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Jim Downey was a writer at Saturday Night Live for more than an 30 years, and was its head writer for ten of them. Downey was also head writer for Late Night with David Letterman in its heyday. He wrote the most enduring and influential of SNL’s political comedy through six presidencies — from Jimmy Carter through Barack Obama. “When he has taken aim at the presidential debates,” the New York Times said, “he has consistently defined the candidates before they can define themselves.” And SNL creator Lorne Michaels has called him “the best political humorist alive.”
Lawrence O’Donnell is the host of The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC. Formerly an Emmy Award-winning executive producer and writer for The West Wing, O’Donnell also served as senior advisor to Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY), chief of staff to the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works and the Senate Finance Committee. He is the author of Deadly Force and his writing has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and elsewhere. Born in Boston, O’Donnell graduated from Harvard College.