Uncommon Knowledge by topic: Politics, U.S.
Uncommon Knowledge special audio edition: Senator Rick Santorum
A short audio interview with Senator Rick Santorum on the campaign trail in Wisconsin.
Mitch McConnell
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.” (37:41)
Decision 2012: Above the fray with Michael Barone
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. (52:46)
Uncommon Knowledge special edition: Newt Gingrich
The 58th Speaker of the House and 2012 GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich makes the case for his candidacy, explains why he's not a Washington insider, and describes his vision for his first term: gaining energy independence, ending the war on religion, balancing the budget, and repealing and replacing ObamaCare and why he is temperamentally suited for the highest office.
Church and state, Newtzilla, social media, and the second favorite flavor
This week on Uncommon Knowledge columnist, scholar, and social media maven Jonah Goldberg discusses, with Hoover research fellow Peter Robinson, the unconstrained vision of the left, the problem with Romney, the reality of diversity, why vanilla is every one’s second favorite flavor, and offers some wise but unpalatable advice to conservative voters.
“I do not think they hate Romney that much... Vanilla is everyone’s second favorite flavor. And so they do not hate him, but they do not love him. And they really want to love someone. They want to be in love with a candidate. And they have these sorts of tawdry affairs with everybody else, other than Romney this entire primary season.” (53:10)
Obamacare and the Supreme Court with Richard Epstein and John Yoo
Richard Epstein, the Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, New York University Law School, and John Yoo, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley law school, examine the merits of various constitutional arguments for the Supreme Court’s striking down Obamacare.
The conservative newsroom
Gerard Baker is deputy editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal and Andrew Ferguson is a senior editor at the Weekly Standard. His most recent book is Crazy U: One Dad’s Crash Course at Getting His Kids into College. They discuss, with Hoover research fellow Peter Robinson, journalism: its creative impulses, profit margins, and the monochromatic newsroom.
Paul Ryan—Fixing Government and Not Running For President
Congressman Paul Ryan discusses, with Hoover research fellow Peter Robinson, the importance of repealing Obamacare.
Tim Groseclose—Media Bias
A distinguished political scientist, Tim Groseclose is the Marvin Hoffenberg Professor of American Politics at the University of California at Los Angeles. Professor Groseclose has also taught at Caltech, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, Ohio State University and Harvard. His new book is Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind.
Fouad Ajami and Charles Hill—Trials of a Thousand Years
Of Persian descent, Fouad Ajami was raised in Lebanon and came to the United States at age eighteen. He is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the winner of this year’s Breindel Journalism Award.
During his career at the State Department, Ambassador Charles Hill served as an adviser to Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz. Hill is a fellow at the Hoover Institution and the diplomat-in-residence at Yale. He is the author, most recently, of Trial of a Thousand Years: World Order and Islamism.