Uncommon Knowledge

Science and technology expert Jim Manzi argues that controlled experimentation should be conducted and credible data collected before the government enacts major social and economic policies and explains why this has yet to happen. (Playing time: 43:06)

Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy discuss their new book The Presidents' Club: Inside the World's Most Exclusive Fraternity. (Playing time: 57:04)

Author and television host John Stossel discusses his new book No, They Can’t: Why Government Fails - But Individuals Succeed. (Playing time: 45:18)

On the occasion of the publication of a new edition of his book Intellectuals and Society, Thomas Sowell returns to Uncommon Knowledge for a wide-ranging interview. (Playing time: 52:37)

Author and commentator Pat Buchanan discusses the disintegration of the United States as a superpower and a united nation. (Playing time: 1:00:41)

Longtime American Enterprise Institute fellow Charles Murray discusses his controversial new book, Coming Apart, about what American was, is, and will become. He also reveals his personal score on his now famous “bubble quiz.” Take the quiz here http://www.scribd.com/doc/77349055/Coming-Apart-by-Charles-Murray-Quiz (Playing time: 47:35)

Rick Santorum on why he's still in the race, the rights of the unborn, the Santorum tax plan, how Santorum plans to expand his appeal, the core differences between himself and Mitt Romney, and a up-to-the-minute state of the primary race from the candidate himself. (Playing time: 18:22)

This week on Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell discusses why the glacial pace of deliberations and decisions in the Senate is a feature, not a bug. "Once it was clear the president was going to try to turn us into a Western European country as rapidly as he could, about the only strategy you have left when your opposition has a forty-seat majority in the House. . . . We knew we couldn't stop the agenda. But we thought we had a chance of creating a national debate about whether all of this excess was appropriate. And the key to having a debate, frankly and candidly, was to deny the president, if possible, the opportunity to have any of these things be considered bipartisan." (Playing time: 37:42)

This week, on Uncommon Knowledge, Michael Barone, American Enterprise Institute fellow, author, and senior political correspondent for the Washington Examiner, explains where the Republicans are headed, how Obama operates, and what’s at stake in the 2012 election. (Playing time: 52:46)

Condoleezza Rice, senior fellow on public policy at the Hoover Institution and a professor of political science at Stanford University, discusses the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, her days as George Bush's national security adviser and secretary of state, and the current state of the world, including Israel, Iran, and China. “The real question is how internally the United States deals with our own difficulties so that we are strong enough and confident enough and optimistic enough to continue to lead.” (Playing time: 1:09:44)