The case for offshore oil drilling

We've talked about this a lot here--about what principles conservatives should espouse on energy, about increasing fuel production, about making fun of Nancy Pelosi for opposing conservative policies. Today, Charles Krauthammer shows that, furthermore, a case can be made for offshore drilling BOTH on the grounds that it will increase fuel production, AND on environmental grounds:

"Consider: 25 years ago, nearly 60 percent of U.S. petroleum was produced domestically. Today it's 25 percent. From its peak in 1970, U.S. production has declined a staggering 47 percent. The world consumes 86 million barrels a day; the United States, roughly 20 million. We need the stuff to run our cars and planes and economy....The United States has the highest technology to ensure the safest drilling. Today, directional drilling -- essentially drilling down, then sideways -- allows access to oil that in 1970 would have required a surface footprint more than three times as large. Additionally, the U.S. has one of the most extensive and least corrupt regulatory systems on the planet. Does Pelosi imagine that with so much of America declared off-limits, the planet is less injured as drilling shifts to Kazakhstan and Venezuela and Equatorial Guinea? That Russia will be more environmentally scrupulous than we in drilling in its Arctic? The net environmental effect of Pelosi's no-drilling willfulness is negative. Outsourcing U.S. oil production does nothing to lessen worldwide environmental despoliation. It simply exports it to more corrupt, less efficient, more unstable parts of the world -- thereby increasing net planetary damage."

Read the whole thing.

Feelings--oh wo wo, feelings...

Somebody asked me recently what conservatives "felt" about a certain issue.
Before I answered, I remembered something a wise conservative told me some years ago...
And I said: well, conservatives "think", and they "believe" certain things (hopefully based on fact, analysis, and principles). They don't, however, simply "feel."

It may seem like minor linguistical nitpicking, but think about it.
Actually, it's a very real and important point.

The problem with Mike Huckabee (updated)

Rich Lowry points it out well today:
The problem is that Huckabee so far appeals only to evangelical Christians (and there's no indication right now this will change). He's tried to broaden his appeal by running as a quasi-populist. It hasn't worked. Quote: "In Iowa, Huckabee played the religion card against his Mormon rival, all the while pretending he was doing no such thing. Then, he became enamored of his line that people should vote for a candidate who looks like someone they work with rather than someone who lays them off — another shot at Romney. He concluded his TV ad in Michigan with the line, but it got him nothing. Ordinary looks don’t constitute an economic policy. Huckabee’s campaign has been run on, to invoke two of his favorite substances, duct tape and WD-40. When reporters asked who his foreign-policy advisers were, he cited former ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton as someone with whom he has “spoken or will continue to speak.” But he never had. His advisers then said he had e-mailed Bolton, which he had once without ever following up. It was vintage Huckabee — slippery and laughably unserious."

Huckabee lacks substance, and in any case conservatives should always reject his form of bald populism--just as they rejected it 4 decades ago when George Wallace came calling.

New Hampshire: the Republicans

Meanwhile, the Republican race has been upended as well, what with the surprise victory of Mike Huckabee in Iowa. Congratulations to him. He ran a better race there than did anyone else. I see however that this New York Times piece suggests that Mr. Huckabee plans to emphasize an "anti-tax" message in New Hampshire.

Beware. If my memory serves me right, as governor of Arkansas, Mr. Huckabee raised taxes numerous times. We conservatives still have to wonder how genuine his credentials as a man of the Right truly are.

The continuing Huckasurge of interest

The rise of Mike Huckabee in the polls has certainly roiled the Republican presidential race, and it has conservatives really thinking. Check out The Corner on National Review Online--for the past several days it's been filled with Huck-related stuff. The majority on NRO are opposed to Huckabee. It's got some pro-Huck conservatives fearing NR has gone anti-evangelical. Today, the focus has been on rebutting this--here's a good example: "I am probably one of Huckabee's more strident critics here on the Corner, but let me stress that it is not because he is an evangelical, nor is it because I support another candidate (Fred Thompson). I happily support evangelical candidates (or candidates of whatever religion) who espouse sound policy views.
My inital complaint about Huckabee was that there was nothing particularly conservative about him other than his views on a handful of social issues (and even here his views were not particularly consistent). Neither his record nor his rhetoric suggested that he believed in limited government, economic liberty, federalism or personal responsibility. The more I looked, the more I found that was unnerving, from his indefensible call for an AIDS quarantine to his excessively forgiving approach to clemencies to his juevenile views of foreign policy. That he has a hard time acknowledging errors or changes in his views — as in his ridiculous claim that the "isolation" of AIDS victims is not a quarantine or his dissembling over the Wayne Dumond case — further soured me on him, and had even made me doubt the depth of his convictions. While he is a very effective politician, the sheer number of alleged ethical improprieties combined with the above makes we wonder whether he is as authentic as he appears."

More on the thought of Ron Paul

Here I think he has a point, and here conservatives can find common ground with him:
"Paul, R-Texas, strongly opposes granting "amnesty" to the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States today. So I asked him what he'd do with all those immigrants. Would he try to arrest all of them? "I don't think anybody could find 'em. I don't think anybody knows where they are," he said. "But if they come for welfare benefits, and you know they're illegal, deny them the benefits." That's the crux of Paul's approach: deny the immigrants the welfare and social services that many of them now receive. "Get rid of the subsidies," he said. "You subsidize illegal immigration, you get more of it."

One problem with Huckabee

His tax plan--see what he once said about it: "Not given to rhetorical understatement, Huckabee says, “When the FairTax becomes law, it will be like waving a magic wand releasing us from pain and unfairness.”

A true conservative doesn't believe any governmental legislation can do that. We don't (or at least, shouldn't) believe in "magic wands."
Read the whole article linked above.

Liberalism dept, Paul Krugman speaking

And you always know what you're g0ing to hear.
Nothing much new--as always, the NY Times oft-hysterical typical liberal columnist recently again suggested Republicans and conservatives are racists, this time in complaining about the Bush administration's war on terror: "But the Republican base, which lapped up the administration’s rhetoric about the axis of evil and the war on terror, remains infected by the fear the Bushies stirred up — perhaps because fear of terrorists maps so easily into the base’s older fears, including fear of dark-skinned people in general."

Accusations of racism are slowly replacing arguments in some quarters.

Conservatives blasting conservatives

Rich Lowry with a good post at The Corner. Quote: "Here we are as conservatives expending an enormous amount of energy to effectively punish candidates for agreeing with us. Since when did it become a bad thing for a candidate to realize the influence of conservatives (and hopefully the correctness of their views) in the nominating process and react accordingly? Now, after excoriating Romney for becoming pro-life, we are seeing the entire foolish process repeated with Rudy becoming anti-illegal immigration."

I partly agree. Although: On the other hand---one reason to look at flip-flops is to question the sincerity of the candidate in question. Has the candidate truly had a change of heart?
Or is it just political maneuvering, to be jettisoned as soon as the election is over?
Remember, conservatives have been burned on this before. See for example George H.W. bush and 1] his appointment of Souter to the Supreme Court and 2] his abandonment of “no new taxes.” We should question changes of heart. On the other hand, we mustn’t deny that sincere changes of heart can happen. And then, if our favorite candidate gets elected, we have to hold him to what he said in the campaign.

Hillary and her papers

So there are over 2 million papers from Hillary Clinton's tenure as first lady that apparently will not be made public until some time AFTER the 2008 election. Some details here. I've read a number of bloggers and others who have of course suggested that this is an outrage, what's Hillary trying to hide, etc etc. On the other hand, Bill Crawford at All Things Conservative makes a good argument too--that there's just not likely to be much there, that if conservatives and Republicans are going to beat Hillary, we have to do so by highlighting and defeating her ideas and pointing out why ours are superior. It's a legitimate point.

I guess I come down somewhere in the middle. I don't think the Right should ignore Hillary's papers. That they won't be made public until after the election, given the Clintons' history, has to make you wonder if they're hiding something. And, remember this---the Clinton campaign is emphasizing her yearss as first lady as a reason to vote for her. They cite her travel to over 80 countries, her work with health care in 1993, as part of her supposedly valuable experience. Well, fine--but if she's going to cite her years as first lady, we need to know exactly what went on in the Clinton White House with regard to her duties as first lady. That means we need to see her papers. We probably won't get to see them. So there's nothing wrong with reminding the electorate that we won't, and why. It shouldn't be a centerpiece of an anti-Hillary campaign. But it shouldn't be forgotten, either.