By host Tom Ashbrook:
In the Hollywood version, justice out of Chicago came in the form of Kevin Costner and Sean Connery in “The Untouchables”: tough, idealistic crusaders against Al Capone. In the Washington version, circa 2005, justice in the Valerie Plame leak case stood up last week in the form of one special prosecutor [...]

There’s been an indictment in the Vice President’s Office. We’ll look at the situation of the Vice President himself, Dick Cheney.
Guests:
Walter Pincus, covers national security for The Washington Post
Daniel Richman, former federal prosecutor, professor at Fordham Law School
David Corn, Washington editorr of The Nation
John Fund, writer and columnist for Opinionjournal.com
David Tillotson, neighbor of Valerie Plame
TBA

By host Tom Ashbrook:
The third time may be charmed for President Bush, trying for the last four months to find a replacement for retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor on the U.S. Supreme Court. First came John Roberts, who was swept into the Chief Justice role when the late William Rhenquist died. Then came current White [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
In 1969, a young guitarist named Leo Kottke came out with his head-turning debut album, “Twelve String Blues,” recorded live at the Minneapolis Scholar Coffee House. It was the beginning of a legendary guitar career.
In 1999, as a new millennium came in, the touring sensation Phish, the group “Rolling Stone” called [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
If there’s a gold stud in your ear, or chain on your neck, or ring on your finger, you’re part of the picture. A century and half after miners pulled gold nuggets out of river beds in California, the gold mining industry is now going to incredible lengths to blast and bore [...]

Robert Oxnam was president of the Asia Society, a China scholar, companion to Rockefellers, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet — a man of gold-plated resume and accomplishment. He was also and still is a classic case of “multiple personality disorder.”
Behind the facade of Robert Oxnam there was a public figure, boiled Bobby, Tommy, Baby, Robbey, [...]

Guests:
Daniel Klaidman, Washington Bureau Chief for Newsweek magazine
John Harwood, National Political Editor for The Wall Street Journal
Joshua Green, senior editor at The Atlantic Monthly magazine
Wayne Slater, senior political writer for The Dallas Morning News and co-author of “Bush’s Brain
William McKenzie, editorial writer and columnist for The Dallas Morning News
David Corn, Washington Editor for The Nation [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
The president who does not back down has folded, or at least his Supreme Court nominee has. This morning, Harriet Miers withdrew her name for consideration as nominee to the nation’s highest court. By all indications, President Bush’s onetime personal attorney and controversial court pick, read the writing on the wall.
Conservatives, [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
If you’re poor and sick in America, God help you. No one knows what to do with the cost of helping you out. Look at the headlines. Yesterday, a U.S. Senate committee voted to cut $10 billion from Medicaid and Medicare spending, even as health care costs soar.
Today, there is news [...]

The Bush Administration seems to be choosing a diplomatic approach to the touchy situation with Syria. Meanwhile, the UN Security Council heard more Tuesday about a report issued last week that said the decision to kill former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri “could not have been taken without the approval of top-ranked Syrian security officials.”
Anthony [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
Two thousand dead American troops in Iraq. We all saw it coming, with an awful and certain inevitability.
The media saw it coming, and laid its plans. The White House saw it coming, and had President Bush out this week, talking up the war. The 140,000 troops in Iraq saw it coming [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
On December 1st, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, a black seamstress finished with her day of work, caught a city bus, and headed home. Three stops later, a white man got on the bus and had to stand. Montgomery and this country’s rules at that time required that blacks rise to [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
It was an inevitable tableau in the Oval Office yesterday. President Bush, with Alan Greenspan at his side, announced a new nominee to take over as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board — the country’s most powerful guardian of monetary policy, and by that, the economy that affects every American.
Greenspan was [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
By some key measures, they are still the “second sex.” American women make up only nine of the Fortune 500’s bigtime CEOs, fourteen of the US Senate’s hundred members, and ten percent of medical school department chairs.
But by many other measures, the influence and impact of American women is absolutely skyrocketing. [...]

A Baghdad hotel popular with journalists was attacked earlier today. Police officials say the attack involved two rockets and one car bomb.
For an update, we turn to Borzou Daragahi, Baghdad correspondent for The Los Angeles Times.
Guests:
Borzou Daragahi, Baghdad correspondent for The Los Angeles Times.

It’s a menacing Monday on the East Coast today — a hurricane barreling down on Florida and, in Washington, a special prosecutor’s sword dangling over two of the most powerful men in the Bush White House.
Before this week is out, Karl Rove and Lewis “Scooter” Libby — chief advisers to the president and vice-president of [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
Some days, things hurt so badly you have to laugh. Novelist Amy Tan is on that path these days.
The bestselling author of “The Joy Luck Club”, “The Kitchen God’s Wife,” and “The Bonesetter’s Daughter” is soaring far beyond the intimate mother-daughter stories of Chinese tradition and Chinese- American life.
Her new novel, “Saving [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
Apple Computer co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs was back in his famed role as technology hypnotist last week.
Apple already has millions around the world hooked on its iPod digital music players. You can’t hit a bus, subway, school locker, or Starbucks in America without finding his signature white ear buds and nifty [...]

Former Illinois Governor George Ryan made national headlines when he emptied his state’s Death Row with a blanket commutation for 160 condemned inmates in 2003. Ryan called the Illinois death penalty system “arbitrary, capricious — and therefore immoral.”
The former governor is now himself on trial for racketeering and fraud charges, that if convicted, could [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
For most of the last five years, on the surface, many hard core American conservatives could hardly believe their luck. A GOP indebted to the religious right owned both houses of Congress, and the born-again President of the United States talked Bible and moral values like no president in living memory.
Yes, there [...]