Alex Gibney
Alex Gibney
Writer, producer, director
Alex Gibney has been called “the most important documentarian of our time” by Esquire Magazine and “one of America’s most successful and prolific documentary filmmakers” by The New York Times.
Gibney has won an Academy Award, multiple Emmy Awards, the Grammy Award, several Peabody Awards, the DuPont-Columbia, The Independent Spirit, The Writers Guild of America Awards, and others. Gibney was honored with the International Documentary Association’s Career Achievement Award in 2013 and the first ever Christopher Hitchens Prize in 2015.
Gibney has made many films, including Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, Taxi to the Dark Side, and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. He has also made several shows, including Parched and Dirty Money. He executive produced The Looming Tower, a drama series based on Lawrence Wright’s bestseller The Looming Tower that premiered on Hulu in February 2018.
The Common Good hosted Mr. Gibney in November of 2010: Screening of Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer.
Twitter: @alexgibneyfilm
William Galston
William Galston
Author, Senior Fellow of the Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies Program
William A. Galston holds the Ezra Zilkha Chair in the Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies Program, where he serves as a Senior Fellow. He is also College Park Professor at the University of Maryland.
A participant in six presidential campaigns, he served from 1993 to 1995 as Deputy Assistant to President Clinton for Domestic Policy. Galston is the author of eight books and more than 100 articles in the fields of political theory, public policy, and American politics. His most recent books are Liberal Pluralism (Cambridge, 2002), The Practice of Liberal Pluralism (Cambridge, 2004), and Public Matters (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005). A winner of the American Political Science Association’s Hubert H. Humphrey Award, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004. Galston has appeared on all the principal television networks and is a frequent commentator on NPR. He also writes a weekly column for The Wall Street Journal.
Galston spoke at The Common Good Forum & American Spirit Awards 2016.
Twitter: @BillGalston
Professor Uzi Rabi
Professor Uzi Rabi
Director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies
Professor Uzi Rabi is the Director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies and Chair of the Department of Middle Eastern and African History at Tel Aviv University. His most recent publication is the edited volume International Intervention in Local Conflicts (I.B. Tauris 2010).
He is the director of the annual Tel Aviv University Workshop in which scholars from around the world visit Israel for a ten-day seminar on the geopolitics of Israel and its neighbors, and the history of the region and its significance in contemporary world affairs. Rabi is also the author of numerous publications, academic articles, and book reviews including: The Emergence of States in a Tribal Society: Oman Under Sa’id bin Taymur, 1932- 1970 (Sussex Academic Press 2006); Saudi Arabia, An Oil Kingdom in the Labyrinth of Religion and Politics (The Open University, 2007) in Hebrew; and Iran’s Time (HaKibbutz HaMeuchad, 2008) in Hebrew.
Previously, Dr. Rabi served as the vice-director of the S. Daniel Abraham for Regional and International Studies at TAU. In addition, he participated in the Center for Iranian Studies at Tel Aviv University as a senior researcher. Dr. Rabi is regularly invited by the Israeli Knesset to deliver updates and briefs on current developments in the Middle East.
Dr. Rabi was hosted by The Common Good in 2011: The Changing Face of the Middle East with Professor Uzi Rabi.
Twitter: @uzi_rabi
Suzanne Ehlers
Suzanne Ehlers
President and CEO of Population Action International
Suzanne Ehlers, President & CEO of Population Action International, has worked for the last 15 years to promote women’s health, rights and empowerment across the globe. She has been with PAI for over seven years, most recently leading the strategic direction of campaigns as Vice President of International Advocacy. Suzanne’s work focused largely on building and supporting advocacy capacity among indigenous NGOs; strengthening reproductive health and HIV integration; leveraging new monies for reproductive health supplies; and fostering innovative approaches to coalition building.
Under Suzanne’s leadership as President, PAI is leading U.S. and global advocacy for family planning; providing key technical and financial resources to partners in Africa, South Asia and Latin America; and building the case for women’s health as the connective tissue that holds together a host of other development concerns, from the environment to state stability to food security.
For the last two years, Suzanne has served on the U.S. government delegation to United Nations Commission meetings. She also sits on the Steering Committee of the Bangkok-based Asia Pacific Alliance; until recently, she chaired the board of the Janelia Family Foundation. She is an Environmental Leadership Liaison for Rachel’s Network, a network of women leaders “dedicated to the stewardship of the earth.”
Twitter: @SuzannePAI
Lisa Edelstein
Lisa Edelstein
American actress, playwright
Lisa Edelstein is an American actress and playwright. She wrote, composed and starred in an original musical called Positive Me in response to the growing AIDS crisis of the 1980s, and has held many roles in television
From 2004 to 2011, she played Dr. Lisa Cuddy, the Dean of Medicine at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital on Fox’s TV series House, M.D. In June 2011, it was revealed that she would join the cast of The Good Wife, on which she plays Celeste Serano. In 2011, she won the People’s Choice Award for Best Drama Actress in a TV Series for her portrayal of Dr. Lisa Cuddy on House, M.D.
Twitter: @LisaEdelstein
Mitch Draizin
Mitch Draizin
Founder and President of Longview Capital Advisors
Mitch Draizin is the founder and President of Longview Capital Advisors, which serves as investment and mortgage bankers to New York Metro based real estate developers, owners and owner-occupiers.
Draizin serves on multiple national boards focused on Education, LGBT and Progressive issues, and is actively engaged in identifying and mentoring future leaders primarily in the Progressive and LGBT communities. He is a member of the Board of the Congressional Award Foundation and the Truman National Security Project-CNP where he sponsors the Mitchell Draizin/Philippe Brugere-Trelat Truman/CNP Political Fellowship.
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Matthew Dowd
Matthew Dowd
American Political Consultant
Matthew John Dowd is an American political consultant who was the chief strategist for the Bush-Cheney 2004 presidential campaign. In December 2007, he was introduced on ABC’s Good Morning America as its new political contributor. He also appears on the same network’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos.
Dowd began his political career as a Democrat, working for, among others, Texas Lt. Governor Bob Bullock. In 1999, he switched parties to become a Republican. During the 2002 election, Dowd was a senior adviser to the Republican National Committee. During the 2004 Presidential election, Dowd was chief strategist for George W. Bush’s re-election campaign, but he would later leave the Bush administration due to frustrations regarding the Iraq War.
The Common Good hosted Dowd in 2010: Election Insurrection: The Mid-Term Elections 2010.
Twitter: @matthewjdowd
Fats Domino
Fats Domino ✝
Musician
Fats Domino was part of many of the early touring rock ‘n’ roll package shows that “barnstormed” the country and popularized the new music.
No other veteran R&B artist of his era would come close to equaling his long-term impact on rock ‘n’ roll, as evidenced by the wide variety of artists covering his songs, from Bobby Darin, Ella Fitzgerald, Ricky Nelson and Ike & Tina Turner to John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Sheryl Crow, T-Rex, Los Lobos, and Cheap Trick. A prominent figure in the musical world, Fats Domino secured his legacy as an irreplaceable rock ‘n’ roll pioneer of the 1950’s.
Domino became missing in the wake of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation. His home was one of the epicenters of Katrina’s wrath, but he was eventually rescued from his flooded home.
Mr. Domino was hosted by The Common Good in 2007: Hurricane Katrina Relief and Music.
Senator Bob Dole
the honorable Bob Dole
Former Kansas Senator, attorney
Bob Dole is an attorney and retired Kansas Senator from 1969–1996, serving part of that time as Senate Majority Leader, where he set a record as the longest-serving Republican leader. He was the Republican nominee in the 1996 U.S. Presidential election, but lost the election to Bill Clinton.
In 2007, President George W. Bush appointed Dole as a co-chair of the commission to investigate problems at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, along with Donna Shalala. Although Dole has since retired from public service, he still remains active in public life. Dole currently is on special counsel of Alston & Bird. He is also a member of the advisory counsel of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. In January of 2018, he was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. In 2019, the U.S. Congress unanimously passed a bill promoting Dole from Captain to Colonel for his service in the U.S. Army during World War II.
Dole has released multiple books since 1988. Most recently of his releases are in 2001, Great Presidential Wit: A Collection of Humorous Anecdotes and Quotations, as well as in 2005, One Soldier's Story: A Memoir.
Twitter: @SenatorDole
Senator Chris Dodd
the honorable Chris Dodd
American lawyer, lobbyist, Democratic Party politician
Christopher Dodd is an American lawyer, lobbyist, and Democratic Party politician who served as a United States Senator from Connecticut for a thirty-year period ending with the 111th United States Congress.
Dodd won election in 1974 to the United States House of Representatives from Connecticut’s 2nd congressional district and was reelected in 1976 and 1978. He was elected United States Senator in the elections of 1980, and was the longest-serving senator in Connecticut’s history.
Dodd served as general chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1995 to 1997. He served as Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee until his retirement. On March 1, 2011, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) announced that Dodd will head the organization. In 2017, Dodd stepped down as chairman of the MPAA. In 2018, Dodd joined the law firm of Arnold & Porter.
The Common Good hosted Mr. Dodd in April of 2007: The Road to the White House: Chris Dodd.
Twitter: @SenChrisDodd
Representative Tom DeLay
Representative Tom DeLay
Former House Representative for Texas’s 22nd Congressional District
Thomas Dale “Tom” DeLay is a former member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Texas’s 22nd congressional district from 1984 until 2006. He was Republican Party (GOP) House Majority Leader from 2003 to 2005, when he resigned because of criminal money laundering charges in connection with a campaign finance investigation.
Tom DeLay began his career as a politician in 1978 when he was elected to the Texas House of Representatives. In 1985, he became a born-again Christian. In 1988, after just a few years in the U.S. House, Tom DeLay was appointed Deputy Minority Whip. In 1994 he helped Newt Gingrich effect the Republican Revolution, which gave the Republicans the victory in the 1994 midterm election and swept Democrats from power in both houses of Congress, putting Republicans in control of the House of Representatives for the first time in forty years. In 1995, he was elected House Majority Whip.
With the Republicans in control of both chambers in Congress, Tom DeLay, along with Gingrich and conservative activist Grover Norquist, helped start the K Street Project, an effort to advance Republican ideals. Tom DeLay was elected House Majority Leader after the 2002 midterm elections. In the eyes of some Democrats, he was renowned for his enforcement of party discipline and retribution against those who did not support the legislative agenda of President George W. Bush. On policy issues, not just political strategy and tactics, DeLay was known as one of Capitol Hill’s fiercest, staunchest conservatives during his years in Congress, earning very high marks from conservative interest groups (e.g., business, gun rights, pro-life) and very low marks from liberal ones (e.g., civil liberties, labor unions, environmental protection).
Since leaving Congress, DeLay has co-authored (with Stephen Mansfield) a political memoir, No Retreat, No Surrender: One American’s Fight, founded a strategic conservative political consulting firm, First Principles, LLC, and competed on the ninth season of Dancing with the Stars, until stress fractures in his feet caused him to withdraw.
The Common Good hosted Mr. DeLay in March of 2007: No Retreat, No Surrender: One American's Fight.
Edward Cox
Edward Cox
Lawyer and Chairman of the Republican Party of New York State
Edward Cox has served three U.S. Presidents, four Governors and the Republican Party at the state and national levels. He was sworn in as Chairman of the Republican Party of New York State on September 29, 2009.
For more than forty years he has supported and campaigned for candidates across the country beginning in 1968 as a part of the Nixon presidential campaign. In 1972, he travelled extensively as a family surrogate for President Nixon and in 1980 was active in the Reagan campaign. In 1984, he conceived and organized the statewide volunteer effort which helped carry New York State for the Reagan‑Bush team. In 1988 and 1992, Cox organized the New York speakers’ bureau for George H.W. Bush’s presidential campaigns. He also participated in the Republican National Conventions and presidential campaigns of 1996, 2000, 2004. During the 2008 Presidential election, he served as State Chairman of John McCain’s campaign.
His writings on public policy have appeared in The New Republic Magazine, the Antitrust Law Journal and the New York Post, and he is co‑author of a book on the Federal Trade Commission.
Cox practices corporate and finance law and has served as a member of the Management Committee and the Chairman of the Corporate Department at Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP.
Cox introduced Erik Prince at The Common Good in 2017: Rethinking the Afghanistan War with Erik Prince.
Kevin Costner
Kevin Costner
Actor, director, producer, musician, singer
Kevin Costner is an actor, film director, producer, musician, and singer. He has won two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and one Emmy Award, and has been nominated for three BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) Awards. Costner’s notable roles include Eliot Ness in The Untouchables, Crash Davis in Bull Durham, Ray Kinsella in Field of Dreams, Lt. John J. Dunbar in Dances with Wolves, Jim Garrison in JFK, Robin Hood in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Frank Farmer in The Bodyguard and Jonathan Kent in Man of Steel.
He won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie, the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film, and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie for his role as Devil Anse Hatfield in Hatfields & McCoys.
Costner serves on an honorary board for The National World War I Museum in Kansas City.
Twitter: @IamKevinCostner
David Corn
David Corn
Mother Jones’ Washington Bureau Chief
David Corn is Mother Jones’ Washington bureau chief. Until 2007, he was Washington editor of The Nation.
He has written for the Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Boston Globe, Newsday, Harper’s, The New Republic, Mother Jones, Washington Monthly, LA Weekly, the Village Voice, Slate, Salon, TomPaine.com, Alternet, and many other publications. He is the co-author (with Michael Isikoff) of Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War (Crown, 2006), and his book, The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception (Crown, 2003), was a New York Times bestseller.
Corn has long been a commentator on television and radio. He is a regular panelist on the weekly television show, Eye On Washington. He has appeared on The O‘Reilly Factor, Hannity and Colmes, On the Record with Greta Van Susteren, Crossfire, The Capital Gang, Fox News Sunday, Washington Week in Review, The McLaughlin Group, Hardball, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, and many other shows. He is a regular on NPR’s The Diane Rehm Show and To The Point and has contributed commentary to NPR, BBC Radio, and CBC Radio.
Twitter: @DavidCornDC
Ann Colley
Ann Colley
Director of Public Relations and Charitable Giving at Moore Capital Management, LP, climate change activist
Ann Colley has been working to protect the environment for over a decade. She is the director of Public Relations and Charitable Giving at Moore Capital Management, LP, and the executive director and vice president of The Moore Charitable Foundation (MCF). Colley works to advance the Foundation’s mission of conservation and protection of wildlife, land, and water.
As lead strategic adviser to MCF’s Chairman, Colley brings two decades of grant making and fundraising experience to the Foundation’s conservation and community efforts. She oversees grants to nearly 200 organizations annually, and represents MCF in its outreach and conservation work with nearly 100 others.
Colley is involved on the boards of several of the country’s leading environmental organizations. She serves on the Board of Trustees of Waterkeeper Alliance, which MCF was instrumental in founding, as well as on the boards of the University of North Carolina’s Institute for the Environment, Hudson Riverkeeper, Surgeons OverSeas, and the Rainforest Foundation US. She is a member of The National Council of the Land Trust Alliance, Oceana’s Ocean Council and the Conservation International’s Chairmen’s Council.
Twitter: @AnnColley_NYC
Richard Cohen
Richard Cohen
Writer for The Washington Post
Richard Cohen is an American journalist who writes a weekly political column for The Washington Post and contributes to the PostPartisan blog. Cohen joined The Washington Post in 1968 as a reporter and covered night police, city hall, education, state government and national politics. As the paper’s chief Maryland correspondent, he was one of two reporters who broke the story of the investigation of former Vice President Agnew. His columns have appeared on the op-ed page of The Washington Post since 1984. Cohen is the co-author, with Jules Witcover, of A Heartbeat Away: The Investigation and Resignation of Spiro T. Agnew (1974). He has received the Sigma Delta Chi and Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild Awards for his investigative reporting.
President Bill Clinton
President Bill Clinton
42nd President of the United States
William Jefferson Clinton served as the 42nd President of the United States (1993-2001). At 46 he was the first baby-boomer and third youngest president to ever serve our nation. Clinton has been described as the “new democrat” for his unique stance on democracy and efforts in politics.
After leaving the White House, President Clinton established the William J. Clinton Foundation, and today, the renamed Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation works to improve global health and wellness, increase opportunity for girls and women, reduce childhood obesity, create economic opportunity and growth, and help communities address the effects of climate change. So far, more than 3,600 Clinton Global Initiative commitments have improved the lives of over 435 million people in more than 180 countries.
In addition to his Foundation work, President Clinton has worked with former President George H.W. Bush three times – after the 2004 tsunami in South Asia, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and Hurricane Ike in 2008, and with President George W. Bush in Haiti in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake. Today the Clinton Foundation supports economic growth, job creation, and sustainability in Haiti.
Twitter: @BillClinton
General Wesley Clark
General Wesley Clark
Retired General of the United States Army
Wesley Kanne Clark, Sr. is a retired general of the United States Army. Graduating as valedictorian of the class of 1966 at West Point, he was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford where he obtained a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, and later graduated from the Command and General Staff College with a master’s degree in military science. He spent 34 years in the Army and the Department of Defense, receiving many military decorations, several honorary knighthoods, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom. Clark commanded Operation Allied Force in the Kosovo War during his term as the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO from 1997 to 2000.
Clark joined the 2004 race for the Democratic Party presidential nomination as a candidate on September 17, 2003, but withdrew from the primary race on February 11, 2004, after winning the Oklahoma state primary. He endorsed and campaigned for the eventual Democratic nominee, John Kerry.
Clark currently leads a political action committee—”WesPAC”—which was formed after the 2004 primaries, and used it to support numerous Democratic Party candidates in the 2006 midterm elections. Clark was considered a potential candidate for the Democratic nomination in 2008. Clark currently serves as the co-chairman of Growth Energy, an ethanol lobbying group and is on the board of directors of BNKPetroleum.
General Clark spoke at The Common Good in on February 27th, 2007.
Twitter: @GeneralClark
Vice President Dick Cheney
Vice President Dick Cheney
Forty-sixth Vice President of the United States
Richard Bruce “Dick” Cheney was the forty-sixth vice president of the United States, serving under President George W. Bush from 2001-2009.
Cheney’s political career started as an intern for Congressman William A. Steiger, then eventually went on to serve as special assistant to Donald Rumsfeld in the Office of Economic Opportunity in the Nixon administration. When Rumsfeld was named Secretary of Defense in 1975, Cheney was appointed as President Gerald Ford’s chief of staff. He returned to Wyoming after Ford lost the presidential election to Jimmy Carter in 1976 and worked briefly in the private sector before running for the state’s sole seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He soundly defeated his Democratic rival, Bill Bagley, in the 1978 election, and was reelected five times. He rose through the ranks to become minority whip. Cheney served as President George H.W. Bush’s defense secretary and commanded the Pentagon during the Persian Gulf War. During the Clinton presidency, he was CEO of the Halliburton Company from 1995-200.
As vice president, Cheney was active and used his influence to help shape the administration’s energy policy and foreign policy in the Middle East. In 2018, the movie Vice was released as a depiction of Cheney’s time as vice president.
Tory Burch
Tory Burch
Chairman, CEO, and Designer of Tory Burch LLC
Tory Burch is the Chairman, CEO, and Designer of Tory Burch LLC. She previously worked for Zoran, a Yugoslavian designer, and then for Harper’s Bazaar magazine. She has worked in public relations and advertising at Vera Wang, Polo Ralph Lauren and Loewe. She began a fashion label, “TRB by Tory Burch”, later known as “Tory Burch”, which launched with a retail store in Manhattan’s Nolita district in February. In 2005, Burch won the Rising Star Award for Best New Retail Concept from the Fashion Group International. In 2007, she won the Accessory Brand Launch of the year award from the Accessories Council of Excellence. In 2008, Burch won the Council of Fashion Designers of America award for Accessories Designer of the Year.
Burch serves on the boards of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, the Society of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, the Startup America Partnership and the Barnes Foundation. She is a member of the Industry Advisory Board of the Jay H. Baker Retailing Center at the Wharton School of Business, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. In April 2014, the Obama Administration named Burch an inaugural member of the Presidential Ambassadors for Global Entrepreneurship, a group of successful American business people committed to developing the next generation of entrepreneurs in the U.S. and around the world.
As of 2015, she is listed as the 73rd most powerful woman in the world by Forbes.
Twitter: @toryburch
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