This presidency has renewed the perennial debate over the importance of public officials' character. Can a distinction be made between public and private virtues? How should an official's policy successes be weighed against his character defects? And what should citizens make of the shifting positions of liberals and conservatives on these issues? Ramesh Ponnuru will discuss these and other vexing questions of the present moment.

Speaker Bio:

Ramesh Ponnuru is a senior editor at National Review, where he has covered national politics and policy for more than 20 years. He is also a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion, which syndicates his articles in newspapers across the nation. He is a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and he serves as a contributing editor to National Affairs, the quarterly journal of conservative ideas. Mr. Ponnuru is a contributor to “Face the Nation” on CBS. In 2015, he was included in the “Politico 50,” Politico’s list of “the thinkers, doers, and dreamers who really matter” in American politics. Ponnuru grew up in Kansas City, Kansas, and was graduated from Princeton University. He lives in the Washington, D.C., area with his wife and children.

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