I Think I Owe an Apology to George W. Bush.

[Geee]

Town Hall:

William F. Buckley once noted that he was 19 when the Cold War began at the Yalta conference. The year the Berlin Wall came down, he became a senior citizen. In other words, he explained, anti-Communism was a defining feature of conservatism his entire adult life. Domestically, meanwhile, the right was largely a "leave me alone coalition": Religious and traditional conservatives, overtaxed businessmen, Western libertarians, and others fed up with government social engineering and economic folly. The foreign policy battle against tyrannical statism abroad only buttressed the domestic antagonism toward well-intentioned and occasionally democratic statism at home.

The end of the Cold War gave way to what Charles Krauthammer dubbed the "holiday from history" of the 1990s and the "war on terror" in the 2000s. People forget that Bush was elected during the former and had the latter thrust upon him. But at the end of the 1990s, he was one of many voices on the right trying to craft a political rationale to deal with the changing electoral and demographic landscape. He campaigned on a "humble foreign policy" in 2000 and promised something very, very different than a "leave me alone" domestic policy.

He called his new approach to domestic policy "compassionate conservatism."

For years, I've criticized "compassionate conservatism" as an insult to traditional conservatism and an affront to all things libertarian.

[Valin]

@Geee

 

I still don't like compassionate conservatism or its conception of the role of government. But given the election results, I have to acknowledge that Bush was more prescient than I appreciated at the time.

 

 

Pandering to morons may be good politics...for the short term. If it means going down to defeat telling the truth...then fine I'm ok with that.

 

[pollyannaish]

My perception of what compassionate conservatism is differs greatly from Jonah's.

 

I understand it not as government handouts and pandering, but an approach to talking about conservatism that includes explaining its benefits to those who do not naturally connect with values over group identity.

 

I can provide examples, if that is not clear enough.

[Valin]

Jonah Goldberg Is Wrong

Robert Stacy McCain