Began wearing his trademark bow ties in the ninth grade, he says (though he stopped wearing them in early 2006)
Met his wife, Susie, while at prep school in Rhode Island
She was the headmaster's daughter
Began his journalism career in 1993 at Little Rock's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, where he was an editorial writer
Left CNN in the wake of a heated 2004 exchange with Jon Stewart on Crossfire, shortly before the longtime political shoutfest was canceled; surfaced on MSNBC in early 2005
Was a contestant on the reality show Dancing With the Stars in 2006
In 2009, became a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, D