The Conservative Reader

… for the most boring interview in history. Last night felt more like 3600 seconds. For those of you that missed it (lucky you), it was the big “first interview of the 44th President Elect of the United Stated”. Steve Kroft, one-on-one with Obama for half the show, Michelle included in the second half (with a little time for Rooney).

Softball questions by Kroft… oh, wait a minute, he did press Obama mightily to reveal yet unannounced cabinet position appointments. Darn, Barack refused to slip up on that!

Why oh why do we care about Obama’s position on college football playoffs?

Very little of what was discussed from a policy standpoint was any different than what we’ve heard on the campaign OR Obama just didn’t provide a real answer. Auto industry? Let’s see what happens. Gitmo? Shut it down… and as a commenter at James Hibberd’s The Live Feed said, no follow-up from Kroft on an obvious question: what to do with the prisoners?

Economy: do [...]

That’s what Ben Smith is reporting, yesterday morning:

Andrea Mitchell reported this evening that Obama is considering Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, something that’s been buzzed about as a possibility for a few days.

I haven’t been able to confirm it, and neither Obama nor Clinton camps would comment, though NBC apparently has confirmation that she went to Chicago today.

One interesting item: Clinton aides are not knocking the report down, which they might.

Since Ben wrote that, apparently, there are confirmations are coming from a number of sources, including the Washington Post:

There’s increasing chatter in [...]

About a two and a half years ago we started this blog with a vague idea of what we wanted to accomplish. That first post was pretty much just a “hello”, with a short commentary on me. It took four months for me to write a second post, and a year after that for the third one. From that point on our vision for The Conservative Reader began to take form and about a year ago we began writing in earnest.

Since January 1 2008, we have provided one or more pieces of commentary on politics, government and business (okay, an occasional cutover to sports) every single day. As the Presidential Election took shape we pretty much got wrapped up into the whole political cycle and almost exclusively commented on current events, especially the election.

Now it’s time to get back to what we came here for. Our mission [...]

The Supreme Court (Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council) voted 5-4 to rescind bans on sonar use in training exercises off the California coast. Those bans were implemented by lower federal courts. The ruling states that the lower courts exceeded their authority in those actions.

The bans were in place presumably to protect sea life from the negative effects of sonar use… effects that have been researched by organizations like the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC). I can not speak directly to the integrity of the research, but it seems the concerns bear consideration. Perhaps not a knee-jerk response, since sonar has been in regular use for decades now, but enough careful consideration that if sea life is truly being impacted, specifically by excessive noise (and sonar is not the only source of noise that is produced by human activities in the ocean), then we can look at appropriate legal imperatives to provide adequate protection without hog-tying the Navy from being adequately prepared for real battles.

The Court was not, in this case, judging [...]

Thank goodness we have today, Veterans Day, to remind us of the sacrifice given by so many millions of men and women over the past 233 years (really more, when you think about it). The day today is specifically designated for those that are living, but their sacrifice is no less than those who have died in action (factoid: November 11 was designated due it being the anniversary of the signing of the Armistice of World War I in 1918) .

Although it should not be constrained to this day, we all know someone, who has served our country as a member of the military. Find as many of those people as possible and thank them. You don’t have to overdo it… just a simple thank you is enough. So many of these folks walk through life having given everything they can, putting their lives on the line and on hold, making a mess of their family, so that you and I can can live in a country where we don’t have to worry about losing our freedoms. Serving is a sacrifice, and family members of those serving share in that sacrifice.

Most of us live with little of a care in life, our biggest challenge [...]

When James Madison and friends put together the Constitution, one of the key things they endeavoured to do was ensure that the Chief Administrator (President) did not have the power of a king. After all, we had just fought our tails off for the right to not have to be subjugated by King George, and as such provide sovereignty to the people and not the President.

I say this in preparation for something that Valerie Jarrett, co-chair of Obama’s transition team, said on Meet The Press yesterday:

“Given the daunting challenges that we face, it is important that President-elect Obama’s prepared to really take power and begin to rule day one.”

DavidL at BitsBlog takes this at face value, which is not in the least unfair. He characterizes this [...]

Conservatives have lost our political credibility. We have totally squandered opportunity after opportunity over the years because self-interest and ambition have eroded the integrity of Conservative politicians along with Liberal ones. And blind political stupidity in the Republican Party created a mess of alienated constituencies, including African Americans. P.J. O’Rourke wrote in The Weekly Standard (aptly titled “We Blew It”):

An entire generation has been born, grown up, and had families of its own since Ronald Reagan was elected. And where is the world we promised these children of the Conservative Age? Where is this land of freedom and responsibility, knowledge, opportunity, accomplishment, honor, truth, trust, and one boring hour each week spent in itchy clothes at church, synagogue, or mosque? It lies in ruins at our feet, as well it might, since we ourselves kicked the shining city upon a hill into dust and rubble.

O’Rourke goes on to[...]

From the Washington Post:

Transition advisers to President-elect Barack Obama have compiled a list of about 200 Bush administration actions and executive orders that could be swiftly undone to reverse White House policies on climate change, stem cell research, reproductive rights and other issues, according to congressional Democrats, campaign aides and experts working with the transition team.

All of you that were taken completely off-guard by this news, please raise your right hands. Now smack yourself on the back of the head.

Any turmoil and angst over this should[...]

I don’t want to be morbid, but I’m starting to lose confidence that we can find a balanced exchange of ideas any longer. That the patently unproven and risky hypothesis that humans, are creating environmental change on a global scale, is now becoming a point of agreement by some of those arguing on the left and right about how to deal with “global warming”, is alarming.

In a pair of pieces presented in the Wall Street Journal today, Ian McEwan and Bjørn Lomborg present differing perspectives on how to deal with global warming. But they are not the typical side of the discussion we’ve had in the past. The perspectives shown here are answers to the question “What should Obama do about Global Warming?”.

McEwan, well known for his works of fiction, extends those skills to the front of the Weekend Journal section. He expresses[...]