Is "Conservative" the new "Gay?"

I was going to go with "Is Obama the true Conservative President?" But then I realized that after eight years of Bush, the word "Conservative" like "gay" now means something much different than it did before.

Under Bush, the whole notion of a state deciding what's best for that state just got in the way of his"conservative" party's big government dreams.

Now Obama lets loose with this little gem. He's going to reverse the W doctrine and let states dictate their own emission and fuel efficiency standards. I have no idea what the economic, environmental, employment or any other ramification of this action is, good or bad. But I do know that I like the idea of letting states figure this out for themselves, and I especially like the idea of following each state as they experiment with it and trying to then figure out what's best for my state of Colorado. I recall something from civics class about having each state find its own path though difficult decisions being part of some kind of "Grand Experiment."*

Seems like that used to be the "conservative" view. But now its coming from what the knee-jerk media calls the "Liberal" President.

So nothing about W fit the old definition of "conservative" and the first days of the "liberal" president have been about restoring "conservative" ideals. So since "conservative" clearly doesn't mean what it used to mean, what does it mean now? And is it dirty?

I'm not sure what's going on, but so far, I'm having a gay old time.

*A free one-year subscription to Hydrablog if you can find the reference somewhere.

W's Prom Nightmare

So President Bush put out on prom night, but the Sheik stood him up on pumping more oil. Poor, poor, W. At least he wasn't wearing a tux from the Miami Vice collection.

But here's where I'm confused. The Saudi's say that there's not enough demand to warrant oil increases, and that they are meeting the needs of their customers.

But W says he understands that the Saudi's can't increase production because he,

acknowledges that raising output is difficult because the demand for oil—particularly from China and India—is stretching supplies.

But if there's not enough demand to warrant an increase, how are China and India sucking up all the supply? Doesn't the increased demand from China and India constitute "more demand?"

Next, aren't we customers? What about the need to meet our demand? My understanding is that the US is the largest oil consumer on the planet. If our President is asking "please sir, may I have some more?" isn't that a customer asking for more?

Here's my take. On the first point, the President, after running on a platform that included the message that he would "jawbone" the Saudi's into more production as President way back when oil was at $28/barrel, he blew it. So he was looking for cover and the Saudi's just declined to give him any. Maybe W's a sloppy kisser?

On the second, it shows why its a bad idea to have the President insert himself into an economic issue. Saudi's "customer's" are the oil importers/refiners/distributors etc, not us. Exxon and the gang are doing fine, and since we're still buying gas, so are we. It's beneath the President to beg for more oil. Let the market figure it out.