IF YOU'RE HATED BY THE BRIGHTEST AND THE STUPIDEST YOU'RE DOING SOMETHING BIG:

Conservative Bush: An effective and pioneering president (Michael Novak, 3/06/07, National Review)

No president has ever been so strongly conservative on the pro-life front as President Bush. He has consistently labored to protect the human rights of the unborn, and has acted similarly when it comes to other important pro-life matters. [...]

He capped, by executive order, federal funding for embryonic-stem-cell research and vetoed legislation that would have violated this boundary. (He did not prohibit private embryonic stem-cell research, but, rather, he acted according to the Jeffersonian principle that it is odious to tax people for actions that they morally abhor.) [...]

Bush endorsed the Federal Marriage Amendment, which defines marriage as a contract between one man and one woman.

He repeatedly speaks of the family as the "unseen pillar of civilization."

He was the first president to sign a school-choice bill to give parents greater freedom in deciding where their children will be educated.

He has committed his administration, through the Departments of Justice and State, to halting sex trafficking and modern forms of slavery throughout the world, and he has appointed an ambassador to oversee such reforms.

He has dedicated funding to prepare prisoners for productive lives after they leave prison.

And on big domestic issues?

He signed the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, which will curb Medicare/Medicaid spending by $11 billion over the next five years.

He braved the "third rail" of American politics in his attempt to reform Social Security.

He implemented deregulation across all government agencies.

He ordered every department of government to assess points of cooperation with faith-based initiatives.

He signed into law prescription drug assistance for the elderly -- the first and only health-care reform in modern history to win a nearly 90-percent approval rating and to come in substantially under budget.

This prescription-drug reform also pioneered a new way to include the disciplines and incentives of market mechanisms in federal programs. This signal success should help pave the way for similar reforms throughout the health care, welfare, and Social Security systems. Such methods work to maximize personal responsibility and freedom of choice, while providing people with the support of a compassionate government. Some object that this "compassionate government" bit is not conservative, but it is in accordance with Ronald Reagan's modified acceptance of the welfare state.

And with regards to the courts, in just six years President Bush has nominated and seen confirmed 30 percent of all sitting federal judges, as well as two very intelligent and solid conservative jurists on the Supreme Court, Justices Roberts and Alito.

President Bush has defined a new kind of conservatism. It is legitimate to criticize it, even to oppose it vigorously. But to do so honestly and accurately, one must note the change in method that President Bush has quietly and successfully been enacting. As often as possible, in as many ways as possible, he is using as the dynamo of personal choice and the methods of the market, not direct state-management, in order to make government programs more effective and more efficient. That is why Democrats, both of the old New Deal-type and of the new Clinton-type, oppose him so fiercely. They seem to see what he is up to better than many uneasy conservatives do.