Ponnuru, as well as the rest of the NRO hacks, are nothing but hypocrites and liars. He claims that conservaives, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, " rightly rejected overheated criticisms of Mr. Bush". That is a blatant lie, if you check the archives at the Corner for the week after the hurricane, you will find that Podhoretz, Lopez and Dreher were the ones hyperventilating the most.

One of the problems with a group weblog is a lot of things get posted on a spur-of-the-moment impulse and are there for posterity, where in the old dead tree era those first thoughts could be revised and extended, or eliminated completely, before hundreds of thousands of people had a chance to read it.

Combine that with the New York-Washington political world desire (true on both the left and right) that something big has to be happening all the time, and if it isn't, we'll take something and make it big, and you get people hitting the send button when they shouldn't, and impulsively seeing crisis where there aren't. NRO would be better served if there was a manditory 30 minute delay between the time you could hit the preview button and the time you could actually post something to the website.

His first sentence should be a giveaway - "Conservatives entered the presidential race of 2000 holding a weak hand". But Bush won the election.

In 1984, Ronald Reagan held a strong hand, but the party did nothing with that strength, and two years later control of the Senate was lost. It was reminiscent of 1972 (although that was an outlier because McGovern was essentially a fringe candidate).

Even 2004 looked 'weak' for conservatives during the media hype of the run-up to the Democratic primaries, or when Kerry and Edwards were on the cover of Newsweek. But the GOP won. Sure, Bush might have won 3 or 4 more states had he done better in the first debate (PA, WI, NH, MN). But he won clearly enough, and gained 4 Senate seats in doing it.

Of course, he has not handled his political capital very well since November. Maybe that is all Ponnuru is trying to say. However, the NRO crowd (and the rest of the carping retromingents) are showing their underwear on this issue.

Nothing better demonstrates that the conservative commentariat is still in thrall to the main stream media as "many have grave doubts about the conduct of the [Iraqi] war." The war has been a stunning success.

David:

Not to paleocons. Our intervention in the world can only dirty our purity.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the cries of betrayal I see on sites like ConfirmThem, Red State, etc. In 2000, Bush couldn't have done more to distance himself from the right wing of the GOP unless he had punched Gingrich in the face. The plain and simple fact is that the paleoconservatives are no where close to being able to come up with a majority without social conservatives, most of whom are not willing to throw the poor under the bus. A safety net that gives people a sense of empowerment instead of never ending dependency is worth fighting for. Bush gets it.

OJ:

Don't you think the main reason paleocons oppose military action is because they see Vietnam under every bush? They've been cowed even more than the left, I suspect.

The other thing Bush gets is that the country is not going back to "rugged individualism."

Is is amusing to see leftists criticize the administion for not cleaving to a Herbert Hoover economic line. Of course that is just what they wouod like to see, just as they would like to see the draft brought back.

We are not going to retain and expend political power be standing for the repeal of the Twentieth Century. Tax-spend-elect is how it works. We are not going to win the clash of civilizations, keep babies alive, and save our guns by frightening people into thinking that we will have them selling apples on streetcorners.

Yes, Social Security should be reformed, yes the I.R.S. should be abolished, but not before a lengthy period of education removes the mythic aura which surrounds these institutions.

Real conservatives learned much from Vietnam; we leasrned much from Goldwater as well.

rat:

Walter MacDougall's excellent book, Promised Land, Crusader State, makes the compelling argument that the impulse towards non-intervention derives in part from our fear that our pure Promised Land can only be sullied by our interaction with the rotten world outside our boundaries.

Lou:

And from Chile, Maggie, etc.

sam:

I don't think Mr. Ponnuru belongs in that group though, which is why the essay seemed problematic. Unless he doesn't think he and George Bush are conservatives.

"The other thing Bush gets is that the country is not going back to 'rugged individualism.'"

What the libertarians seem unable to grasp is that we have find a path that leads from where we are now to the "rugged individualism" they crave, and that any such path leads through "compassionate conservatism" or something like it. Once people get used to the idea that they have to provide their own welfare state, then the next step is to elimiate the gov't mandates. Sometime around 2060. But like all children, the Losertarians want it all and they want it now. Which is why they are going to throw a blue-faced tantrum in the store aisle if Bush won't buy them that Janice Brown action figure they've seen on display.

Raoul:

You have to have the mandate because of Man's Fallen Nature.

Maybe so, in which case the next half-century will still not be wasted by demonstrating that. And by then, there will be other tensions that will need to be resolved.

No, the problem is that fifty years from now we'll convince ourselves we don't need it....

You all can diss the libertarian/econocons and you may want them out of the GOP or take them for granted. But be very, very careful what you wish for. If the non-religious conservatives like those at Red State or NRO were as pissed off last November as they are now they would have stayed home. And we'd now be talking about President Kerry. Without the libertatians we are still a 60-40 nation. Only the thecons are the 40.

What the theocons don't get is the fact that America is not a radical country, either of the left or the right. We're a boring mainstream country and fundamental, evangelical Christians are not mainstream. The theocons are making the same mistake as the uncompromising left wingers of a generation ago who sent the Democratic party into the wilderness.

Anon - valid point. But the Miers brouhaha showed that the NROs, Weekly Standards, etc. believe they are the base of the party when they are not.

Anon:

No, they aren't. They're a far smaller percentage and they'll vote GOP no matter what because they have no other option.

OJ:

What if Donald Trump (or Jack Welch or Bruce Willis) ran for President in 2008? Absent McCain or Rudy as the nominee, if one of them really worked the media and ran just on fiscal issues alone, I'll bet he could get 2-3% of the vote. Then we would have our Nader to thank.

Don't ever say no matter what. Kilgore could lose in VA next month because of Russell Potts, and who ever heard of him (even across VA)?

I'm sure one of the primary Dem. strategies in 2008 will be to exploit the 'rift' in conservative ranks over spending, Miers, and Iraq. In 2004, Bush was pre-eminent and the loudmouths like Pat Buchanan were essentially muzzled. Next time, that may not happen.

"and the loudmouths like Pat Buchanan were essentially muzzled"

Which is why now is a good time to let them know that while they can adjust the final trajectory, the have no control over where an issue is going to be aimed. For example, if you listen to them for the past five years, a major disagreements over immigration policy is always immenent.

And having "our Nader" only matters is things get close. Otherwise such a candidate will just be another John Anderson. So before the Dems can concentrate on splintering the GOP, they'll have to come up with someone who can do better than the Vietnam Vet did, and without all the advantages he had. (General incumbent dissatisfaction, sycophantic press, Bush Derangement Syndrome, etc.)

"What the theocons don't get is the fact that America is not a radical country..."

And what most libertarians don't seem to get is that they are the radicals, making proposals that solid majorities reject whenever they get the chance. And to a country that's gotten comfortable with New Deal/Great Society policies, their espousal of "rugged individualism" is far scarier than the reactionary Leftism running the Dems these days.

In a very close election, Raoul, any adjustment int he trajectory is a miss and "a miss is as good as a mile".

And no OJ, they don't have to vote GOP. They can have a snit and stay home. That alone would have put Kerry into the White House.

AWW, it doesn't matter that the neocons/libertarians/econocons aren't the base. If the base isn't big enough to win elections by itself the base is impotent. Only a "big tent" GOP can hope to consistently win national elections. Which means the theocons are going to have to compromise some cherished beliefs - something the Lefties of a generation ago failed to do.

The GOP crack up has been coming for a long time, ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Anti-communism was the glue that held together the GOP coalition forged by Reagan. The theocons hated Soviet atheism, the econocons hated Soviet socialism. Without the USSR the two halves of the GOP have little in common. Libertarians hate government interference whether it is economic regulation or religious based social legislation (or judicial appointments). Theocons could really care less about Wall Street. Issues like stem cell research drive the two further apart.

Prediction: a libertarian/econocon "Ross Perot"-like independent candidate puts a Dem in the White House in 2008.

Anon:

No, they can't. They hate the Kerrys more than they do the Christians.

OJ, I'm sure the Lefties of a generation ago said that blue collar workers had no place else to go.

The econocon vote is now available for any Clinton-like Democrat. And the ideologically pure theocons can spend a generation in the political wilderness, just like the ideologically pure Lefties.

Like I said, be very careful what you wish for.

Yes, but where are the Bill Clintons? Th DLC is dead.

Who ever heard of Bill Clinton (aside from his awful speech at the 88 Dem convention) before 92?

Basic rules of American politics: to be ideologically pure is to be politically impotent, and to be out of the mainstream is to be unelectable.

One last time: be very careful what you wish for.

Anon:

Clinton was just one of a host of New Democrats any one of whom could have won on their platform. There are no longer any New Democrats.