Stephen Moore, former Club for Growth head and all-around nutty tax-cutter, penned an op-ed in the WSJ that you can just tell had him sobbing tears of frustration by the last line. Nevertheless, it's fairly good stuff, if only for the minty-cool refreshing feeling that comes from seeing at least one conservative flip out at Bush for betraying everything he believes in. To wit:
Alas, in the world of compassionate conservatism, the quaint notion of limited federal power has fallen to the wayside in favor of an ethic that has Uncle Sam as first, second and third responder to crisis. FEMA, despite its woeful performance, will grow in size and stature. So will the welfare state. Welcome to the new New Dealism of the GOP.
Both political parties are now willing and eager to spend tax dollars as if they were passing out goody-bags to grabby four-year-olds at a birthday party. The Democrats are already forging their 2006 and 2008 message: We will spend just as many trillions of dollars as Republicans, but we will spend them better than they do. After witnessing the first few Republican misappropriations for Hurricane Katrina, the Democrats may very well be right.
Moore's framing of compassionate conservatism as an out-and-out loss for actual conservatism is well-conceived. Bush has, during his tenure in office, greatly strengthened the American consensus on government spending and activity. From Medicare to education to foreign affairs, there's not a single area in which Bush's federal incarnation could be safely called a more humble, cautious, conservative institution than its predecessor. For small-government Republicans who voted for Bush to curb Clinton's Big Government liberalism, once the heat of partisanship wears off, they're going to realize they sent the federal government to rehab only to watch the white-hatted nurses let it do lines off their funny hats. The whole thing reminds me of something Melissa wrote in response to Kevin's piece on the surprising progressivism of Bush's accomplishments:
