Tonight’s episode of Real Time with Bill Maher featured a passionate debate between Cornel West, a Princeton professor who has attended many of the Occupy Wall Street protests, and Ron Christie, a Republican strategist who previously worked as a staffer for Vice President Dick Cheney. The first topic of discussion after Christie came on the panel was Libya and why Republicans were not willing to give President Obama credit for carrying out the operation.

On Fox News Sunday today, Chris Wallace and panel debated the targeted killing of U.S. citizen and al-Qaeda member Anwar al-Awlaki and whether or not it was within the legal rights of the United States government to carry out that military action. Wallace highlighted the position taken by some liberals and conservatives that since al-Awlaki was an American citizen, he should have been subjected to the American justice system instead of being taken out on foreign soil.

On Face the Nation today, the heads of the Democratic and Republican National Committees faced off on President Obama’s record on the economy and the current race to replace him in the White House.

President Barack Obama and former president George W. Bush spoke at the site of the 9/11 memorial, and both reached back into old texts to put into words their feelings on this very emotional day for the nation.

While the main focus on the Sunday news shows today was Hurricane Irene and the government response to the storm, on Face the Nation today, Colin Powell weighed in on the “explosive” new memoir being released by former Vice President Dick Cheney, and responded to many of the charges the former vice president leveled against him.

When we first learned that Hurricane Irene was headed for the United States, it was only a matter of time before comparisons and contrasts would be drawn between the response of federal and local governments during this storm to Hurricane Katrina, which Jake Tapper today described as “the hurricane that exposed mismanagement and weakness at the highest levels.”

Journalist Peter Schnall offered a revealing interview with Turnstyle about the effort that went into convincing former President George W. Bush to discuss his memories of 9/11 with National Geographic for the channel’s upcoming documentary special. As it turns out, Bush’s people were quite open to the interview and, after what turned out to be months of negotiations, agreed that he would sit down with Schnall for an incredible four hours, without having interview questions presented to him in advance.

“He answered all the questions,” Schnall shared. “We sat down for two hours each day. He had no notes, he never got up. It was a very interesting journey.”

Previously, we’d told you that the National Geographic Channel is planning to air a 9/11 special focusing on former President George W. Bush thoughts during and after the terrorist attacks that demolished the World Trade Center towers and seriously damaged the Pentagon.

Nat Geo (as all the cool kids are callin’ it) offered a little preview of the special, providing further insight into the moment between Bush first learned that a plane had hit the towers (and surmised, as many of us did, that there must have been some unfortunate but isolated issue with the plane or the pilot) and when he was informed that the United States was, in fact, under attack.

ABC political analyst and former George W. Bush election strategist Matthew Dowd was very impressed by Rick Perry on This Week today, but he thinks one of Perry’s problems going forward in the election is that he reminds people too much of his predecessor. Dowd described Perry as “an incredible campaigner,” and described the current Texas governor as a better campaigner than his former boss. However, to many voters, Perry and Bush might be just a little too similar.

Former president George W. Bush is set to give his reaction to the capture and killing of Osama Bin Laden — a name that loomed over much of Bush’s presidency — in an upcoming special for the National Geographic Channel set to act as the cornerstone for programming commemorating the 10th anniversary of the attacks on September 11th.

In an interview that took four months to negotiate and which eventually happened to be scheduled two days after the world learned that SEAL Team Six members had found and shot the terrorist mastermind at his Abbottabad compound, Bush shares his first thoughts on the day the World Trade Center fell and the Pentagon collapsed. The Hollywood Reporter was able to obtain exclusive quotes from the film.

The Common hip-hop scandal is thankfully necessarily over as his White House performance went off without any controversy. On last night’s Dylan Ratigan Show, regular Touré gave his post-mortem to the scandal, highlighting an interesting point lost in the whole kerfuffle: if Common raps about carrying a gun, should conservatives applaud him for exercising his Second Amendment rights?

President Barack Obama finally provided the nation with a long-form explanation of his decision to enter the fray in Libya tonight, and despite the many critiques from the left on opening up yet another warfront for America, the reception to his statements from Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell tonight was overwhelmingly positive. While O’Donnell focused on how practical Obama presented the mission, Maddow appreciated his focus on greater national interests.

While many who were hoping to see international action taken to stop Muammar Gaddafi‘s attempt to retake the rebel stronghold of Benghazi in Libya were satisfied today by the UN’s no-fly zone resolution, Sean Hannity called too little, too late on President Obama, arguing that Republicans would have acted much faster to stop the attack. But he hit a dead end on his argument when panelist Kirsten Powers noted that it was Republicans, namely George Bush, that normalized relations with Gaddafi to begin with.

Former President George W. Bush‘s Decision Points publicity blitz continued yesterday, when he sat down with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for a live chat at the website’s Palo Alto headquarters. During the interview, Dubya again demonstrated why voters once indicated they’d love to grab a beer with him—mostly by poking fun at Zuckerberg through the duration of their talk.

Embedded in Keith Olbermann‘s Special Comment from last night‘s Countdown was the fact that the show had recently killed a segment in which President George W. Bush was alleged to have plagiarized portions of his new book, Decision Points. Citing weak evidence in the Huffington Post’s source piece, Olbermann asked “Would Fox have (killed the segment)? Would CNN have?” Excellent question! After the jump, see who ran with what plagiarism story, including one that was too good even for Olbermann to resist.

If you thought Glenn Beck putting on an evil witch voice to imitate Malia Obama was offensive, this one is going to blow your socks off. Last night, Bill Maher lamented President Barack Obama‘s “professorial” personality, noting with a hint of betrayal in his voice that he was expecting a “real black president”– you know, the kind that “lifts up his shirt so they can see the gun in his pants.”

Do you ever wonder why it’s always that one conservative aunt that forwards you those chain emails about Barack Obama‘s secret plot to turn America into a socialist utopia? Salon‘s perusal of internet rumors in the last decade shows that conservatives are both more likely to spread false rumors about liberals via fowarded emails that liberals are about their opponents.

Republican Congressman Darrell Issa is still not taking Former Bush speechwriter David Frum seriously. He went on CNN’s Rick’s List earlier today to clarify comments he made to the Huffington Post yesterday suggesting that Frum’s advice to Republicans should be completely disregarded because of his former employer. And by clarify, we mean reinforce.

The Minnesotan billboard caper plot thickens. It took a few weeks of anonymity to discover the culprit’s of last month’s mystery, where a jovial George W. Bush waved at commuters on Interstate 35 with a caption asking “Miss Me Yet?” This time around, however, it isn’t so much of a joke as a direct conservative message: “Remember Real Hope and Change?” it asks, with a picture of Ronald Reagan in a cowboy hat.

One of the previously anonymous small businessmen who purchased a billboard displaying a goofy-looking George W. Bush asking “Miss Me Yet?” over a Minnesota highway has revealed his identity. And as much as Gretchen Carlson tried to goad some anti-Obama sentiments out of Mike Rivard on Fox and Friends in an exclusive interview this morning, he remained faithful to his ambiguous agenda of pointing out something hilarious and then brushing aside any political repercussions.

Ken Starr, who rose to prominence in the late 1990s as the lead attorney against President Bill Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, is expected to take another executive position this week, this time in the much tamer field of academia as president of Baylor University, the world’s largest Baptist university. With the exception of his involvement in the constitutional defense of Proposition 8 in California, Starr’s post-Clinton career had taken a turn to academia; he had in a dean position at Pepperdine Law School for the past six years before the confirmation of his new appointment leaked.

Its almost been exactly a year since George W. Bush left the White House – a place he called “home” for eight full years. But recent events in Haiti appear to have transcended the once and future bipartisan landscape, bringing back the former president from his relative secluded and quiet, post-presidential life. Yesterday Bush was a guest on Meet the Press with Bill Clinton, and he frankly shared his feelings towards being back in the spotlight. Video of his candid quip after the jump.

As the face of media evolves, it’s important to honor the figures who helped define, shape and set the standards in their industries. These are some of the most prominent members of the media who passed away over the past 10 years. Take a look back with some snippets from their respective New York Times obituaries.

I was ecstatic last night when I read that Presidents Bush and Clinton would be participating in a panel this spring. As I read more about it, I grew surprised and a bit skeptical. As a regular columnist covering New York City panels, I’ve grown to expect that the speakers will reveal extremely little. So [...]

Last week, we reported that former president George W. Bush was putting his newly found free time to use by hitting the motivational speaking circuit with Get Motivated!, a motivational event series that likes to bring in former and current politicians alongside business leaders. His first speech was last night. How’d he do, and what did he talk about?