RTFC!

Much of the blogging left has wet themselves with joy.

George Will dissed the president!

They needed, of course, to read the whole thing - and, perhaps, so did Will.

George Will is a classical Conservative writer - but he's not right about everything. He favored repealing the Second Amendment on fairly bogus "conservative" grounds until probably a decade ago (he was reasonable enough to change his mind), and reading some of his columns from the mid-eighties is fascinating; he was getting a whole different vibe from the Reagan Administration than most of us get these days.

Yesterday's column latched onto one of President Bush's periodic rhetorical lapses, and expanded it into a critique of neocon nation-building (and is it just me, or is "Neocon" becoming the most meaningless term since "Band of Brothers"?)

He ends with this bit here:

Being steadfast in defense of carefully considered convictions is a virtue. Being blankly incapable of distinguishing cherished hopes from disappointing facts, or of reassessing comforting doctrines in face of contrary evidence, is a crippling political vice. [But it remains to be seen whether that's a pervasive problem in the Administration. You've been wrong about these things before; vide Helsinki - Ed]

In "On Liberty" (1859), John Stuart Mill said, "It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to say" that the doctrine of limited, democratic government "is meant to apply only to human beings in the maturity of their faculties." One hundred forty-five years later it obviously is necessary to say that.

Ron Chernow's magnificent new biography of Alexander Hamilton begins with these of his subject's words: "I have thought it my duty to exhibit things as they are, not as they ought to be." That is the core of conservatism.

Traditional conservatism. Nothing "neo" about it. This administration needs a dose of conservatism without the prefix.

Which is something a lot of us conservatives - including me, who supported Steve Forbes until the convention ended - have been saying about Bush for years.

Still, the blogging left needn't get too exercised: neither Will nor I is telling Bush to move to the "middle" - merely to be a better conservative.

It's all bad news for you guys in the long run.

Posted by Mitch at May 5, 2004 02:57 AM