The Black Republican

In the WSJ's Capital Journal, Gerald Seib approaches something between understanding and offering insight into the new progressivism.

But like it or not, there needs to be some rethinking of the way this president is viewed. He surely is a conservative in the way that term is used in today's political vernacular, meaning he loves lowering taxes and adheres to traditional values on social and religious questions. But his record suggests he isn't really a small-c conservative in the classic meaning of that term. No pure conservative would look to government to provide a drug benefit as large as the one Mr. Bush championed, or countenance budget deficits as big as today's. He surely doesn't like big government, but he doesn't mind activist government.

I was always enamored of Ronald Reagan's description of government as "the problem". It fits so well into my modern conservative instincts, raised in a household where the lament against the decades-long Democratic domination of Capitol Hill was a daily gripe. But the older I get, the more I have to admit that the Great Communicator's oratory was wielding a wedge in that particular case, trying to define the opposition at a time when they could easily be demonized. And it helped that his libertarianism was almost equally balanced with his traditionalism.

I'm not so lucky. Though I have a strong libertarian streak reflective of the Gipper some times, the fact remains I'm much more of a traditionalist than a libertarian. And the American tradition of activist government, from Hamilton to Lincoln to TR, is a strong wind at my back. It doesn't mean I have to like it.