Former President George W. Bush isn’t just talking with Matt Lauer next week – he’s sitting with Oprah Winfrey as well.

Besides the fact that it should be huge for book sales, the former President also talks about the current political climate, his picks for 2012 and more.

In 1993, Ellie Nesler shot dead the man who had molested her son in a courtroom. While the molester was now gone, so was Nesler to her children, her son Willie and his younger sister Rebecca. Willie is now in jail for his own murder conviction, seeing little of his sister. On special assignment for Oprah, NBC Chief Legal Analyst and Mediaite founder Dan Abrams accompanied Rebecca to the California jail where her brother is currently incarcerated.

Whether he’s going to support sanity or keep fear alive, count Chris Matthews in on October 30th. In discussing the latest celebrity to jump on the Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert rally bandwagon, Oprah Winfrey, Matthews noted that few people seem to have a clear idea of what is going to happen on the Washington Mall on October 30th, and with an air of whimsy added, “I’m going.”

“First Oprah, now the President name dropping my Rally!” exclaimed Jon Stewart, thrilled by the fact that Barack Obama had apparently endorsed of his “Rally to Restore Sanity,” planned for October 30th. Such a reaction would make one think that The Daily Show host holds the President in reasonably high esteem for “being sane.” But that would seem to contradict the first half of Stewart’s segment in which he derided the President’s efforts to connect with “normal” Americans as being boring. Huh?

Though Oprah Winfrey is currently filming the final season of her syndicated talk show (she tapes the last episode, which will air on September 9, 2011, next May), the Queen of All Media will not go gentle into any good night. Her new TV network, OWN, is launching on January 1, 2011—and in addition to having complete creative control over the channel, Winfrey has committed to appearing on OWN for 70 hours each year.

A strange phenomenon occurs in popular culture when a veteran entertainer (perhaps with his or her best days long behind her) still continues to perform their act as though they haven’t lost a step (or two.) And while the public persona has become more a cartoonish caricature of his or her more glorious act, its still very appealling. Take for example Liza Minnelli’s performance on Oprah this afternoon. One can’t help but stare into the Minnelli abyss and wonder if her performance is a metaphor for all of us. And yet, its strangely appealing and deserving of great respect. Watch.

Forbes released its annual list of the 100 most powerful celebrities today, and look! Some of your favorite media moguls, TV hosts, and radio personalities made the cut. Here at Mediaite, we rank these folks against each other on the regular with our trusty Power Grid. Granted, the numbers on the two lists differ with Forbes’ inclusion of other types of celebrities (like Britney Spears, coming in at #6 – nice comeback, girl!) but let’s take a look at how they compare, shall we?

You have to feel bad for Oprah Winfrey. It can’t be any fun having someone publish a tell-all book claiming that you have abused drugs, exaggerated stories about being raised poor, and perhaps made up the one about being sexually abused as a child.

Bill O’Reilly has somehow found himself embroiled in the recent Oprah Winfrey biography scandal. The Fox News host had unauthorized biographer Kitty Kelley on the O’Reilly Factor to talk about her upcoming controversial Oprah biography and took her to task for writing what O’Reilly claims is a lie about him: that he put pressure on Winfrey to get on his show.

We’ve previously reported that unauthorized biographer Kitty Kelley had claimed to Matt Lauer how many broadcast journalists were avoiding the publicity tour of her new (and allegedly salacious) tome on media mogul and daytime talk icon Oprah Winfrey. Well now that details from the book have emerged, perhaps it’s no wonder that Barbara Walters, Larry King and David Letterman have all stayed away.

Turns out here are a lot of folks out there who don’t want to get on Oprah’s bad side. This morning, celebrity biographer Kitty Kelley appeared on Today and was asked by host Matt Lauer if she really believed that many television hosts were afraid to interview her for fear of angering Oprah Winfrey, the subject of her new book. Not only did she agree, but she named names.

Apparently, post his break-up to Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey has a lot of time to weigh in on other people’s relationships…140 characters at a time. It’s unclear whether Carrey is more interested in being the 2.0 Oprah or looking for some sort of social media position on ESPN but here’s what he had to say on his Twitter account re Tiger’s comeback, Elin’s naivete and why every wife should apparently direct their husbands towards a career in curling.

When Oprah Winfrey announced she was ending her talk show in 2011, the question immediately arose: who’s the next Oprah? Names such as Glenn Beck, David Letterman, and Conan O’Brien were (mostly jokingly) bandied about, but according to the New York Times, the most serious contender already has a daytime show of her own – Ellen DeGeneres.

There was a time, mere months ago, when everyone cared about Levi Johnston‘s Playgirl appearance. It’s fair to say, though, that at this point the flame hardly flickers. After all, we all here on the internet really milked this one, leaving the (penis-less!) product pretty underwhelming. Nonetheless, here’s the cover in all its glory!

The forthcoming fifth season of The Tyra Banks Show will be its last, the host told People today. “I’ve been loving having fun, coming into your living rooms, bedrooms, hair salons for the past 5 years,” said Banks, who will now focus on her film production company Bankable Studios, but encouraged women to stay fierce.

The year 2009 had many media bright spots, break-out stars, dominating networks and game-changing technologies. The Mediaite 50 collects the finest, most exemplary innovators and influencers of the year, defining a media moment in time and setting the agenda as we move forward. See the full list after the jump:

When Obama gave himself a “solid” grade of B+ in a recent interview with Oprah, it was only a matter of time — less than a day, to be precise — before the cable news punditocracy chimed in. As you can imagine, the Fox News faction, represented by Greta Van Susteren, Dana Perino, and Bill O’Reilly, did not take too kindly to it:

When Oprah asked Sarah Palin about Levi Johnston’s Playgirl shoot, she said, “I call it porn.” But is it? The NSFW pictures prove that the pictures don’t include any frontal nudity. The pictures of the 19-year old are no more explicit than what you’d see on an episode of Nip/Tuck and less (homo)erotic than an Ultimate Fight Championship match. But they’re sort of sad.

Oprah Winfrey confirmed the news that broke yesterday afternoon – she would be ending her show. Brian Stelter reports that the talk show host told her television audience this morning, “After much prayer and months of careful thought, I’ve decided the next season, season 25, will be the last season of ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show.’”

The secret is out now. As Keith Olbermann points out, it only took Sarah Palin a year and six weeks to name 3 news sources that she reads, and at the top of her very short list sits Newsmax.com. While much has been made of the current White House’s attitude toward Fox News, it makes you wonder what a Newsmax-guided Palin Presidency would be like.

Sean Hannnity‘s pre-taped interview with Sarah Palin aired last night, and among the litany of Republican-friendly positions revealed, the former Governor of Alaska and author of Going Rogue finally told Hannity which newspapers and magazines she regularly reads. Why is this important? You’ll recall her infamous hiccup in answering the same question asked by Katie Couric. What comprises her media diet? Not the Huffington Post.

Oprah. Lloyd Blankfein. Serena Williams. Michael Jordan. Vikram Pandit. George Clooney. Al Gore. Al Franken. No, not the invite list to the coolest party of all time. Just a few of the characters who have shot the bull (and maybe worked out a few deals) in the Oval Office with President Obama since he took office in January.

Ok, Oprah just got slightly cooler. Mad Men stars Jon Hamm and January Jones will be guests on her show on Monday. And, the entire episode will have a retro-chic 1960s theme to it, including a segment that sounds like Oprah’s Favorite Things: 60s edition.

The sky is falling! Oprah‘s ratings are down 7% last season, and as is the case with all things, this must have something to do with Barack Obama, somehow. In an article about the ratings decline, the AP quotes an author who says that Oprah’s endorsement of Obama has hurt her in the heartland.

But does this theory pass the sniff test?

As if to confirm that the pre-Labor Day news drought is officially over, there’s been a ton of movement in the Power Grid this past week. Upstarts have risen, giants have fallen, and Eliot Spitzer has broken into the top five TV pundits. What does it even mean, man? Before we answer that, we’d like to introduce a brand-new feature of the Power Grid: story aggregation.