Sunday, June 03, 2007

You Were Warned   [Jonah Goldberg]

I'm with Mark. If anyone should feel betrayed, maybe it's Bush himself. He warned GOP voters again and again and again what compassionate conservatism would look like. And, when he delivered, conservatives were shocked that he meant it (or didn't care because his poll numbers were high or they had other priorities in the form of judges and war). The phrase "compassionate conservatism" was always a backhanded slap at traditional conservatism (as I noted in 1998). Ramesh (and I) were saying "don't say you weren't warned" during Bush's first term. For just two examples, see Ramesh's "Swallowed by Leviathan" or see this speech I gave to the New York Conservative Party (if you can get past the really lame Howard Dean joke).

Not to revisit old fights, but my problem with Rod's admonition is that it leaves out the fact that his Crunchy Conservatism actually rests on many of the same assumptions of Bush's compassionate conservatism. Conservatism, according to Crunchy Conservatism, has become too cold and calculating, too obsessed with the mighty dollar and the moral unimpeachability of the free market. Conservatism isn't spiritual enough, humane enough, activist enough, quoth Rod. "Hillary Clinton got a bum rap from the right," he admitted, "it really does take a village to raise a child." Well, this is pretty much the same indictment at the heart of compassionate conservatism, which speaks relentlessly of leaving no children behind.

I'd take Rod's laments about how we all should have turned on Bush earlier if only compassionate conservatism and crunchy conservatism didn't have so much in common. Indeed, now that he's aligning himself so much with so-called "paleos" it's worth also noting that Pat Buchanan considered Bush's compassionate conservatism a rip-off of his "conservatism of the heart."

Rod's right that the Bush years should foster introspection. So, for me, I can tell you that lessons like this are among the reasons I've become more libertarian in response to the Bush years. What I would like to know is why — on domestic policy — even as Rod has become so virulently anti-Bush, compassionate conservatism has made Rod more, well, compassionately conservative.

06/03 09:21 AMShare