OUR REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT:

Look, I know critiquing a Friedman column is like shooting fish in a barrel, but this is what Friedman thinks a conservative party would look like. It would:

- Favor deficit reduction achieved by a combination of tax hikes and spending cuts.

- Favor immigration reform that provided a path to citizenship for those here illegally and that opened the "front door" wider for skilled immigrants to come legally.

- Favor tackling climate change by putting a price on carbon to account for negative externalities, and then let the market work its magic to reduce emissions.

- Favor improving education by toughening teacher evaluation, doing an end-run around union rules through school choice and charters, and promoting common core standards for instruction.

Every single item on that list is Obama Administration policy, from Cap-and-Trade to Race-to-the-Top.

Beyond Friedman's deadly familiar wish-list, the Obama Administration has been a quintessentially small-"c" conservative one, in that it has tried its best to preserve the status quo in just about every area. 

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