Capital Gang was a weekly political talk show on CNN

CNN

Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

. It aired on Saturday evenings at 7 p.m. ET

North American Eastern Time Zone

The Eastern Time Zone of the United States and Canada is a time zone that falls mostly along the east coast of North America. Its UTC time offset is −5 hrs during standard time and −4 hrs during daylight saving time...

.

The original panel was Pat Buchanan

Pat Buchanan

Patrick Joseph "Pat" Buchanan is an American paleoconservative political commentator, author, syndicated columnist, politician and broadcaster. Buchanan was a senior adviser to American Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan, and was an original host on CNN's Crossfire. He sought...

, Robert Novak

Robert Novak

Robert David Sanders "Bob" Novak was an American syndicated columnist, journalist, television personality, author, and conservative political commentator. After working for two newspapers before serving for the U.S. Army in the Korean War, he became a reporter for the Associated Press and then for...

, Al Hunt

Al Hunt

Albert R. Hunt Jr. is the executive Washington editor for Bloomberg News, a subsidiary of Bloomberg L.P. Hunt hosts the Sunday morning talk show Political Capital on Bloomberg Television, which airs on Friday night.-Personal life:...

, and Mark Shields

Mark Shields

Mark Shields is an American political columnist and commentator.Since 1988, Shields has provided weekly political analysis and commentary for PBS’ award-winning PBS NewsHour. His current sparring partner is David Brooks of The New York Times. Previous counterparts were the late William Safire,...

. Mona Charen

Mona Charen

Mona Charen is an American columnist, political analyst, and the author of two best-selling books, Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got it Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First and Do-Gooders: How Liberals Harm Those They Claim to Help — and the Rest of Us . Her political stance is...

 and Margaret Warner

Margaret Warner

Margaret Garrard Warner is a senior correspondent for The PBS NewsHour. Before joining the NewsHour in 1993, she was a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, The San Diego Union-Tribune, the Concord Monitor, and Newsweek....

 joined the panel in 1992, when Buchanan left the show to run for president in 1992. In 1993, Warner left the program to join PBS and was replaced by Margaret Carlson

Margaret Carlson

Margaret Carlson is an American journalist and a columnist for Bloomberg News.-Biography:She is best known for being the first female columnist at TIME magazine. Carlson joined Time in January 1988 from The New Republic, where she was managing editor; in 1994, she became the first female columnist...

, and Kate O'Beirne

Kate O'Beirne

Kate O'Beirne is the Washington editor of National Review. Her column, "Bread and Circuses," covers Congress, politics, and U.S. domestic policy....

 replaced Charen when she moved to Capital Gang Sunday in 1995. Typically four of the commentators were featured along with a prominent public official from either party. Buchanan, O'Beirne, Charen and Novak were the conservative

American conservatism

Conservatism in the United States has played an important role in American politics since the 1950s. Historian Gregory Schneider identifies several constants in American conservatism: respect for tradition, support of republicanism, preservation of "the rule of law and the Christian religion", and...

 panelists, while Shields, Hunt, Warner and Carlson were the liberal

Liberalism

Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...

 commentators. The show debuted in the fall of 1988 and ran until CNN cancelled it in 2005.

Capital Gang Sunday was hosted by James Glassman in the mid-1990s. It featured panelists Juan Williams

Juan Williams

Juan Williams is an American journalist and political analyst for Fox News Channel, he was born in Panama on April 10, 1954. He also writes for several newspapers including The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal and has been published in magazines such as The Atlantic...

, Howard Fineman

Howard Fineman

Howard Fineman is an American journalist who is senior politics editor at the Huffington Post. Prior to his move to Huffington Post in October 2010, he was Newsweek’s Chief Political Correspondent, Senior Editor and Deputy Washington Bureau Chief. An award-winning writer, Fineman also is an NBC...

, Ruth Conniff

Ruth Conniff

Ruth Conniff is an American journalist from Wisconsin and the political editor of The Progressive. Publications she has written for include The Progressive, The Nation, and the New York Times....

, James Warren

James Warren (journalist)

James C. Warren is an American journalist who served as the managing editor for features at the Chicago Tribune until he left the paper in 2008. He previously was the Tribune's Washington bureau chief from 1993 to 2001, and he appeared on CNN's "The Capitol Gang" as part of that job...

, and Mona Charen

Mona Charen

Mona Charen is an American columnist, political analyst, and the author of two best-selling books, Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got it Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First and Do-Gooders: How Liberals Harm Those They Claim to Help — and the Rest of Us . Her political stance is...

. The show did not feature any guests and was more cerebral than combative, in contrast to the Saturday version. In 1998, it, too, was canceled, along with CNN's Sunday edition of Crossfire

Crossfire (TV series)

Crossfire was a current events debate television program that aired from 1982 to 2005 on CNN. Its format was designed to present and challenge the opinions of a politically liberal pundit and a conservative pundit.-Format:...

.

The "Capital Gang" panellists appeared together again on NBC's Meet the Press

Meet the Press

Meet the Press is a weekly American television news/interview program produced by NBC. It is the longest-running television series in American broadcasting history, despite bearing little resemblance to the original format of the program seen in its television debut on November 6, 1947. It has been...

with Tim Russert

Tim Russert

Timothy John "Tim" Russert was an American television journalist and lawyer who appeared for more than 16 years as the longest-serving moderator of NBC's Meet the Press. He was a senior vice president at NBC News, Washington bureau chief and also hosted the eponymous CNBC/MSNBC weekend interview...

on February 17, 2008. With the Democratic nomination race still very much undecided, and the role of the so-called "superdelegates" in question, Hunt, Carlson, Shields, Novak and O'Beirne gathered to discuss the issues. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3898804/

External links

• Video of the Capital Gang on Meet the Press