John Avlon is senior columnist for Newsweek and The Daily Beast as well as a CNN contributor. He is the author of Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics and Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America as well as co-editor of the anthology Deadline Artists: America’s Greatest Newspaper Columns, which was released September 15, 2011.

President Clinton said Wingnuts offered “a clear and comprehensive review of the forces on the outer edges of the political spectrum that shape and distort our political debate.”

Previously, Avlon was the chief speechwriter for New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and a columnist and associate editor for the New York Sun. After the attacks of September 11th, 2001, he and his team were responsible for writing the eulogies for all firefighters and police officers murdered in the destruction of the World Trade Center.