The myth of the good conservative

Again and again, the line is the same: I like conservatives, just not these conservatives.

As far as I can tell, there are competing, or at least overlapping, motives for this liberal nostalgia for the conservatives and Republicans of yesteryear. Some liberals like to romanticize and glorify conservatives from eras when they were least effective but most entertaining. Some like to cherry-pick positions from a completely different era so as to prove that holding that position today is centrist.

But whatever the motivation, what unites them is the conviction that today’s liberals shouldn’t cede power, respect, or legitimacy to today’s conservatives. Hence when compassionate conservatism was ascendant, liberals lamented that the GOP wasn’t more libertarian…

Look where G. W. Bush’s moderation got him: denounced as a crazed radical by much of the liberal establishment, despite having run as a “compassionate conservative” and, once in office, expanded entitlements and worked closely with Teddy Kennedy on education reform.