Terry Gross

President Bush is an enigmatic leader who uses an insurgent approach in reshaping policy and politics. That idea is central to Rebel in Chief, the new book by political writer Fred Barnes. Barnes is the executive editor of conservative magazine The Weekly Standard.

Actor Seymour Cassel has roles in the new TV series Heist and the film Lonesome Jim. Cassel, who comes from a showbiz family, has been acting in film and TV since 1959. His mother worked in Burlesque, and Cassel grew up backstage, amid chorus girls and sequins.

Concerns over energy resources aside, economists say a global shortage of water would curtail the world's ability to raise food — perhaps by 2025. Fred Pearce is an environmental and development consultant at New Scientist. His new book is When the Rivers Run Dry.

He's been acting since he was a child. Culkin first attracted attention as John Candy's inquisitive nephew in the John Hughes film, Uncle Buck. The film Home Alone turned him into a star. He also made the films Home Alone II, Jacob's Ladder, and most recently Party Monster. Recently he returned to acting after a 6-year hiatus. His latest film is Saved! He plays a high school student in a wheelchair attending an evangelical Christian High School, whose friends are all outsiders. The film has been described as part religious satire, and part teenage rite of passage film.

Filmmaker Noah Baumbach's new film is The Squid and the Whale. The post-college angst film Kicking and Screaming established Baumbach's directorial credentials in 1995; last year, he collaborated with Wes Anderson on The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

Washington Post reporter Michael Grunwald. His new book is The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise. The Everglades were once considered a wasteland, worthy of being decimated.

Actor Andre Braugher stars in the new series Thief, which debuts at 10 p.m. Tuesday on FX. Braugher plays Nick Atwater, leader of a small gang of thieves. Braugher is best known for his work on the TV series Homicide: Life on the Streets.

Discussions of global warming and climate change often center around anecdote and cyclical analysis. Scientist Tim Flannery seeks to clarify current — and future — conditions in The Weather Makers: How Man is Changing the Climate and What it Means for Life on Earth.

Nixon adviser Kevin Phillips' book The Emerging Republican Majority was hailed as a visionary work of political analysis. But in American Theocracy, he argues that the Republican Party — and the country — is headed for disaster.