Published on Oct 26, 2012 by MoyersandCompany

Four debates have come and gone, and in the aftermath of the pomp, points, and politics, what have we learned? And how has democracy been served? Two of the country’s most astute political media observers — Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Marty Kaplan — join Bill to weigh in on the rhetoric and realities of two campaigns now in the home stretch, looking to make their cases by any means affordable.

Jamieson is director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania and the driving force behind the acclaimed online watchdog FactCheck.org. Marty Kaplan is the founding director of the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

Bill is later joined by Neil Barofsky, who held the thankless job of special inspector general in charge of policing TARP, the bailout’s Troubled Asset and Relief Plan. Between President Obama’s ineffectual proposals and Mitt Romney’s loving embrace, bankers have little to fear from either administration, and that leaves the rest of America on perilously thin economic ice. Barofsky discusses the critical yet unmet need to tackle banking reform and avoid another financial meltdown.

Currently a senior fellow and adjunct professor at the New York University School of Law, Barofsky is the author of Bailout: An Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street.