Saving Conservatism ...

... by abandoning conservatism. That's Ross Douthat's position, and Ramesh Ponnuru's and Michel Gerson's. It was, of course, the premise behind the entire Bush experiment of massive domestic spending and borrowing, aggressively religious social policy, utopian foreign policy, and evisceration of civil liberties. And it's been such a fantastic success, hasn't it? I mean, the right has never been more united, its ideas more appealing to the next generation and its reach across the country more expansive.

These people are more in denial about conservatism than they are about Iraq.