How I Fell in Love in Prison
John Forté is a Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter and producer from Brooklyn, New York. A graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy, he is a classically trained violinist who is known for his work with The Fugees. Forté was granted a commutation by President George W. Bush in 2008 after having served more than seven years of a 14-year federal prison sentence for a drug offense.
After seven years in captivity, musician John Forte was freed last year when George Bush commuted his sentence. In a Daily Beast exclusive, he writes about the painful humiliations of prison life, gratitude toward Bush-and what made him fall in love with the world. Plus, WATCH A VIDEO of his new song, Running Up That Hill.
First Day Out of Prison
John Forté is a Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter and producer from Brooklyn, New York. A graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy, he is a classically trained violinist who is known for his work with The Fugees. Forté was granted a commutation by President George W. Bush in 2008 after having served more than seven years of a 14-year federal prison sentence for a drug offense.
After seven years in captivity, musician John Forte walked free last month when George W. Bush commuted his 14-year sentence. In a Daily Beast exclusive, Forte writes about greeting his mom, playing music with his old friends, and the new taste of freedom.
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
Leslie H. Gelb, a former New York Times columnist and senior government official, is author of Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy (HarperCollins 2009), a book that shows how to think about and use power in the 21st century. He is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Christopher Buckley's books include Supreme Courtship, The White House Mess, Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, and Florence of Arabia. He was chief speechwriter for Vice President George H.W. Bush, and is editor-at-large of ForbesLife magazine. His new book is Losing Mum and Pup, a memoir. Buckley's Daily Beast column is the winner of an Online Journalism Award in the category of Online Commentary.
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Peter Beinart, senior political writer for The Daily Beast, is a professor of journalism and political science at City University of New York and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation.
Jeffrey Koterba is an acclaimed syndicated political cartoonist. Since joining the Omaha World-Herald in 1989, he has been a finalist for Editorial Cartoonist of the Year from the National Cartoonists Society and has placed second in the National Headliner Awards. His work is distributed through King Features Syndicate to 400 newspapers nationwide, and has appeared in such publications as the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Washington Post, among others.
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