Thursday, March 16, 2006

George W. Bush = Lyndon B. Johnson?

Peggy Noonan asks: "When George W. Bush first came on the scene in 2000, did you understand him to be a liberal in terms of spending?"

Her answer includes this description of conservatism: "And as all but children know, conservatism is hostile, for reasons ranging from the abstract and philosophical to the concrete and practical, to high spending and high taxing. Money is power, more money for the government is more power for the government. More power for the government will allow it to, among many other things, amuse itself by putting its fingers in a million pies, and stop performing its essential functions well, and get dizzily distracted by nonessentials, and muck up everything. Which is more or less where we are."

When I worked on the 2000 campaign, I did not run into anyone who thought compassionate conservatism meant big spending. In hindsight, maybe that was an oversight.

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