The Roar of Dinosaurs

Peggy Noonan has a thoughtful column today in the Wall Street Journal. In it she voices the concerns of conservatives over the Bush administration's spending policies. The point she makes is that we are straying from fiscal conservatism into an unknown future without any discusion about this major change of course:

Here are some questions for conservative and Republicans. In answering them, they will be defining their future party.

If we are going to spend like the romantics and operators of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society;

If we are going to thereby change the very meaning and nature of conservatism;

If we are going to increase spending and the debt every year;

If we are going to become a movement that supports big government and a party whose unspoken motto is "Whatever it takes";

If all these things, shouldn't we perhaps at least discuss it? Shouldn't we be talking about it? Shouldn't our senators, congressmen and governors who wish to lead in the future come forward to take a stand?

And shouldn't the Bush administration seriously address these questions, share more of their thinking, assumptions and philosophy?

It is possible that political history will show, in time, that those who worried about spending in 2005 were dinosaurs. If we are, we are. But we shouldn't become extinct without a roar.

Now, I don't think that this changes "the very meaning and nature of conservatism." Conservatism is, tautalogically, conservative. What it changes is the direction and platform of the Republican party.

I do think, however, that Republicans will have this discussion that Ms Noonan wishes. It is going to be the primary season leading up to the 2007 Republican National Convention.