"Operation Overreach"

Two pieces of note expressing conservative dissent from the general drift of the Bush administration. And these are not grouchy fringe figures, but writers at the two most important conservative magazines.

The ever-gloomy John Derbyshire contends that, measured against the traditional canons of conservative thought, conservatism has demonstrably lost ground since Bush took office. He also makes the obvious (yet often overlooked) point that there is no necessary connection between evangelical Protestantism and conservatism as traditionally understood (cf. William Jennings Bryan). This might be partly demonstrated by the apparent shift of the energies of religious conservatives away from a “leave us alone” quasi-libertarian stance toward the embrace of a more activist government agenda.

In the Weekly Standard, Andrew Ferguson laments the onset of “big government conservatism” under Bush. Ferguson accuses Bush of “overreach” in embracing the mantle of “reform” (i.e. reforming the Middle East, reforming Social Security, the tax code, Medicare, etc.) which inevitably demands “a whirlwind of government activity. Each is a formula for politics without end–splendid indeed for politicians and government employees, but a bit tiring for the rest of us.”

A lack of modesty and self-restraint is one excellent reason Americans grew to despise liberals in the first place. The high-water mark of American liberalism came in 1993 and 1994, when President Clinton and his wife, under the guise of “health care reform,” decided they would assume control of one-seventh of the nation’s economy in order to make it more rational and fair. Voters responded by handing the federal legislature to the Republican party. History may record that what offended them wasn’t liberalism but busybodyism–the endless, frenetic search by elected officials for ever-new ways to make the country more fabulous. Bush and his Republicans are close to proving that busybodyism can become a creature of the right as well as the left.