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Peggy Noonan was a special assistant to President Ronald Reagan from 1984 to 1986. In 1988, she was chief speechwriter for Vice President George H. W. Bush when he ran for the presidency. Before entering the Reagan White House, Noonan was a producer at CBS News in New York. In 2008, The National Journal dubbed Noonan’s political column indispensable to an understanding of the presidential year, and Forbes Magazine called her column “principled, perceptive, persuasive, and patriotic.”Noonan’s essays have appeared in Time, Newsweek, The Washington Post and other publications, and she provides frequent political commentary on television. Noonan is the author of numerous best-selling books including Patriotic Grace, published in 2008.

With more than a million words of trenchant journalism under his byline and more citations in The Penguin Dictionary of Humorous Quotations than any other living writer, Patrick Jake (P.J.) O’Rourke has established himself as America’s premier political satirist. He is the best-selling author of ten books and both Time and The Wall Street Journal have called him “the funniest writer in America.” With his latest collection of stories, Peace Kills, O’Rourke casts his ever-shrewd and mordant eye on America’s most recent adventures in warfare in Kosovo, the Middle East, Iraq and the Philippines. He covers current events with the skill and discipline of an investigative reporter but adds a unique spin that has earned him a reputation as a modern-day Will Rogers. O’Rourke is known as a hard-bitten, cigar-smoking conservative, making him unique among contemporary humorists. In fact, he bashes all political persuasions while his razor sharp insights never fail to inform and entertain.

Zbigniew Brzezinski’s resume is lengthy and impressive with the most outstanding as National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981. In 1981, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his role in the normalization of U.S.-Chinese relations and for his contributions to the human rights and national security policies of the United States. Today he is Trustee and Counselor, Center for Strategic & International Studies; and Robert E. Osgood Professor of American Foreign Policy, at the Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, located in Washington, D.C. He is the author of many books including his latest published in 2008, America and the World: Conversation on the Future of American Foreign Policy.

Gwen Ifill, moderator and managing editor of Washington Week and senior correspondent for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, interviews newsmakers, and reports on issues ranging from foreign affairs to politics. She is also frequently asked to moderate debates in national elections, such as the Vice Presidential debate during the 2004 election. Ifill joined NBC News from The New York Times where she covered the White House and politics. She spent five years at NBC News as chief congressional and political correspondent, and still appears as an occasional roundtable panelist on Meet The Press. Ifill is the recipient of honorary doctorates, broadcasting excellence awards and honors from the National Press Foundation. She has also covered national and local affairs for The Washington Post, Baltimore Evening Sun, and Boston Herald American, and is the author of The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama.

Paul Krugman, Professor of Economics at Princeton University, is one of the world’s preeminent economists, having won the 2008 Nobel Prize for Economics. An insightful, outspoken Op-Ed columnist for the New York Times, he is a passionate and articulate speaker, with a gift for relating global economic events to his audiences. His twice-weekly Op-Ed pieces for the Times model the depth of insight and the unflinchingly outspoken style he brings to his speeches. He is the author of several books, including his most recent, The Conscience of a Liberal, and The Great Unraveling, a best-seller. In response to the current financial crisis, Professor Krugman has released his updated edition of The Return of Depression Economics, which warned almost ten years ago of the problems we face today. The new book is titled The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008.