In a wide-ranging interview with the Houston Chronicle, George H.W. Bush — America’s 41st President — told Joe Holley that he is backing Mitt Romney in his bid for the GOP nomination.

Vice President Dan Quayle may look like a bit of a joke now, but he was the safe bet of his era– and what he was chosen over is quite the shocking revelation. In what will go down as one of the greatest “what ifs” of history, somewhere up there with Rod Blagojevich considering giving President Barack Obama‘s former Senate seat to Oprah Winfrey, it was revealed this week that, facing a dilemma not unlike the one before Sen. John McCain in 2008, the 1988 George H.W. Bush campaign considered Clint Eastwood as a potential Vice Presidential candidate. And Rachel Maddow is delighted.

You may like Sarah Palin, you may not. (Full disclosure: I don’t.) But there is one concrete, indisputable fact: she tried to riff on Paul Revere and messed up. She was trying to answer a question, tripped up on her words, tried to recover. But it wasn’t a success.

This happens to people – especially people who have cameras pointed at them – all the time. It doesn’t make them ignorant, or a fool. It means they stumbled over their words. It’s OK.

Here’s what’s not OK: pretending that you did exactly what you meant to do.

On Tuesday night’s Hannity, host Sean Hannity joined a chorus of conservative objectors to rapper Common‘s invitation to a White House poetry event. In particular, Hannity objected to a line from a Common poem that said “Burn a bush for peace,” and said that “If this was somebody who used the same type of rhetoric about violence against President Obama I would be against it.”

So what did Hannity have to say when rocker Ted Nugent suggested that then-Senator Barack Obama “suck on” his machine gun?

Barbara Bush and former president George H.W. Bush have been married for nearly 66 years now (the two were wed in 1945) and still somehow manage to seem quite in love, as their Today Show interview with granddaughter Jenna Bush Hager clearly demonstrates. It’s a love so strong it can withstand the odd John Boehner joke.

It seems no one is immune to former president Bill Clinton‘s Southern charm– even the couple who lost the White House to him. In today’s special Larry King exclusive with George H.W. and Barbara Bush, both the former President and First Lady heaped praise upon the Clinton clan, thankful for the easy transition of power and the “really good personal relationship” that developed between the families.

Glenn Beck was not happy with Barbara Bush’s oh-so-thinly veiled attack on Sarah Palin from over the weekend. Although he says the former first lady is his “favorite Bush,” he called her comments “really insulting” and called her the “oatmeal box lady,” apparently comparing her to the man in the Quaker Oats logo (Who, it turns out, isn’t William Penn. Huh. You learn something new every day).

Former First Lady Barbara Bush is certainly not known for mincing words, though this may be one of the more subtle hints she’s thrown down in a while. Speaking alongside her husband, President George H. W. Bush, to Larry King in an exclusive interview, she delivered a doubled-edged critique of Sarah Palin– “She’s beautiful,” she tells King, but “she’s very happy in Alaska, and I hope she’ll stay there.”

Funny Or Die has produced a video featuring a star-studded cast of actors who previously portrayed US Presidents on Saturday Night Live. Jim Carrey‘s turn as Ronald Reagan and Dana Carvey‘s George Bush recall a kinder, gentler, and perhaps funnier era of SNL political satire. The message behind the video? Promoting finance regulatory reform (and reminding viewers that much of the financial mess in which Obama finds himself, was inherited from previous administrations?)

In a move not dissimilar from the New York Post trying to will Eliot Spitzer back into office with a series of scantily sourced front page stories, Politico reported earlier that friends of Fox News president Roger Ailes are encouraging the businessman to consider a run for President of the United States in 2012. Ailes quickly laughed off the claim with a quote from an aide.

White House senior adviser David Axelrod joined George Stephanopoulos to follow-up on remarks that Fox News isn’t really a news station. After a clip Rupert Murdoch about how the White House is actually helping Fox News’s ratings, Stephanopoulos really cut to the bone, asking Axelrod “Are You Worried That Your Strategy is Fortifying Your Enemy?” The enemy, of course, is Fox News.