Peggy Noonan (born Margaret Ellen Noonan on September 7, 1950, in Brooklyn, New York) is an American author of seven books on politics, religion, and culture and a weekly columnist for The Wall Street Journal. She was a primary speech writer and Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan and in her political writings is considered a Republican.

She is a graduate of Rutherford High School in Rutherford, New Jersey, and Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Five of Noonan's books have been New York Times bestsellers. Noonan is a trustee of the Manhattan Institute. She has been awarded honorary doctorates from Miami University; St. John Fisher College; her alma mater, Fairleigh Dickinson University; Adelphi College; and Saint Francis College. She was nominated for an Emmy Award for her work on America: A Tribute to Heroes. She has also been widely recognized for her regular appearances on ABC's This Week and NBC's Meet The Press.

In her political writings, Noonan frequently cites the political figures she admires, including Ronald Reagan, Abraham Lincoln, and Edmund Burke.

Lesley Rene Stahl (born December 16, 1941) is an American television journalist. Since 1991, she has reported for CBS on 60 Minutes.

Stahl was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, of Jewish heritage, the daughter of Dorothy J. (née Tishler), and Louis E. Stahl, a food company executive. In 1977, Stahl married author Aaron Latham. They have one child, Taylor Stahl Latham. The couple currently lives in New York.

A graduate of Wheaton College, her career received a running start from her coverage of the Watergate affair. Stahl went on to become White House correspondent during the presidencies of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. Stahl was the moderator of Face the Nation between September 1983 and May 1991. In addition, from 2002–2004, she hosted 48 Hours Investigates. In 2002, Stahl made headlines when Al Gore appeared on 60 Minutes and revealed for the first time that he would not run for president again in 2004. When Katie Couric was hired, CBS News asked Stahl to reduce her salary by $500,000 to accommodate Couric's salary, bringing her salary down to $1.8 million. In October 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France, stood up and walked away from an interview with Stahl, because she asked him about his relationship with his soon-to-be estranged spouse.

George Frederick Will (born May 4, 1941) is an American newspaper columnist, journalist, and author. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winner best known for his conservative commentary on politics. By the mid 1980s the Wall Street Journal reported he was "perhaps the most powerful journalist in America," in a league with Walter Lippmann (1889–1975).

Will was born in Champaign, Illinois, the son of Frederick L. Will and Louise Hendrickson Will. His father was a professor of philosophy, specializing in epistemology, at the University of Illinois.

Will graduated from University Laboratory High School of Urbana, Illinois, and Trinity College, in Hartford, Connecticut (B.A., Religion, 1962). He subsequently studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Magdalen College, University of Oxford (B.A., M.A.), and received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in politics from Princeton University. His 1968 Ph.D. dissertation was entitled Beyond the Reach of Majorities: Closed Questions in the Open Society.

From 1970 to 1972, he served on the staff of Senator Gordon Allott (R-CO). Will then taught political philosophy at the James Madison College of Michigan State University, and at the University of Toronto. He taught at Harvard University in 1995 and again in 1998.

Michael Eric Dyson (born October 23, 1958) is an American academic, author, and radio host. He is a professor of sociology at Georgetown University. Described by Michael A. Fletcher as "a Princeton Ph.D. and a child of the streets who takes pains never to separate the two", Dyson has so far authored and edited 18 books dealing with subjects such as Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Marvin Gaye, Nas’s debut album Illmatic, Bill Cosby, and Hurricane Katrina.

Dyson was born to African-American parents, Everett and Addie Dyson. He attended Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan on academic scholarship but left and completed his education at Northwestern High School. He became an ordained Baptist minister at 19 years of age. Having worked in factories in Detroit to support his family, he entered Knoxville College as a freshman at age 21. Dyson received his Bachelor's from Carson–Newman College (magna cum laude) in 1985, and his Master's and Doctorate in religion, from Princeton University. Dr. Dyson serves on the board of directors of the Common Ground Foundation, a project dedicated to empowering urban youth in the United States. Dr. Dyson and his wife, writer and ordained minister Marcia L. Dyson, are regular guests and speakers at the Aspen Institute Conferences and Ideas Festival. Together, they lecture on many on the nation's college campuses.

Ronald Wilson Reagan ( /ˈrɒnəld ˈwɪlsən ˈreɪɡən/; February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was the 40th President of the United States, serving from 1981 to 1989. Prior to that, he was the 33rd Governor of California from 1967 to 1975 and a radio, film and television actor.

Born in Tampico, Illinois and raised in Dixon, Reagan was educated at Eureka College, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics and sociology. After his graduation, Reagan moved first to Iowa to work as a radio broadcaster and then in to Los Angeles in 1937 where he began a career as an actor, first in films and later television. Some of his most notable films include Knute Rockne, All American, Kings Row, and Bedtime for Bonzo. Reagan served as president of the Screen Actors Guild, and later as a spokesman for General Electric (GE); his start in politics occurred during his work for GE. Originally a member of the Democratic Party, his positions began shifting rightward in the late 1950s, and he switched to the Republican Party in 1962. After delivering a rousing speech in support of Barry Goldwater's presidential candidacy in 1964, he was persuaded to seek the California governorship, winning two years later and again in 1970. He was defeated in his run for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968 as well as 1976, but won both the nomination and general election in 1980, defeating incumbent Jimmy Carter.