Fantasy Colbert League Weekly: November 10 – 13

Welcome to No Fact Zone’s weekly roundup of ‘Colbert Report’ guests, created in the spirit of the oft-enjoyed Fantasy Colbert League. While we can’t start up the online version of the game again, we can make it so that you can get the information you need about the guests before they come on the show.

Just like you, we want to be it-getters before the interviews start. So we’ve compiled brief bios, issues or events that Stephen might bring up during the interview, and a fun Fract (Freedom Fact) to impress your fellow viewers during the commercial breaks. Read, enjoy, and see if you can anticipate how Stephen might nail each of the following guests!

Programming Note: Papa Bear Bill O’Reilly returns to The Daily Show on Thursday, November 13.

Monday, 11/10: Rachel Maddow (rerun, 11/06/08).

MSNBC fan alert! Rachel Maddow, host of the The Rachel Maddow Show and protégé of “insane person” Keith Olbermann, has been gleefully reporting on these last crazy days of the presidential race. Maddow, a Rhodes Scholar, hosts a daily radio show of the same name on Air America and is a frequent contributor to other MSNBC political news programs.

• Fract: Maddow’s six-degrees tie to Stephen Colbert is the radio show ‘Unfiltered,’ which she hosted with Daily Show co-creator Lizz Winstead in 2004 and 2005.

Tuesday, 11/11: Kevin Johnson

In November 2008, former point guard Kevin Johnson went from NBA star to mayor of Sacramento, California. Mayor-Elect Johnson retired from the Phoenix Suns after playing in the NBA for over a decade and breaking a number of hoops records. He is president and CEO of The Kevin Johnson Corporation and founder of the St. Hope Academy and following St. HOPE nonprofit community development organization. In 2008, he ran for mayor of Sacramento and won in November after a runoff election, becoming Sacramento’s first African American mayor.

• Fract: In 1994, Johnson led the U.S. National Team – nicknamed the Dream Team II – to the gold medal in the FIBA World Championship.

Wednesday, 11/12: Bob Woodward

Author Bob Woodward pulls no punches with his new book, The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008.’ In his fourth book about George W. Bush’s presidency, and in it he describes Bush’s refusal to address the collapse of the war to the American public. Woodward has worked for the Washington Post since 1971, and has written too many bestselling books to name here. In the 1970s, he and fellow reporter Carl Bernstein reported on a burglary that led to decades of the Watergate affair and a mysterious character known as Deep Throat. Woodward also won the National Affairs Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for leading the Post‘s reporting on the aftermath of September 11.

• Fract: According to his 2006 book ‘State of Denial,’ Woodward interviewed President George W. Bush four times for more than seven hours overall, spending the most time with Bush of any journalist at the time.

Thursday, 11/13: Stephen Moore

Economist Stephen Moore is a member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board and a contributing editor for National Review. He founded and served as president of the Club for Growth, an organization that works to promote economic growth, from 1999 to 2004. He has written a number of articles on the Republican stewardship of the American economy and how the party plans to “restore the dream” of prosperity in the United States. Moore’s latest book is ‘The End of Prosperity: How Higher Taxes Will Doom the Economy–If We Let It Happen.’

• Fract: Daily Show correspondent Rob Riggle interviewed Moore about the construction of low-income housing near Disneyland for a segment that aired on June 5, 2007.