Thirty-ninth President of the United States and recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, while serving as President Jimmy Carter created two new cabinet-level departments: the Department of Energy and the Department of Education. He founded The Carter Center, a non-profit organization that works to advance human rights and is heavily involved in Habitat for Humanity.

Strobe Talbott, author of six books on U.S.-Soviet relations and nuclear arms control, served in the State Department for 8 years, including a year as Special Advisor to the Secretary of State for the New Independent States of the Former Soviet Union. He entered government service after twenty-one years as a journalist for Time magazine. His last position there was as Time's Editor-at-Large and foreign affairs columnist.

Tavis Smiley was selected by Time magazine as one of America's 50 most promising young leaders. Newsweek profiled him as one of the "20 people changing how Americans get their news" and dubbed him one of the nation's "captains of the airwaves". He was the first American to simultaneously host signature talk shows on both PBS and NPR.

Author of numerous NYT bestselling books, Dinesh D'Souza is a noted conservation and defines conservatism in the American sense as "conserving the principles of the American Revolution". He is currently the Robert and Karen Rishwain Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

A specialist in American foreign policy, European security, and national security affairs, Ivo H. Daalder is a special adviser on national security at the Center for American Progress and is also senior fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution. He has authored over 10 books with his most recent being the American Homeland (2002).

Senior analyst for ABC News and a commentator for NPR's Morning Edition, Fawaz Gerges is an academic and author with expertise on the Middle East. He is currently the Christian A. Johnson Chair in International Affairs and Middle Easter Studies at Sarah Lawrence College.

A radio and television host and liberal political commentator, Alan Colmes is best known as a co-host on Fox News Channel's political debate program Hannity & Colmes. Colmes also hosts the nationally-syndicated radio show, The Alan Colmes Show, on Fox News Radio and is well respected by Democrats and Republicans.

Credited with creating "the last refuge of intelligent conversation on television," Rose and his popular PBS program illuminate the personalities and events that define our society. Also a correspondent for 60 Minutes II, he brings his relentless curiosity and penetrating insight to the podium as the ideal moderator or insightful commentator on politics and culture.

One of the earliest pop culture bloggers, founding PopandPolitics.com in 1995, Farai Chideya is a novelist, journalist and radio host of News & Notes on NPR. Her first novel, Kiss the Sky, is due May 2009. She has worked for Newsweek magazine, MTV News, CNN, ABC and the Oxygen Network.

Baron Robertson of Port Ellen was the Secretary-General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization from 1999-2004. He served as Defense Secretary for the UK from 1997-1999 before taking up his NATO position and becoming a life peer of Islay in Argyll and Bute. He has received numerous honors and holds the directorships of several notable companies.