Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking website Politifact.com revealed its 2011 “Lie Of The Year” today, which is the essentially true claim that Republicans voted to end Medicare. While Politifact is taking heavy fire from liberals over its ridiculous decision, the site’s editor Bill Adair took to the airwaves to explain the award, and told a whopper of a lie himself on CBS News’ The Early Show Tuesday morning, while also demonstrating the central fallacy of the award, all in the same sentence.

Ben Stein, he of multi hyphenates and mono tones, appeared on The Early Show this morning to talk all of the big stories of the day. He spent a lot of time discussing Herman Cain’s many problems right now and ended up defending the candidate. Perhaps coming from experience as someone who worked with a president who may not have been a great guy personally (Stein was a speechwriter for Richard Nixon), Stein stressed the importance of looking at a candidate’s policies rather than gossip. “If you concentrate on economic policy that will give a man or a woman a job, that means something,” he argued. “To concentrate on a person’s gossipy love life, that doesn’t mean a darn thing.”

On CBS’s The Early Show Tuesday, economist and former Nixon advisor Ben Stein lashed out against the Occupy Wall Street protesters, calling them doobie-smoking “bums.” “They’re a bunch of bums, as far as i’m concerned,” Stein observed. “If they had some specific ideas, if they had some specific proposals, if they were doing anything whatsoever besides sleeping in their tents and banging drums, I would say great, God bless them. I spent a large part of my life crusading against fraud on Wall Street — but to just bang a drum and light up a big doobie and go back into your tent, that does not do anything whatsoever to advance the cause of justice.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discussed the ongoing Libyan crisis with Erica Hill on The Early Show and revealed that regarding any strategy, “we believe it’s important that this not be an American, or a NATO, or a European effort. It needs to be an international one.”

Last week, in connection with a new book by former President Ronald Reagan’s youngest son, Ron Reagan, Ron previewed one startling revelation: his father may have had Alzheimer’s Disease while he was still President. Ron’s brother Michael Reagan immediately called Ron an “embarrassment” on Twitter and appeared on The Early Show this morning to further discuss his disgust with his brother’s actions and to promote his own book The New Reagan Revolution.

On The Early Show, soon-to-be new co-host Erica Hill interviewed a delirious Larry King who danced, sang, and recited strange poetry to Hill’s amused bewilderment. Hill told viewers “For the first time in 53 years, Larry King is without a radio or TV program to host.” Who could have guessed Hill’s seemingly innocuous introduction was truly a viewer warning, since King (who just ended his CNN show), apparently doesn’t know what to do with himself trying everything from a surprisingly successful turn atstand-up comedy to a painfully awkward song and dance here.

The Early Show‘s Erica Hill warned viewers that they were all “about to see a whole lot more of Levi Johnston.” Considering the guy posed for Playgirl, that’s saying a lot. Still, it’s definitely true as he’s got both a reality show and a mayoral campaign coming up. Now that he’s finally separated from the Palin clan for good (except for, y’know, that whole child thing), he can speak freely about the big Mama Grizzly. He began his new-found freedom by completely retracting his apology to the family.

With her divorce finalized, Elin Nordegren, Tiger Woods‘ ex-wife, is speaking out for the first (and what she says may be the last) time.

People magazine landed the exclusive, but is saving most of the juicy details for readers of the print edition. However all the network morning shows got a preview, and filed detailed reports this morning.

Sen. Scott Brown‘s daughter, Ayla Brown, is now a special contributor to CBS’ The Early Show and this morning she conducted a “revealing chat” (according to CBS) with…her dad.

Will he run for President? Why did he say she was “available”? Let’s find out!

CBS announced this week that every week, ‘for the duration of the crisis,’ Harry Smith and Katie Couric will anchor from the Gulf Coast.

We talked to Smith today about the decision by CBS News, BP’s lack of transparency, and Smith’s theory on government involvement in the clean-up.

Harry Smith‘s exclusive interview with President Barack Obama took place yesterday afternoon.

The walk-and-talk and in-game chat revealed an interesting exchange between anchor and President about talk radio – which Pres. Obama felt the need to call out specific hosts personally.

The network that talked to Pres. Barack Obama during a Duke-Georgetown game in January will have another hoops-related exclusive this week.

CBS’ The Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith will interview Pres. Obama on the White House basketball court. Then they will play basketball.

Well the CBS Early Show bookers got what they hoped for when they booked radio icon Howard Stern to critique Jay Leno‘s first night back at 11:35.

It wasn’t so much of a specific review as a pass to unleash his hatred of the longtime NBC star.

After complaints about his racy performance at Sunday night’s American Music Awards, ABC’s Good Morning America canceled Adam Lambert‘s planned appearance today, and CBS’ The Early Show quickly scooped up the interview and performance.

Lambert addressed the backlash, but offered no apology. And CBS didn’t seem completely comfortable with it either.

Now that Pres. Barack Obama got that Nobel Peace Prize victory out of the way, it was time to bomb the Moon. As predicted on Office Hours yesterday, the entire event, taking place this morning at 7:30amET, was mostly hype, at least in terms of usable video.

Still, every cable and broadcast news morning show took it live, with team reporting. Here’s a look at how each show dealt with the anti-climactic Moon bombing: