What's next?

This is a great moment for the conservatives -- if we are willing to seize the moment.

Sure, the Democrats are running the White House and Congress. But the Blagojevich scandal is just the first of many juicy issues the party will be forced to deal with. Conservatives must be nimble enough to latch on to them.

The economy is a mess. But conservatives have the only answers that will work. That's why it's so important for conservatives to shape the picture of what's happening before it calcifies into a myth.

The news media's liberal bias has never been more evident. At the same time, however, the traditional media are self-destructing. Conservatives can dominate the emerging media if we act with determination and creativity.

Liberals seem to dominate the universities. But I'll hazard a prediction that the next unsustainable bubble that will that of the universities. Their endowments are shrinking, and parents just can't keep paying a hundred grand a year for Joey or Susie to student gender issues.

But ... can conservatives define themselves?

Sure, modern liberalism is coherent and conservative. But that doesn't make it right.

Ditto for libertarianism.

Can conservatism be clear in the sound-bite age?

Harbinger of change?

2008 -- year of reality?


Easily one of the most important stories of 2008 has been all the evidence suggesting that this may be looked back on as the year when there was a turning point in the great worldwide panic over man-made global warming. Just when politicians in Europe and America have been adopting the most costly and damaging measures politicians have ever proposed, to combat this supposed menace, the tide has turned in three significant respects.

All sides can't face reality

Union deep in denial:

credibility, or incredible?

We were just jawing about credibility of journalism. But do we as an industry have much left?

Consider this:

In our view, Nixon was as guilty as sin of more things than were ever proven. Nevertheless, there is another side to this story. The FBI was carrying out espionage against the president of the United States, not for any later prosecution of Nixon for a specific crime (the spying had to have been going on well before the break-in), but to increase the FBI’s control over Nixon. Woodward, Bernstein and above all, Bradlee, knew what was going on. Woodward and Bernstein might have been young and naive, but Bradlee was an old Washington hand who knew exactly who Felt was, knew the FBI playbook and understood that Felt could not have played the role he did without a focused FBI operation against the president. Bradlee knew perfectly well that Woodward and Bernstein were not breaking the story, but were having it spoon-fed to them by a master. He knew that the president of the United States, guilty or not, was being destroyed by Hoover’s jilted heir.

This was enormously important news. The Washington Post decided not to report it.

Bad harbinger?

Science pick questioned by interesting commentator:

Does being spectacularly wrong about a major issue in your field of expertise hurt your chances of becoming the presidential science advisor? Apparently not, judging by reports from DotEarth and ScienceInsider that Barack Obama will name John P. Holdren as his science advisor on Saturday. [UPDATE: Mr. Obama did indeed pick Dr. Holdren.]

Bush's legacy

The jury is still out; even conservatives have doubts. Still ....

Painful adjustment

It's true we're in for a period of adjustment.

The Wall Street Journal points out that developers too are going broke. (That's a preview only.)

So we were making stuff we didn't need, to sell in too many malls. Now the party's over.

Here's the scary thought: what if deflation is inevitable if we're going to compete with the rest of the world?

Yet free trade is still essential.

Yikes.