A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

Conservatism

  • Bacevich on Obama

    Andrew Bacevich offers a cold-blooded argument for an Obama presidency. The key point is that electing Obama will serve as a repudiation of the Iraq war and, to a lesser extent, the imperial trajectory of which it’s a key part. This, Bacevich thinks, could set the stage for a revival of “genuine conservatism,” which he Read more

  • A conservative for Obama

    Jeffrey Hart, longtime National Review editor and former speechwriter for both Nixon and Reagan, is feeling the Obama magic. The “conservatives for Obama” phenomenon is interesting. More here and here. Read more

  • Crunchy cons, Pollan, Scully and meat-eating

    Rod Dreher of Crunchy Cons fame reflects on the morality of meat-eating, prompted by a discussion with a Christian friend about The Omnivore’s Dilemma (permalinks don’t seem to be working – scroll down to “Re-thinking the meat guzzler”). He also refers to Matthew Scully’s Dominion, an indictment of the factory farming system (and other practices Read more

  • Iowa

    My two cents, for what it’s worth: I was happy to see more or less “anti-establishment” candidates win, continuing to undermine the “inevitability” theme that had been running through the campaign. Neither Huckabee nor Obama are my ideal candidate by any stretch, but I’d much rather see a match up between those two than, say, Read more

  • The left-populist case for Ron Paul?

    This Fall I read Jeff Taylor’s Where Did the Party Go?: William Jennings Bryan, Hubert Humphrey, and the Jeffersonian Legacy, in which he argues that the Democrats have traded a “Jeffersonian” ideology (decentralist, populist, libertarian, and non-interventionist bordering on pacifist) for a “Hamiltonian” one (basically the opposite). Bryan and Humphrey are for Taylor emblematic figures Read more

  • The menace of Rudy

    Speaking of executive power-grabbing, The American Conservative has put out a special anti-Rudy issue. Glenn Greenwald writes about Rudy’s authoritarian tendencies, while Michael Desch looks at his ultra-hawkish foreign policy. Read more

  • Will a Democratic president remember the lessons of the last seven years?

    Jack Balkin is worried that, when it comes to executive power, ostensible Democratic critics may learn to love the imperial presidency if a Dem takes the White House in 2008. It’s worth recalling that conservatives used to complain about the imperial presidency, especially during a time of strong popular liberal presidents. And, more recently, Republicans Read more

  • Ron Paul rising

    Ron Paul breaks another one-day fundraising record. Andrew Sullivan endorses Paul for the GOP nomination here. Also, I meant to link earlier to Chris Hayes’ interesting piece on the culture clash between “populist” and “cosmopolitan” libertarians. Read more

  • The peasants are revolting!

    It’s been pretty amusing over the past couple of days to watch elite conservative pundits wet themselves over Mike Huckabee’s rise to front-runner status. It’s as though all those years of courting evangelical voters without actually delivering much have led to rising expectations among this crucial part of the GOP base. It’s more than a Read more

  • NR endorses Romney

    Exotic religious beliefs aside, could there be a blander, more uninspiring candidate? It truly bodes ill for the GOP and the conservative movement that the current crop is the best they could come up with. The people who are generating all the buzz are the outliers (Huckabee, Paul), the people who are calling into question Read more