Margaret Carlson is a political commentator and columnist. She currently appears as a panelist on the CNN political programs Inside Politics and The Capital Gang as well as being on staff at Time Magazine. She joined Time in January 1988 from The New Republic, where she was managing editor, and in 1994 became the first woman columnist in the magazine's history. She has covered the last four presidential elections for the magazine and her journalism career has included stints as Washington bureau chief for Esquire magazine, editor of Washington Weekly, and editor of the Legal Times of Washington. She recently published her first book, Anyone Can Grow Up: How George Bush and I Made It to the White House, with Simon and Schuster.