This is an opinion I (personally) don’t share, but when Peggy Noonan speaks, we should listen. Her must-read Wall Street Journal piece on Bush’s “sundering apart” of the conservative movement is certain to have people talking:
“What political conservatives and on-the-ground Republicans must understand at this point is that they are not breaking with the White House on immigration. They are not resisting, fighting and thereby setting down a historical marker-‘At this point the break became final.’ That’s not what’s happening. What conservatives and Republicans must recognize is that the White House has broken with them. What President Bush is doing, and has been doing for some time, is sundering a great political coalition. This is sad, and it holds implications not only for one political party but for the American future.”
John Podhoretz today puts forward the proposition (sound to me) that none of this would be happening if the U.S. had acted forcefully and successfully to secure victory in Iraq early on.