"YOU SHUT UP!"

Deirdre Imus and Tony Powell face off in "YOU SHUT UP!"

Frank Rich

Frank Rich joined New York magazine in June 2011 as Writer-at-Large, covering politics and culture. He is also a commentator on nymag.com, engaging in regular dialogues on the news of the week.

Rich joined the magazine following a distinguished career at the New York Times, where he had been an op-ed columnist since 1994. He was previously the paper’s chief drama critic, from 1980 to 1993. His weekly 1,500-word essay helped inaugurate the expanded opinion pages that the Times introduced in the Sunday “Week in Review” section in 2005. From 2003 to 2005, Rich had been the front-page columnist for the Sunday “Arts & Leisure” section as part of that section's redesign and expansion. He also served as senior adviser to the Times’s culture editor on the paper's overall cultural-news report. From 1999 to 2003, he was also senior writer for The New York Times Magazine. The dual title was a first for the Times. 

Rich has written about culture and politics for many national publications. He won the George Polk Award for commentary in 2005. His books include Ghost Light: A Memoir and, most recently, The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth From 9/11 to Katrina. Since 2008 Rich has also been a creative consultant to HBO, where he is an executive producer of the Emmy-winning comedy Veep, starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and executive produced the Peabody Award-winning documentary Six by Sondheim as well as the forthcoming documentary Becoming Mike Nichols.

A native of Washington, D.C., and graduate of Harvard, he lives in New York City with his wife, the writer Alex Witchel.

Colonel Jack Jacobs

Jack Jacobs was born in Brooklyn, New York. He holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Rutgers University and entered the U.S. Army in 1966 as a Second Lieutenant through the ROTC program. He served as a platoon leader in the 82nd Airborne Division, executive officer of an infantry battalion in the 7th Infantry Division, and commanded the 4th Battalion 10th Infantry in Panama. A member of the faculty of the US Military Academy, Jacobs taught international relations and comparative politics for three years, and he was a member of the faculty of the National War College in Washington, DC.

He was in Vietnam twice, both times as an advisor to Vietnamese infantry battalions, and he is among the most highly decorated soldiers from that era, having earned three Bronze Stars, two Silver Stars and the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest combat decoration. Jacobs retired as a Colonel in 1987. He was a founder and Chief Operating Officer of AutoFinance Group Inc, one of the firms to pioneer the securitization of debt instruments; the firm was subsequently sold to Key Bank. He was a Managing Director of Bankers Trust, where he ran foreign exchange options worldwide and was a partner in the institutional hedge fund business, and he founded a similar business for Lehman Brothers. He retired in 1996 to pursue investments.

He is a principal of The Fitzroy Group, a firm that specializes in the development of residential real estate in London and invests both for its own account and in joint ventures with other institutions. He serves on a number of charitable boards of directors and is the Vice Chairman of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. Jacobs holds the McDermott Chair of Humanities and Public Affairs at the US Military Academy, and he is an on-air analyst for NBC News, where he was an Emmy nominee in 2010 and 2011 and a recipient of the 2011 Murrow Award for his work on the Nightly News segment “Iraq: The Long Way Out.”  Colonel Jacobs is also the author of the Colby Award-winning memoir, “If Not Now, When?,” released by Penguin in October 2008.

"Bernie & Sid"

Bernard J. McGuirk is the executive producer of the Imus in the Morning radio program. He was born and raised in the South Bronx, New York, where he worked in his younger years as a taxi driver.

Sid Rosenberg is a radio personality and the former morning host of WMEN-640 AM.  Rosenberg is known for his controversial and sarcastic humor as a host on many radio stations including, WAXY "790 The Ticket" in Miami, where he hosted his own morning show.  He originally was paired with O.J. McDuffie, formerly a wide receiver with the Miami Dolphins; McDuffie resigned his position with the station in the summer of 2006.

Rosenberg's self-given jokingly middle name "Arthur" is a reference to former baseball player Dave Kingman. When Hall of Fame sportscaster Bob Murphy gave the lineups for the New York Mets, he would always give Kingman's name as "David Arthur Kingman"; Rosenberg continues this running gag on the Sports Guys by using Arthur as everybody's middle name.

His radio career started in West Palm Beach, Florida, where he hosted the syndicated sports radio program The Drive on Sports Fan Radio Network in the late 1990s, after starting as an Internet broadcast. In 2000, he moved to New York City to co-host WNEW-FM's turbulent morning show, the Sports Guys. A year later, he joined the Imus in the Morning program. He shared the sports broadcasting duties with Warner Wolf before becoming the full-time sports reporter. He engaged in heated half-mock, half-serious disputes with the other members of the Imus cast, leading for example to an actual boxing bout with producer Bernard McGuirk.  Several months after joining the Imus show, he became the co-host of the midday show on Imus' flagship station, WFAN. Here, his strong knowledge of sports and distinctive, high-pitched Brooklyn accent served him well. He would hold both broadcasting positions until 2005. For several years, he also hosted the radio pre-game shows for New York Giants home games.

Lt. Colonel Bill Cowen

Bill Cowan is a highly decorated, retired U.S. Marine Corps officer and Vietnam veteran where he spent 3 1/2 years on combat assignments.  In the early 80’s following terrorist events in Beirut, he became one of the first members in the Pentagon’s then most classified counterterrorist unit, the Intelligence Support Activity.  Throughout the ‘80’s and early ‘90’s he participated in numerous special activities and operations into Central America, Europe, and the Middle East, dealing with terrorists and terrorism, most notably working against Hezbollah, Iran, and the Syrians.

After the events of 9/11, Bill was called back to government service in support of special programs and activities of national priority related to intelligence, counterterrorism and military special operations.  In that capacity he made numerous trips overseas, including 13 trips to Iraq after U.S. forces were pulled out in 2012.

Bill is well known in the media.  Besides over 4,000 appearances as a Fox News Channel contributor, he has appeared three times on “60 Minutes”; has appeared on every major network to give analysis on matters of terrorism; has been featured in four TV documentaries aired on the Military Channel, the Discovery Channel, A&E TV, and PBS; and has written dozens of editorial and opinion pieces for various U.S. newspapers.

He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and a Distinguished Graduate of the Defense Intelligence College.