Earlier I pointed out the relative failure, until this week anyhow, to emphasize the economy as an issue in the Congressional elections. America's hope to assimilate the already resident immigrants, to find jobs for well-educated and the poorly-educated youth alike and to protect American interests in the world all benefit from the kind of expansion we have enjoyed the past three years. Imagine what a mess we would be in without it. (Thank you, George W. Bush, thank you tax cuts of 2003.)

Understandably, the media would rather talk about Iraq and scandals. The economic boom doesn't fit the current pessimistic news theme.

But at least there have been extensive efforts by the White House to talk about the issue. The same cannot be said about energy independence--an issue that somehow has been swallowed up whole. For three decades--since the OPEC oil crisis of the 70s--American leaders have talked about the need to rely more on ourselves for energy production and less, particularly, on oil imported from the Middle East. In the 70s governments at all levels were motivated to find ways to conserve on energy and political candidates vied to propose new programs and ideas. Some were daft and counterproductive (price controls and rationing, for example) and others worked (for instance, insulation for old as well as new houses).

Meanwhile, the environmental movement backed measures such as catalytic converters to improve air quality that, ultimately, gained bi-partisan support. Young people today probably don't remember Los Angeles when it was sunk in perpetual smog or when tree planting (to eat CO2) was not a particularly popular cause.

But here we are at the end of the 2006 election cycle and there has been a relative dearth of interesting, let alone passionate, debate on energy alternatives, conservation and new energy sources and energy independence. James R. Schlesinger, Jimmy Carter's Secretary of Energy (from 1977-79) even warned people recently not to expect energy independence as a possibility anytime soon, citing "less dependence" as a more reasonable goal.

Al Gorians are making rather wild assertions about global warming--both as to the extent of it and the extent of human responsibility for it--but this deeply ideological debate seems to excite people without leading to much resolution. Have you noticed that the global warming fight is all about analysis and not about serious proposals for action?

Now that Campaign 2006 is all over but the shouting--and the day-after-the-election lawsuits, no doubt--maybe the country can put the politics of energy aside for a while and look at the policy issues of energy.

Is it not possible for liberals and conservatives to come together on programs that liberate us from Middle Eastern coercion, offer consumers and businesses abundant energy supply, promote conservation and clean air, and lower costs? It is not unrealistic to do so.

Discovery Institute is working hard on several elements of energy development and conservation. Personally, I would like to see how close the U.S. really can come to energy independence, after all. Maybe the U.S. alone cannot become energy independent, but there is reason to think that North America (the U.S., Canada and Mexico) could do so.

Think of all the innovative people working of aspects of biofuel, oil shale in Alberta and oil tar sands exploration and extraction in Colorado and Utah. Then there is off shore oil. The new Jack Field wells in the Gulf of Mexico that were announced in early September could almost double proven U.S. oil proven reserves. That promising development should have received far more notice than it did.

Things are looking up in Mexico, where the bureaucratic hand of the government slowed exploration and production for decades, but where new finds have been announced by the Fox government and the new conservative P.A.N. government of Felipe Calderon has shown indications of wanting to use oil to stimulate stronger economic growth. (Is not a more prosperous Mexico capable of employing its own people plainly in our interest, too?)

Notice that I have not even mentioned Alaska and ANWR. The Democrats have succeeded in stymieing ANWR development, but there are still offshore possibilities that might encounter less opposition.

Meanwhile, we must review the fascinating parade of alternative energy sources and the growing discussion of nuclear power, the latter abandoned as a polite subject for twenty or more years.

Our secondary, but important, aim in the whole energy development field should be to share the technologies we develop in the U.S. with developing countries such as China and India that otherwise are on course in the next half dozen years to require more energy and cause more pollution than we realistically can offset by our own efforts. If we can help them to conserve, too, we can spare all of us the problems that otherwise bode likely to destabilize the peace of the world.

Since this is a blog and not a position paper, I just want to note one particular idea that we think can make a huge difference to all the good purposes mentioned above, especially conservation: plug in hybrid cars. We are mystified that this did not become a big issue in the election campaign. Here we have Detroit laying off people, Al Gore selling the concept of a climate Apocalypse to Tony Blair, the Iranians threatening to overturn the world's oil market in case we try to stop their nuclear weapons program, Hugo Chavez becoming the South American Castro on the earning of oil profits and American commuters watching the price of gas this past spring and summer careen to new heights, only to drop lately and temporarily, and the nation experiencing record high trade deficits because we are now importing over 60 percent of our oil.

Despite all that, hardly anyone noticed when N.Y. Gov. Pataki announced plans to convert 600 cars in the New York State car fleet to plug in hybrids as an example of what may lie ahead. Nor was there any fanfare in mid-October, when President Bush said, "We envision a day in which light and powerful batteries become available in the world marketplace so that you can drive the first 40 miles on electricity, on batteries. In other words, it will be a technology that will meet consumer demand and at the same time meet a national need, which is less consumption of gasoline. These are called plug-in hybrids."

Plug in hybrids use non-peak grid electricity--as easy to access as an electric cord in your garage--to recharge batteries that increase gas mileage several fold. Soon, indeed, it will be possible to use plug in hybrids that don't require standard gasoline at all. Costs are coming down fast, and reliability is going up.

What is needed right now is some leadership in Washington to push hard. It hasn't happened yet, but the President at least is alert to the issue. Now let's see if he and the new Congress will move the idea ahead. We assert that it should be a high national priority to come up with new oil and other energy sources, including renewable energies. But right now we can make a huge difference in a short period--in even one year or so--by lowering gasoline consumption through plug-in hybrid technology.

If we also share that technology with the developing world, it is hard to think of another way that would contribute more to their prosperity and to the health of the environment we ultimately all experience together.

What they found out is, not very far. I had to learn this lesson myself, I regret, as I've dealt with the evolution issue in the past couple of years. When the MSM have an agenda, you either agree to validate it or you stay away from them. They are not going to let you represent your own views responsibly.

Unfortunately, some foreign policy neo-conservatives who probably think themselves sophisticates just got taken in by Vanity Fair in a pre-election hit piece on the Iraq War. As soon as I heard about it on NPR Saturday (where it was presented with breathless urgency, of course) I figured out that the neo-cons in question (Richard Perle, Ken Adelman and David Frum, among others) had been bamboozled into doing interviews on the war with the the understanding (now betrayed) that the Vanity Fair issue with the resulting article wouldn't come out until January. In monthly magazine scheduling, that normally means issues with the "January" article would not hit newsstands and mailboxes until early December. But this is early November, isn't it?

Why would the magazine do a promotional story a full month ahead of time? Well, because it was a way to influence the election and get the magazine's name some major publicity, that's why. It really is funny, in a sad way, that men as well-schooled in politics and media as Perle and Frum were taken in by bogus promises made to them by the magazine. But, the magazine editors probably are saying (tongue in cheek): We only said the January issue wouldn't be out until December, we didn't say we wouldn't publicize it before then! Ha, ha, ha! Gotcha!

The neo-cons should have anticipated as much. Now their reported criticisms of Iraq war tactics are not being treated as constructive, but as crass political desertion that can be used to defeat candidates they themselves probably favor in Tuesday's election. They are now protesting in National Review Online that they not only were misrepresented, but also taken out of context by the Vanity Fair leak. And they seem to have a case. But, again, they should have thought about this ahead of time. Vanity Fair HATES conservatives and has no scruples at all about abusing the trust of such people. Why should the interviewees have expected otherwise?

I do sympathize with the neo-cons who inadvertently lent themselves to this bit of election campaign trickery. They thought they were contributing to a deliberative review of Iraq policy that is probably not only desirable but inevitable before the new Congress takes office--regardless of how the election comes out. The trouble is, the review needs to be conducted with clear eyes, and not in the political fog of political war that exists up to the closure of the polls.

America cannot abandon Iraq any more than it can abandon the war on terror as a whole. Of course people feel tired of it all. The terrorists may even feel tired, some of them. But reality is not about feelings.

Politics sometimes is about feelings, however. And the media are almost entirely about feelings these days.

There has been some amazing political journalistic chicanery in election coverage and some truly inspired political public relations activities on the left. The conservatives in general are not up to the game.

I close with John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress (1678):

"When they were got out of the wilderness, they presently saw a town before them, and the name of that town is Vanity; and at the town there is a fair kept, called Vanity Fair. At this fair are all such merchandise sold as houses, lands, trades, places, honors, preferments, titles, countries, kingdoms, lusts, pleasures....lives, blood, bodies, souls, silver, gold, pearls, precious stones, and what not."

What were the nice neo-con gentlemen doing in a place like that, anyhow?

We have argued here that America's dependence on unstable sources of energy has been the most neglected issue in this year's election. But ignoring the problem or offering small, quick fix solutions won't make it go away. Our contention is that America's dependence on overseas oil and other energy supplies can be drastically reduced through a combination of conservation--especially introducing plug-in hybrid vehicles--and fully developing the immense oil and gas reserves of the North American continent. The President and the new Congress should make this a high, bi-partisan priority. Let's take a look at the big picture of North American oil and gas.

Last year, the U.S. consumed 7.54 billion barrels of oil and 22 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The tally for the whole world was 31.025 billion barrels of oil and more than 95 trillion cubic feet of gas. As a recent Chevron-Texaco ad campaign reminds us, more than two thirds of the worldís proven oil reserves are found in the Middle East and the three countries that account for the majority of the worldís gas reserves are Russia, Iran and Qatar. While North America still has enough natural gas to meet our needs for many years to come, this fact has profound implications for gas-poor U.S. allies like Japan and Great Britain, who increasingly will rely on liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports from Russia, Iran, Qatar and West Africa to meet their needs.

Mexico

Fortunately, while America consumes more natural gas than it produces, almost all of our gas imports come from Canada. The U.S. itself is a net exporter of natural gas to Mexico. There are large gas fields in Mexican offshore waters, but they remain mostly untapped, because the state-owned monopoly PEMEX excludes foreign partnerships and thereby misses out on the latest deepwater drilling technologies. However, as mentioned in the last Discovery Blog post on energy, the newly elected Calderon government wants to open PEMEX up to partnerships with foreign companies. Mexico's own increasing GDP and electricity demand requires more drilling, especially if Mexican utilities want to sell electricity to U.S. border states. We need Mexican energy, and Mexico needs U.S. dollars and more energy for its own economic expansion.

PEMEX officially estimates that Mexico could have up to 33 billion barrels, but again, this figure probably would be much higher with the benefit of the kind of technologies that Devon and other U.S. companies have used to uncover billions of new barrels beneath the Gulf of Mexico. It must be galling to members of Calderon's government that Castroís Cuba is presently more open to joint offshore drilling ventures than Mexico.

Canada

The biggest future factor affecting how much natural gas Canada can export to us is how much more they will need to boost oil sands production. The Canadians use natural gas to generate steam for in-situ extraction of oil sands (basically cooking the bitumen underground until it seeps up into extraction pipes) and to separate the bitumen from the soil. Canada currently mines 2.5 million barrels per day (bpd) from the Alberta oil sands, and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers expects production to reach 4.9 million bpd by 2020. This means that Canada will soon surpass Iran (4.2 mbpd) as the world's 4th largest oil producer, behind only Russia, Saudi Arabia and the U.S. At 175 billion barrels, Canada is second only to Saudi Arabia in proven reserves. The Canadian Natural Resources Ministry and Albertan provincial government agree that Alberta could have more than 300 billion barrels recoverable with modest improvements in extraction technologies employed today.

According to a recent presentation by Gary Weilinger, President of BC Pipeline and Field Services for Duke Energy, only a small share of British Columbiaís immense gas reserves have been tapped, and the pipelines to export this gas to the Pacific Northwest are already in place. Furthermore, the Canadian Centre for Energy estimates that there is 334 trillion cubic feet of gas in the Western Sedimentary Basin shared between Alberta and B.C. Our Canadian neighbors are not going to run out of natural gas or heavy crude oil anytime soon.

United States of America

What about us, how much oil and gas do we have right here at home? The American Conservative Union recently issued a report citing American Petroleum Institute and U.S. Geological Survey estimates of a whopping 103 billion barrels of oil and 637 trillion cubic feet of gas. This estimate includes Alaska, the lower 48 states, and all U.S. offshore waters, but excludes the 700 billion barrels of oil shale reserves estimated to be in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming.

Unfortunately, a huge percentage of these vast potential reserves remain off-limits due to severe restrictions on drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, ANWR, and the Continental Shelf along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Meanwhile, the debate in Congress usually comes down to a simplistic, zero-sum choice between conservation while promoting new technologies vs. expanded drilling. The fact of the matter is that we need to do all of these things, and that expanded production and conservation are two sides of the same coin. America and the world are still going to need more oil and gas for many years to come as we transition to new fuels and sources of energy.

In any event, if America truly aims to reduce our dependence on energy imports from politically volatile regions--with all the economic and national security issues that entails--we should make expanding North American energy production our top priority.

The preceding was co-authored by Bruce Chapman and Charles Ganske.

It remains a mystery why the Bush Administration failed to make energy a campaign issue initiative, or, for that matter, why Democrats failed to propose ideas that actually have broad, non-partisan support in the public. Regardless, the issue is coming up now. Various articles are appearing in the trade press, the president mentioned the subject in his post-election press conference, and Democrats are mentioning it, too.

One of Ronald Reagan's Energy Secretaries, Don Hodel, wrote in Human Events last week about how the late president would have addressed the issue. It's well worth reading.

Also coming will be discussions of taxes and tax credits to affect demand. We think it is not necessary or desirable to stimulate the market artificially. As we have said in recent posts, there is a whole panoply of actions that can be taken, however, to increase domestic and North American oil and gas production and to promote conservation--including the plug-in hybrid car.

The day that the excruciatingly close race in Virginia ended--and the Democrats gained control of the U.S. Senate--the winner, James Webb, apparently had words of praise for his defeated foe, Senator George Allen. Instead of complaining of vote fraud or demanding a recount, Allen had "graciously conceded", in the words of the Washington Post, and was so pleasant on the phone with Senator-elect Webb that the two agreed to get together for lunch next week.

The news stunned and silenced the campaign crowd gathered for Webb's somewhat delayed final victory celebration. The Webb partisans had seen the race in dramatic adversarial terms that allowed for no sense of worth in the opposition candidate. What they were witnessing was serious statesmanship on both sides. They should not have remained mum. They should have cheered.

I have found that politicians are often unusually admirable people, contrary to all the cynical folklore and despite the clear exceptions. I would rather have my fate adjudicated by most of them than by, say, your average (appointed) judge, a "jury of my peers" or, certainly, the kind of people who populate the broadcast news stations. Separate them from their immediate self-interest in survival--and that is a crucial condition--and you are likely to find in the ranks of the pols public spirited individuals of discretion and wisdom, kindness and generosity. People like that are usually the kind attracted to politics in the first place. Most are extroverts who enjoy people. They want to make a positive difference. They want you to love them. There are worse qualities than those.

Allen and Webb are examples. You probably saw the worst of them on display in recent months. In such high profile campaigns the pressures from media and campaign consultants and the demands of fund raising are impossible to withstand. The candidate's finer sensibilities become a liability and his survival instinct is constantly invoked to do what he "must" do if he wants to win. The normally wry, charming fellow and the intelligent, reflective woman winds up on TV screen as a candidate mouthing the most mushy jabber that the pro realizes is the mere distillation of some consultant's polling and focus group testing. The real person is hard to recall, even to the person himself.

There are endless good moments in a big campaign like one for the U.S. Senate, of course. There is real joy in taking part in the lives of one's diverse constituents, and of having hundreds or thousands of them volunteer as part of one's own campaign. A candidate is humbled to see people he doesn't even know make decisions to support him that require true sacrifices in time, effort and money. No wonder most candidates who lose are surprised. Everywhere they go they are experiencing approbation and good cheer. In the campaigns where I ran for office in the state of Washington, I felt that whole new worlds of friendships and social experience had opened to me.

In many cases I think that what candidates would really like is a gentlemanly contest where they could put out interesting position papers (does anyone do that any more?) and have the media report on them, weigh new ideas, conduct serious debates and take part in panel discussions where each side got more than sound bite attention. They'd like a string of coffee hours where their standard talk could be challenged by thoughtful questions. In short, they'd like the campaigns that used to be described in civics books, back in the days when students studied civics.

Some of the idealized campaign does take place. But then a candidate makes a mistake, like the "macaca" remark of George Allen, and that is seized upon--not by the opponent alone, but by a hostile media. In the case of Allen, the macaca moment was covered and recovered in over 40 articles by the high-minded folks that bring you The Washington Post. MSNBC ran a tape of it almost as part of their theme music.

Then, not satisfied, the press started delving into Allen's past to find if there were other insensitive things he might have said. They had to go all the way back to his college days, passing over his whole adult life and his long career in public service, when some people who now oppose him politically said that as a teenager he had been heard to use the "N word", while others (supporters) said that he did no such thing. (And wasn't all of that edifying?). After a day or two, a reporter thought to ask whether James Webb--surely fluent in the salty private rhetoric that you might expect from a Marine--had ever used the "N word" and he didn't deny it. Others said he definitely did.

Finally, desperately, Allen brought forth some steamy sexual scenes from Webb's novels and insisted that the voters should read them. Webb was embarrassed. Unfortunately for Allen--and the advisors who egged him on--so was the public and he actually went down in the polls thereafter.

Now, candidates are ultimately responsible for what they say, even off-hand and in jest, and for what they raise as "issues", but there is no doubt that the real lowering of the Virginia campaign was accomplished largely by the press (the Washington Post especially) and the candidates' campaign advisors. Sadly, the public never gets a chance to defeat THEM.

So I want to offer some sympathy for the whole tribe of candidates, regardless of party. Running for office is an act of ego assertion, of course, but it also is a wonderful gift to our free society. Representative democracy is an analogue of the free market economy where, following Adam Smith, the selfish interests of the individual wind up benefiting the general good. What would we do without candidates who are willing to offer themselves up for scrutiny and evaluation? If they didn't give us choices, we would be stuck with self-perpetuating officials we couldn't change.

But in many ways the utility, if not the nobility, of the politician is hidden by the built-in conflicts of the selection process itself. Unlike actors in the economy, politicians almost always must tell the voters not only why their "product" (their candidacy) is good, but also why they are better than the competition. In practice, they must harp on the real or exaggerated flaws of the other side. That doesn't happen in most economic choices because companies have learned not to trash the competition, not by name anyhow. Doing so could hurt one's own brand in the long term, and (unlike the few weeks or months of a political race) it is the long term that determines success in the economic marketplace.

Candidates, too, would rather not disparage their opponents--who would?--and would not do so if they could win otherwise. See a candidate who says nothing bad about his opponent and you are witnessing a race that, de facto, has already been won. Can you imagine job seeking in the private sector if it was expected that you would run down the other job candidates and do so in public? Facing the institutional imperative to "go negative," many of us will not even think of entering politics as a candidate.

It's even more remarkable that some politicians prove virtuous when one realizes that that virtue is refined in the heat of real world conflict. Some handle temptation better than others, clearly. Many fail, including several sad reprobates who stooped to the sale of their offices this past year or so and wound up in court, and then in jail. Many more, however, are falsely charged or are pilloried for failings that, post-election, quickly shrink in media notice. (Maybe the media would have covered the obviously planned revelation of Rep. Foley's dirty emails to pages if it had been made a year after the congressman retired from office. Maybe not, too, but there is no way in the latter instance that it would have been on the front pages of the national press for weeks--as it was.)

In short, scandals sometimes are valid, and often are not. Some are contrived. We all know the popular assumption in the statement, "Where there's smoke, there's fire." But as a congressman I know sagely remarks, "In Washington, where there's smoke there's often a smoke machine." It is arduous simply to operate in such an environment.

So, give the political candidates their due.

And what they are due, losers as well as winners, is a genuine thank you for offering themselves for public service. We need them all to assure the competition that makes democracy credible.

The New York Times ran an article last week that should have set pundit tongues wagging: "In Ancient Fossils, Seeds of a New Debate on Warming," by William J. Broad. (Link by subscription only.) Robert Giegengack, a geologist at the University of Pennsylvania who studies past atmospheres, is quoted, saying, "It's too simplistic to say low CO2 was the only cause of the glacial periods" that took millions of years. "The record," he argues, "violates that one-to-one correspondence."

Dr. Giegengack and others acknowledge that the earth is warming today, as it has done repeatedly, but they doubt that anyone knows exactly why. Other causes to consider are Sun cycles, cosmic rays that bombard the planet and changes in sea currents.

"More and more data," reports Jan Veizer, an expert on Phanerozoic climates at the University of Ottawa, "point to the sun and stars as the dominant driver."

Short of a new federal initiative to promote a "diplomatic resolution" of the problem with the Sun and stars, what are we to do? Maybe we should redeploy and gradually withdraw from the war on global warming?

Two other recent articles--from the London Sunday Telegraph (here and here)--pick up a similar theme. There are pages and pages of fascinating responses.

How much more of this can the Al Gore enthusiasts take?

One of the leftist follies of our age is that whatever scientific "consensus" at any given moment exists should be regarded as dispositive, and that it also should dictate all public policies that relate to the subject. Whether global warming represents a threat, and how much of one, are two questions that the media-accepted consensus previously has sought to assure us are settled, and so, too, the more relevant question of the extent to which human activity is responsible for whatever global warming is occurring. Until now, there has been an attempt to silence and denounce doubters.

We think it is possible and desirable for left and right, at least in America, to agree on sensible ways to conserve energy (such as the plug-in hybrid car) and to promote diversified and renewable energy sources. We need such cooperation in order to assist consumers in holding down costs and to lessen U.S. dependence on overseas energy sources. But there has to be some willingness to control the kind of hysteria that pushes for economy-destroying policies and promotes a totally unnecessary pessimism about the future.

(NOTE to Seattle area readers: At the Discovery Institute headquarters on December 5, Dr. Dennis Avery of Hudson Institute will speak on "Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years." Call 206 292-0401, x 153, for a reservation.)

Note: This post was co-authored with Charles Ganske.

It always happens. Once the election is over, the media start to inform you what the real issues will be in the coming Congressional session, and they are not necessarily subjects that were emphasized in the campaign. Suddenly getting attention is the likelihood that the new Democratic majority will put a halt to free trade initiatives. The esteemed economist John Rutledge has just returned from China--where he probably is even better known--with valuable insights about how the new US political reality is seen from there. Will there be some debate on this before the new Congress meets? Will there also be some comparable analysis of what is going to happen to our trading relationship with Latin America, a part of the world the media and the parties have neglected in recent years?

Overall, the US and the the developing world have benefited greatly by the movement to free trade. The WTO critics have not made their case. But the unions and the environmentalists (to generalize) see a chance to force poison pills down any new trade act. It will be hard therefore to make any progress. Meanwhile, you can expect mercantilists in the European Union to try to regulate trade to the advantage of highly taxed, subsidized and regulated--and stagnant--France, Belgium and Germany, and to make European standards prevail worldwide. You either go along or they sue you into conformance--or cut you out of their markets. The Democrats are just not alert to the danger, and the Republicans aren't in a mood to raise any alarms.

One can see some opportunities for the two US political parties to collaborate in other areas, however. An energy program, for example, could include both conservation measures and new sources of oil and gas. Should the now-dominant Democrats ignore the need for oil and gas production and opt to over-emphasize wind and solar they could be blamed if gas prices go up and the long term goal of renewable sources is not met. Having legislative responsibility means you can't just point the finger at the Administration any more. So compromise would seem to be the best political policy as well as the national interest. There are hints that the parties may agree.

A compromise on immigration reform is another possibility. The Republicans made a mistake by not working out a bill this year, but an opportunity still exists for a solution that seriously toughens border controls and allows a path for legalization--but is not "amnesty". Looking ahead, it will be interesting to see whether increased legal immigration quotas for high skilled workers will be allowed by the new majority. Ask yourself whether the high tech industry or the unions will have more influence on the new Congressional majority. Both interests backed the Democrats this year. As Rutledge notes, American tech companies are determined to compensate for an under-educated American workforce. If Congress lets the tech industry down on work visas it will start outsourcing the country's leadership in R & D.

On another subject, Dr. Rutledge also seems to be correct when he declares telecom reform legislation dead as a result of the elections. But it probably was dead anyhow. (The Republicans did have their chance, didn't they?) The pressure therefore will be on the Federal Communications Commission to take action under authority it already has. The trouble may come in persuading the pro-deregulation majority on the FCC to take action while action is still politically possible. Here is a case where the Bush Administration, by gentle prodding, could help the economy of the next two years without any legislative action at all. But timing is fickle, delay deadly. It is just as John Rutledge implies: the US will exert its leadership in technology by massive broadband deployment, or it will lose its prospects there, too.

These are the kinds of issues that are not very sexy, but enormously consequential. Discovery has been writing about such topics, but it is frustrating to see how disconnected the media and the campaigners have been--and, hence, how unaware the voters.

John Watson's Right Wing News has compiled a series of choice quotations from former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, one of my favorite statesmen--of any time. They are taken from her book, Statecraft, and I thought I'd share them with those of you who are academics or merely want to be inspired again.

The Best Quotes From Margaret Thatcher's 'Statecraft'
by Margaret Thatcher

(On Who Got Credit For Ending The Cold War) "The role of Ronald Reagan had been deliberately diminished; the role of the Europeans, who, with the exception of Helmet Kohl, were often keen to undermine America when it mattered, had been sanitized; and the role of Mr. Gorbachev, who had failed spectacularly in his declared objective of saving communism and the Soviet Union, had been absurdly misunderstood." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 5

"(Gorbachev's) remarks in Prague seemed to me, to say the least, of doubtful validity. Yet nor should they be lightly dismissed. They represent the articulation of a strategy, common to the left in many countries, of seeking to escape all blame for communism and then going on to take credit for being more pragmatic, modern, and insightful about the world which those who actually fought communism have created. It is a pressing necessity to expose and defeat both distortions." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 8

"As the former dissident Vladimir Bukovsky one remarked -- referring to the Russian proverb to the effect that you cannot make an omlette without breaking eggs -- he had seen plenty of broken eggs, but had never tasted any omlette." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 13

"If...many influential people have failed to understand , or have just forgotten, what were up against in the Cold War and how we overcame it, they are not going to be capable of securing, let alone enlarging, the gains that liberty has made." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 15

"I too have a certain idea of America. Moreover, I would not feel entitled to say that of any other country, except my own. This is not just sentiment, though I always feel ten years younger - despite the jet-lag - when I set foot on American soil: there is something so positive, generous, and open about the people - and everything actually works. I also feel, though, that I have in a sense a share of America." -- Thatcher, P. 20

"It is important not to allow ever wider coalition-building to become an end in itself. As we saw in the Gulf War of 1990, international pressures, particularly those exerted from within an alliance, can result in the failure to follow actions through and so leave future problems unresolved." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 37

"The West as a whole in the early 1990s become obsessed with a 'peace dividend' that would be spent over and over again on any number of soft-hearted and sometimes soft-headed causes. Politicians forget that the only real peace dividend is peace." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 40

"...The defence budget is one of the very few elements of public expenditure that can truly be described as essential. This point was well-made by a robust Labour Defence Minister, Denis (Now Lord) Healey, many years ago: 'Once we have cut expenditure to the extent where our security is imperilled, we have no houses, we have no hospitals, we have no schools. We have a heap of cinders.' -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 44

(On Putting Women in Combat) "Women have plenty of roles in which they can serve with distinction: some of us even run countries. But generally we are better at wielding the handbag than the bayonet." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 45

"When we hear (as we sometimes do) that (Russia's) economic output is about half the level of a decade ago or that real incomes have fallen sharply, it is worth recalling that economic statistics under the Soviet Union were hardly more reliable than any other official statements. Moreover, a country that produces what no one wants to buy, and whose workers receive wages that they cannot use to buy goods they want, is hardly in the best of economic health." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 85

"It is always important in matters of high politics to know what you do not know. Those who think that they know, but are mistaken, and act upon their mistakes, are the most dangerous people to have in charge." -- Margaret Thatcher, P 104

"The application of collective guilt, running from one generation to another, is a dangerous doctrine which would leave few modern nations unscathed." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 131

"When in August 1793 a British delegation showed their hosts a terrestrial globe, it turned into a diplomatic incident, for the Chinese were furious to see that their empire covered so little of it. For centuries the Chinese had thought of themselves as 'The Middle Kingdom', that is the centre of the civilized world. To see otherwise was a shock." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 162

"It can be argued - and rightly - that Taiwan is not just another regional issue: after all, the Chinese regard it as part of China. But Taiwan is also a regional issue for three reasons. First, the overthrow or even the neutering of democracy in Taiwan, which is what Beijing effectively demands, would be a major setback for democracy in the region as a whole. Second, if the Chinese were able to get their way by force in Taiwan, they would undoubtedly be tempted to do the same in other disputes. And third, there is no lack of such disputes to provoke a quarrel." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 182

"Rogue states never turn out to be quite the pariahs they are deemed. They are only able to cause, or at least threaten to cause, mayhem because they enjoy the covert support - usually by means of technology transfers - of one or more major powers within the charmed circle of global 'good guys'." -- Margaret Thatcher, p. 208

"As a motive for terror, religion has more often than not required a good deal of lubrication by lucre." -- Margaret Thatcher, P 221

"It is recorded how towards the end of the eighteenth century a Muslim visitor to England was taken to see the House of Commons at work. He later wrote of his astonishment at finding the that the British Parliament actually made laws and fixed punishments for their infraction - because unlike Muslims the English had not accepted a divine law revealed from heaven and therefore had to resort to such unsatisfactory expedients. Muslims still understand the expression 'the rule of law' very differently than do most Westerners." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 222

"The Iraqis had paid a terrible price for Saddam's folly (in the Gulf War). But looking at the devastation they left behind (in Kuwait), my sympathy was limited." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 227

"President Numeiri of Sudan is said to have remarked of Gadaffi that he was 'a man with a split personality - both of them evil'. -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 234

(On the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict) "(Not) even the US can impose peace: it has to be genuinely accepted by both parties involved." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 246

"Israel must never be expected to jeopardize her security: if she was ever foolish enough to do so, and then suffered for it, the backlash against both honest brokers and Palestinians would be immense - 'land for peace' must also bring peace." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 246

"...Conservatives have excellent credentials to speak about human rights. By our efforts, and with precious little help from self-styled liberals, we were largely responsible for securing liberty for a substantial share of the world's population and defending it for most of the rest." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 249

"The Nuremburg trials were attacked at the time as 'victor's justice'. And this is precisely what they were - and were intended to be." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 258

(On The International Criminal Court) "For the victors of the Cold War to submit to an unelected, unaccountable, and almost certainly hostile body such as that envisaged would be the ultimate irony." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 262

(On The International Criminal Court) "Major international interventions are doomed unless the US is directly or indirectly involved. But if American politicians, officials and servicemen are to be put at risk of arrest and prosecution, the United States will be most reluctant to act in order to curb aggression or prevent genocide. So the effect of the court may well be to diminish, not increase, the numbers of (in the words of the UN Secretary General) 'innocents of distant wars and conflicts'." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 265

"It is in a country's interests to keep faith with its allies. States in this sense are like people. If you have a reputation for exacting favors and not returning them, the favours dry up." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 267

"Left-wing zealots have often been prepared to ride roughshod over due process and basic considerations of fairness when they think they can get away with it. For them the ends always seems to justify the means. That is precisely how their predecessors came to create the gulag." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 273

"Whether it is in the United States or in mainland Europe, written constitutions have one great weakness. That is that they contain the potential to have judges take decisions which should properly be made by Democratically elected politicians." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 275

"Whether at home or abroad, the task of statesman is to work with human nature warts and all, and to draw on instincts and even prejudices that can be turned to good purpose. It is never to try to recreate Mankind in a new image." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 283

"I do believe that political arrangements which are based upon violence, intimidation and theft will eventually break down - and will deserve to do so." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 307

"Bribing regimes to comply with requirements which they should have acknowledged in the first place is not a process that appeals to me." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 316

"During my lifetime most of the problems the world has faced have come, in one fashion or other, from mainland Europe, and the solutions from outside it." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 320

"It is one of the great weaknesses of reasonable men and women that they imagine that projects which fly in the face of commonsense are not serious or being seriously undertaken." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 325

(On The European Union) "What we should grasp, however, from the lessons of European history is that, first, there is nothing necessarily benevolent about programmes of European integration; second, the desire to achieve grand utopian plans often poses a grave threat to freedom; and third, European unity has been tried before, and the outcome was far from happy." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 327

"If one generation is expected to carry an excessive burden on behalf of another, it will seek by every means to avoid it. It will either demand that past promises are broken, or it will not work, or it will not pay taxes, or the most talented people will leave. Socialist governments which have tried to tax 'till the pips squeak' have ample experience of that." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 334

"The European single currency is bound to fail, economically, politically and indeed socially, though the timing, occasion and full consequences are all necessarily still unclear." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 355

"If the Europeans truly wish to improve their NATO contribution they can show it simply enough. They can establish professional armed forces, like those of the UK. And they can acquire more advanced technology. Indeed, unless that happens soon the gulf between the European and US capabilities will yawn so wide that it will not be possible to share the same battlefield. Alas, I do not think that sharing battlefields with our American friends - but rather disputing global primacy with them - is what European defence plans are truly about." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 358

"(A unified) 'Europe' is the result of plans. It is, in fact, a classic utopian project, a monument to the vanity of intellectuals, a programme whose inevitable destiny is failure: only the scale of the final damage done is in doubt." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 359

"To be free is better than to be unfree - always. Any politician who suggests the opposite should be treated as suspect." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 394

"(I)t is highly questionable whether when 'Europe speaks with one voice', as we are so often told it is doing, anyone is really listening. Europe's reputation as a serious player in international affairs is unenviable. It is a feeble giant who desperate attempts to be taken seriously are largely risible. It has a weak currency and a sluggish inflexible economy, still much reliant on hidden protectionism. It has a shrinking, ageing, population and, with the exception of Britain, rather unimpressive armed forces and, not excepting Britain, muddled diplomacy." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 395

"Countries trade with each other - or to be more precise people buy and sell from each other across frontiers - because that is the way to advance their interests. We do not need to beg people to trade with us - as long as we have something that people want, of a quality they expect and at a price they are prepared to pay." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 403

"Whether manufactured by black, white, brown or yellow hands, a widget remains a widget - and it will be bought anywhere if the price and quality are right. The market is a more powerful and more reliable liberating force than government can ever be." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 421

"Yet the basic fact remains: every regulation represents a restriction of liberty, every regulation has a cost. That is why, like marriage (in the Prayer Book's words), regulation should not 'be enterprised, nor taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly'." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 423

"The right-of-centre parties still often compete with left-of-centre ones to proclaim their attachment to all the main programmes of spending, particularly spending on social services of one kind or another. But this foolish as well as muddled. It is foolish because left-of-centre parties will always be able to outbid right-of-centre ones in this auction - after all, that is why they are on the left in the first place. The muddle arises because once we concede that public spending and taxation are than a necessary evil we have lost sight of the core values of freedom." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 424

"...(T)he larger the slice taken by government, the smaller the cake available for everyone." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 425

"I think we've been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it. 'I have a problem, I'll get a grant.' 'I'm homeless, the government must house me.' They're casting their problem on society. And you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There's no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 426

"Socialists have always spent much of their time seeking new titles for their beliefs, because the old versions so quickly become outdated and discredited." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 427

"The accumulation of wealth is a process which is of itself morally neutral. True, as Christianity teaches, riches bring temptations. But then so does poverty." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 430

"With all due respect to the drafters of the American Declaration of Independence, all men (and women) are not created equal, at least in regard to their characters, abilities and aptitudes. And if they were, their family and cultural backgrounds - not to mention the effect of mere chance - would soon change that. On one thing, nature and nurture agree: we are all different. If this is unjust, then life is unjust. But, though one hears this expression - usually in the form of the complaint that 'life is unfair' - it really means nothing. In the same vein, someone once said to Voltaire, 'Life is hard.' To which is replied: 'Compared with what?'" -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 431

"There is much to be said for trying to improve some disadvantaged people's lot. There is nothing to be said for trying to create heaven on earth." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 432

"When all the objectives of government include the achievement of equality - other than equality before the law - that government poses a threat to liberty." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 433

"To the extent that the West is to blame at all for the ills of the Third World it is to the extent that the West created Marx and his successors, among whom must be numbered many of those who advised the Third World leaders in post-war years." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 439

"In a system of free trade and free markets poor countries - and poor people - are not poor because others are rich. Indeed, if others became less rich the poor would in all probability become still poorer." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 440

"The Third World is very much like the First World - just poorer: what works for the West will work for the rest as well." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 444

"Adam Smith's 'invisible hand' is not above sudden, disturbing, movements. Since its inception, capitalism has known slumps and recessions, bubble and froth; no one has yet dis-invented the business cycle, and probably no one will; and what Schumpeter famously called the 'gales of creative destruction' still roar mightily from time to time. To lament these things is ultimately to lament the bracing blast of freedom itself." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 462

"Individualism has come in for an enormous amount of criticism over the years. It still does. It is widely assumed to be synonymous with selfishness...But the main reason why so many people in power have always disliked individualism is because it is individualists who are ever keenest to prevent the abuse of authority." -- Margaret Thatcher, P. 468

All quotes are from 'Statecraft'.

Mustafa Akyol, in The Turkish Times, writes an open letter to Pope Benedict XVI about the Catholic Church and Islam, as seen by a sympathetic Turkish Muslim. Akyol, whose articles on intelligent design have attracted recent attention, here offers a carefully weighed analysis of the situation that faced the pope in Turkey. Christians should be so fortunate as to have many such Muslims as Akyol with whom they can engage in dialogue.

Meanwhile, George Weigel of the Ethics and Public Policy Center (and an adjunct fellow of Discovery Institute) writes a rather different sort of piece about the significance of the visit for Newsweek. Weigel, official biographer of Pope John Paul II and a long time friend of the current pontiff, sees the main purpose of the trip as the building of closer ties between Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, whose Ecumenical Patriarch resides in Istanbul (nee, Constantinople). He also points out what few observers of the visit have noticed; namely, that Christians are discriminated against seriously in Turkey. Perhaps, as Akyol says, the hostility comes more from the ardent secular nationalists (as well as the Islamists) rather than the ordinary Muslims, but it is real nonetheless. If Turkey hopes for a spot in the European Union it might address the issue of religious liberty and show its good will, first of all, by allowing the Orthodox to reopen their one seminary in the country.

But Weigel thinks (and so, he intimates, does the pope) that the main opportunity stemming from the papal journey was to create greater synergy of Catholics and Eastern Orthodox world-wide. The ecumenical seeds were planted in large part by John Paul II, and his successor wants to cultivate the new growth. There are signs that Christians in the traditional liturgical churches that split in 1054 have increasing cause to unite in an age when they are not foes but allies who face the new millenium's threats: expansionist secularists in the West and radical Islamists in the East.

Catholics and Orthodox have relatively few theological differences and these days many practical reasons to collaborate more closely. Taken together, the developments toward reunion that have taken place in the past few years surely are historic, though of an as yet unrecognized level of significance. To me there seems to be a grand strategy in play.