I usually read William Kristol's Times column with a chuckle at his blind adherence to the right-wing talking points, but I'm laughing at today's column for a different reason.
It turns out, in the real world of Republican governance, that there aren’t a whole lot of small-government Republicans.
Huh? A nice dose of unvarnished reality with your morning coffee, Bill?
Is the CIA now interrogating its own?
More reality after the jump.
Kristol goes on.
President-elect Barack Obama and a Democratic Congress are about to serve up a supersized helping of big-government liberalism. Conservatives will be inclined to oppose much of what Obama and his party cook up. And, I believe, rightly so.
Kristol does not say one word about which proposed policies he would oppose, why he would oppose them, or what makes it "rightly so." (That would be a little too much reality for one column. But I digress.)
The next two paragraphs more or less acknowledge that the era of opposing big government with a straight face is over.
But conservatives should think twice before charging into battle against Obama under the banner of "small-government conservatism." It’s a banner many Republicans and conservatives have rediscovered since the election and have been waving around energetically. Jeb Bush, now considering a Senate run in 2010, even went so far as to tell Politico last month, "There should not be such a thing as a big-government Republican."
Really? Jeb Bush was a successful and popular conservative governor of Florida, with tax cuts, policy reforms and privatizations of government services to show for his time in office. Still, in his two terms state spending increased over 50 percent — a rate faster than inflation plus population growth. It turns out, in the real world of Republican governance, that there aren’t a whole lot of small-government Republicans.
Kristol could have gone a step further and acknowledged that there are NO small-government Republicans in positions of governance.
Next, Kristol pushes reality briefly aside to pay his respects to Reagan, The One True Conservative...
Five Republicans have won the presidency since 1932: Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and the two George Bushes. Only Reagan was even close to being a small-government conservative. And he campaigned in 1980 more as a tax-cutter and national-defense-builder-upper, and less as a small-government enthusiast in the mold of the man he had supported — and who had lost — in 1964, Barry Goldwater.
...but does not say Reagan was actually a small-government conservative and avoids any quantification of Reagan's record as a small-government conservative.
Is Kristol going soft?