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It appears true intellectual conservatives are finally beginning to stand up and call this administration what it truly is: radical. Yesterday I linked to comments from UK Conservative Party leader David Cameron. Today, we hear from Jeffrey Hart, Professor of English at Dartmouth, and former speechwriter for presidents Nixon and Reagan.

The United States has seen political swings and produced its share of extremists, but its political character, whether liberals or conservatives have been in charge, has always remained fundamentally Burkean. The Constitution itself is a Burkean document, one that slows down decisions to allow for “deliberate sense” and checks and balances. President Bush has nearly upended that tradition, abandoning traditional realism in favor of a warped and incoherent brand of idealism. (No wonder Bush supporter Fred Barnes has praised him as a radical.) At this dangerous point in history, we must depend on the decisions of an astonishingly feckless chief executive: an empty vessel filled with equal parts Rove and Rousseau.

Successful government by either Democrats or Republicans has always been, above all, realistic. FDR, Eisenhower, and Reagan were all reelected by landslides and rank as great presidents who responded to the world as it is, not the world as they would have it. But ideological government deserves rejection, whatever its party affiliation. This November, the Republicans stand to face a tsunami of rejection. They’ve earned it.

Meanwhile, as we wait out our time with this president, we can look forward to the latest in a stream of rhetoric that increasingly makes Woodrow Wilson look like Machiavelli. “One, I believe there’s an Almighty,” Bush declared this April, “and secondly I believe one of the great gifts of the Almighty is the desire in everybody’s soul, regardless of what you look like or where you live to be free. I believe liberty is universal.”

Well, it is certainly taking a long time for the plans of the Almighty to show results in the actual world. As I write this, sectarian violence in Iraq is escalating. I’d call my skepticism “conservative,” but Bushism has poisoned the very word.

I think the importance of this last point cannot be overemphasized. Those of us old enough to remember the rhetoric of Reagan, Nixon, or Goldwater understand that Bush's version of conservatism and theirs are virtually polar opposites. We understand the argument that his brand of "conservatism" is realy nothing of the sort. But to those not old enough to know this history, Bush's vision is the only vision they associate with the word "conservative." Conservatism, to many of my students in PO101, means intrusive government, reckless fiscal policies, and idealistic, interventionist foreign policy. No matter what others might say conservatism is or was, their only direct experience of it is through Bush. Furthermore, attempts to explain that Bush's appraoch is anything but conservative are often met with puzzled stares. When faced with a choice between accepting what is right in front of them and accepting a contradictoray vision of reality that they can only imagine, reality wins every time.

For them, "conservative" is becoming the same sort of dirty word that "liberal" was for a previous generation. Hart is right - Bush is poisoning the word itself for a generation to come.

But don't take my word for it. Head on over to Washington Monthly for this month's roundtable and see what movement conservatives themselves are saying. Under the banner "Time for us to go," Washington Monthly assembled a lliteral who's who of modern conservative poltiics: Christopher Buckley, Bruce Bartlett, Joe Scarborough, Bruce Fein, Richard A. Viguerie, and William A. Niskanen.

Here are some of my favorite bit:

From Joe Scarborough's "And we thought Clinton had no self-control", this gem:

When The Washington Monthly reached me at my office recently, a voice on the other side of the line meekly asked if I would ever consider writing an article supporting the radical proposition that Republicans should get their brains beaten in this fall. “Count me in!” was my chipper response. I also seem to remember muttering something about preferring an assortment of Bourbon Street hookers running the Southern Baptist Convention to having this lot of Republicans controlling America’s checkbook for the next two years.

From Bruce Fein, associate deputy attorney general under President Ronald Reagan, in an article entitled "Restrain this White House," this:

The most conservative principle of the Founding Fathers was distrust of unchecked power. Centuries of experience substantiated that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Men are not angels. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition to avert abuses or tyranny. The Constitution embraced a separation of powers to keep the legislative, executive, and judicial branches in equilibrium. As Edward Gibbon wrote in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: “The principles of a free constitution are irrevocably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive.

But a Republican Congress has done nothing to thwart President George W. Bush’s alarming usurpations of legislative prerogatives. Instead, it has largely functioned as an echo chamber of the White House.”

And last but not least, from conservative movement leader and gugu Richard Viguerie's article "The Show Muct Not Go On," this:

With their record over the past few years, the Big Government Republicans in Washington do not merit the support of conservatives. They have busted the federal budget for generations to come with the prescription-drug benefit and the creation and expansion of other programs. They have brought forth a limitless flow of pork for the sole, immoral purpose of holding onto office. They have expanded government regulation into every aspect of our lives and refused to deal seriously with mounting domestic problems such as illegal immigration. They have spent more time seeking the favors of K Street lobbyists than listening to the conservatives who brought them to power. And they have sunk us into the very sort of nation-building war that candidate George W. Bush promised to avoid, while ignoring rising threats such as communist China and the oil-rich “new Castro,” Hugo Chavez.

Conservatives are as angry as I have seen them in my nearly five decades in politics. Right now, I would guess that 40 percent of conservatives are ambivalent about the November election or want the Republicans to lose. But a Republican loss of one or both houses of Congress would turn power over to the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Dare we risk such an outcome?

The answer is, we must take that chance.

Bush hasn't just lost conservatives, he has convinced them to campaign against continued Republican majorities.

Each of these authors, of course, believes that some time wandering in the wilderness will do conservatives good. That may well be true. But as they prepare for their time in the desert, I would give them one word of warning: don't pack light. Realignments come but once every few decades, and when they come, they send the loser into exile for a very long time.