I was asked to participate in a
Time forum on the current state of conservative thinking and
politics. Here’s part of my answer:

The current crisis in the conservative movement is embodied in a
GOP presidential primary season in which the two frontrunners used
to support the health care mandate that is supposedly the ultimate
sign of President Obama’s Third World socialist tendencies.
Conservatives never really believed in shrinking the size and scope
of government, at least not when they were running the show. That’s
why we’re $15 trillion in debt as a country and poised to reelect a
President whose stimulus was an utter failure by his own
predictions, whose extrajudicial killings of American citizens are
justified by Bush Administration dicta and whose health care plan
has managed to increase premiums even before being put into
practice, and whose bailout of GM has created the Terri Schiavo of
car companies, a living corpse that will never again rise from its
deathbed.

My whole entry, which also includes a quick list of what the next
prez should do, is here.

And in case anyone is wondering whether GM has really turned the
corner and is back (as President Obama said in his State of the
Union address), check out the
latest Treasury estimate on the losses on the GM and Chrysler
bailouts.

The home page for the forum, which includes input from Grover
Norquist, Ramesh Ponnuru, and Rich Lowry, Erick Erickson, and my

upcoming debate partner Ann Coulter, and many others,
is here.