOCIAL CONTRACT"
The debate of the American Social Contract may be the most important debate of our time. While some Americans argue that individual freedoms are being eroded at an unprecedented rate, others advocate for protections meant to benefit society as a whole. We have invited Charles Krauthammer and Robert Reich, two of America's most respected intellects, to tackle this hot topic.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and named by The Financial Times as the most influential commentator in America, Charles Krauthammer has been honored from every part of the political spectrum for his bold, lucid and original writing from the famously liberal People for the American Way (which presented him their First Amendment Award) to the staunchly conservative Bradley Foundation (which awarded him their first $250,000 Bradley Prize).
Since 1985, Krauthammer has written a syndicated column for The Washington Post for which he won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary. It is published weekly in more than 275 newspapers worldwide.
Krauthammer is a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard and The New Republic, and a weekly panelist on Inside Washington. He is also a contributor to FOX News, appearing nightly on FOX's evening news program, Special Report with Bret Baier.
For three decades, his influential writings have helped frame the very shape of American foreign policy. He coined and developed The Reagan Doctrine (TIME, April 1985), defined the structure of the post-Cold War world in The Unipolar Moment (Foreign Affairs, Winter 1990/1991) and outlined the principles of post-9/11 American foreign policy in his much-debated Irving Kristol Lecture, Democratic Realism (AEI Press, March 2004).
The Daily Telegraph calls him "unquestionably the pre-eminent conservative columnist in a country where columnists still carry enormous heft." National Review featured him on its cover as "Obama's critic-in-chief." Der Spiegel calls him "the leading voice of America's conservative intellectuals." New York Times columnist David Brooks says that today "he's the most important conservative columnist." Politico calls him "leader of the opposition ... a coherent, sophisticated and implacable critic of the new president."
Born in New York City and raised in Montreal, Krauthammer was educated at McGill University (B.A. 1970), Oxford University (Commonwealth Scholar in Politics) and Harvard (M.D. 1975). While serving as a resident and then chief resident in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, he published scientific papers, including the discovery of a form of bipolar disease, that continue to be cited in psychiatric literature.
In 1978, he quit medical practice, came to Washington to help direct planning in psychiatric research in the Carter administration, and began contributing articles to The New Republic. In 1980, he served as a speechwriter to Vice President Walter Mondale. He joined The New Republic as a writer and editor in 1981. His New Republic writings won the 1984 National Magazine Award for Essays and Criticism, the highest award in magazine journalism.
From 2001 to 2006, he served on the President's Council on Bioethics. He is president of The Krauthammer Foundation and chairman of Pro Musica Hebraica, an organization dedicated to the recovery and performance of lost classical Jewish music. He is also a member of the Chess Journalists of America.
Robert B. Reich is one of the nation's leading thinkers about work and the economy. Now Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, he has served under three national administrations, most recently as Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton. He also served on President Barack Obama's economic transition board. In 2008, TIME Magazine named him one of the ten most successful cabinet secretaries of the past century.
Reich is the author of 14 books including The Work of Nations, which has been translated into 22 languages, and the best-sellers Locked in the Cabinet and The Future of Success, which in 2002 was ranked by BusinessWeek magazine as the #2 best-selling business book. His book, Supercapitalism, published in 2007, warned of the perils of an under-regulated and over-leveraged financial system. In his latest book, Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future, a New York Times best-seller, Reich looks at where the economy is heading after the Great Recession and what to expect over the next decade. He has written more than 200 articles on the global economy, the changing nature of work and the centrality of human capital. Reich writes a weekly, nationally-syndicated column for Tribune Media Services that focuses on the economy--the column appears in papers from the San Francisco Chronicle to the Kansas City Star. He is a consultant to many governments and corporations.
Reich's commentaries are heard weekly on public radio by nearly five million people and his columns appear frequently in The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and other major national newspapers. He appears several times a week on CNBC, and regularly on This Week with Christiane Amanpour.
In late 2003, Reich was awarded the prestigious Vaclev Havel prize, in Prague, for his original contributions to world thinking and culture. In 2004, he was named one of America's three most influential opinion leaders on business and the economy, based on a study by Accenture. In 2008, the Wall Street Journal named him one of the nation's top ten thought leaders.
He is also, we should add, an accomplished playwright. In summer of 2005, his new play, Public Exposure, broke box office records at its world premiere on Cape Cod.
Programs, dates, and times are subject to change.
