Moral valueswas the catch phrase of the 2004 presidential election. President Bushs chief political adviser told The New York Times that moral values were responsible for the Republican victory. The Gallup Organizations exit polls identified moral values as one of the most important issues to voters. Commentators, both Republican and Democrat, tried to define the term and to interpret why so many voters adhered to it.

During Mondays (March 28) Festival of Ideas at West Virginia University, journalists Jonah Goldberg and Peter Beinart will debate this topic and its impact on the election inReds vs. Blues: The Question of Moral Values in America.The presentation begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Mountainlair Ballroom.

Goldberg, representing theReds,is editor-at-large of the National Review Online, for which he writes hisThe Goldberg Filecolumn three times a week. He is a contributing editor of the National Reviews print edition.

In addition, Goldberg is the author of a nationally syndicated column, a CNN contributor and a regular panelist onLate Edition with Wolf Blitzer.He has also appeared on the political talk showCrossfire.

Goldberg got his start as a researcher for the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., and later became a television producer.

During his television career, he served as senior producer ofThink Tank with Ben Wattenberg,an award-winning public affairs program, and wrote and produced two documentaries for PBS .

Now an award-winning journalist, Goldberg has rapidly become one of the dominant players in Web journalism. The New York Press called Goldbergs work with The National Review Onlineby far the best political online operation going today.Goldbergs work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Weekly Standard, Slate and other nationally recognized publications.

One of the most prominent young conservative journalists today, Goldberg also speaks on college campuses to spread the idea that political, media and cultural issues are both enlightening and entertaining.

Beinart, representing theBlues,is the editor of The New Republic. He has written about the changing politics of Americas cities, globalization and African politics.

Additionally, he writes The New Republics signatureTRBweekly column, which is reprinted in the New York Post and other newspapers.

Beinart graduated from Yale University in 1993. During his senior year, he was offered both Rhodes and Marshall scholarships for graduate study at Oxford University.

During his studies as a Rhodes Scholar, he wrote for The New Republic, Newsweek and Londons Financial Times, and after earning his masters degree, he went to work for The New Republic.

Also among his writing credits are articles for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal , The Boston Globe, Atlantic Monthly and Time magazine , where he is a contributor to the back pagesEssay.

Beinart has been a guest onThis Week with George Stephanopouloson ABC News,The McLaughlin Group,Nightline,Hardballand other TV political talk shows.

He has also appeared numerous times on C-SPAN as a political commentator, on MTV during the first night of the Iraq war and on election eve 2004, and on a variety of CNN programs, includingPaula Zahn NowandInside Politics.

Other Festival speakers include:

• April 18Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, discussing fast food andSupersize Me,his documentary look at what its like to really live on such fare;

• April 25Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, who will close the series with a look at Sept. 11 and its aftermath to Abu Ghraib.

All Festival of Ideas presentations are free and open to the public and begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Mountainlair Ballroom. Seating is limited on a first-come, first-served basis. Festival of Ideas is produced by WVU Arts&Entertainment.

For more information, call 293-SHOW or go tohttp://www.events.wvu.edu.