I keep hearing all my liberal friends say something to the fact that they hope people were equally up in arms when "Bush did the same thing."  

Is there anything to that?  What are they or could they be referring to? 

I don't think the New Jersey shtick sells well across the rest of the country, especially the heartland and south.  Moreover, whereas he clearly seems effective in a blue state, his demeanor -- the brash shouting down of hecklers, the Soprano-like braggadocio, taking on the media, etc. -- comes across 100% as  un-Presidential.  This is all independent of the post-hurricane lovefest with Obama.  He's a more social-conservative Giuliani -- that's how the country will see him, and that's about how well he'll do in the primary.  

I like him better in an advisory role or campaigner.  

The G.O.P. needs to get a good heartland candidate.  Enough with this northeastern / southwest play.  

Vivaldi's Four Seasons is the story of my wife and me. And when we hear Spring, we often both smile and laugh, just like old times.

But Jonah is correct that the issue isn't the need for conservatives to hunker down and be more conservative on principle.  The issue is persuasion.  Republicans have not a RINO problem or a purity purge issue.  They have a problem of persuasion.  There was a post on the Corner about Mike Lee's speech at Heritage, and his use of terms liberals have appropriated -- community, togetherness, etc.  This is the language we need to use again as part of convincing that "he/she cares about me" crowd.  

A Secular Age by Charles Taylor, with a break this week to revisit Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth Vol. II -- Holy Week.  

Also for fiction, as I tend to work through multiple books at a time, Michael O'brien's Children of the Last Days series, Eclipse of the Sun.  Always gripping novels, and spiritually uplifting.  

Peter, don't let them get all over you.  You're old school, when yes, things were better and grown men didn't play video games or watch animated cartoons much less peruse the internet with adolescent thoughts.  

Santorum was very important for this reason -- he was attempting to show that moral failure has societal, notably economic consequences.  Libertarians constantly want to ignore this fact.  The rise of the State parallels a decline in the family and the coarsening of the culture.  A fractious culture can go one of either  two ways -- a breakup or a behemoth State to keep it together.  

So they're linked.  Charles Murray was making this point, somebody with no interest in a national culture police residing in the beltway.  A decline in select traditional virtue has brought disaster to those most vulnerable (see the Black Community).  

Moral failure in one area leads to others.  You cannot confine it to only certain spheres.  Lehman and Bear were moral failures (greed).  Abortion is a moral failure (pride).  The culture, when weak in one area, will show a propensity for a weakness in others.  

Santorum brought this to the table.  And yes, he could have won.  

I tend to think most of our problems are a consequence of the decline of the family and certainly the decline of fatherhood if not a puzzle around male identity.  I would think this is a rather easy segway to a decline in industriousness and certain virtues once practiced, and therefore a moral problem.  That we have cultural decadence is a problem even many of the Left (or at least center-left) seem willing to acknowledge, they just emphasize greed and not lust.  

As I think a Ross Douthat column following the election last year pointed out, the rise of a rather large State and the success of the Democratic party has to do with social dysfunction.  The Democrats are the party of social dysfunction.  As it rises, they win more.  

He gets mocked frequently, Rick Santorum, but at least he was trying to make a point and link the two in a serious way.  I think one could argue that the financial crisis was in large part a moral failure.  Bear Sterns was a moral failure, as was Lehman.  Romney could never make this argument.  

That they couldn't agree who'd be top of the ticket is the most unsurprising element of the entire notion.  Gingrich, Mr. Ego Himself who in a National Review piece I think Rob Long parodied as preferring to wear a Roman toga, even if he weren't the top dog, would be uncontrollable.  And I love Newt, from his old district here in Georgia, but he is the Republican's version of Bubba.  

I have a soft spot for Santorum and think he gets an unfair shake.  I think he's right on just about all the important elements save foreign policy, where his hawkishness on Iran was misplaced and not what the country wanted to hear, basically calling for another war in the Middle East.  His Alex P. Keaton vibe, though, just ruins him in most people's eyes.  

That said, I would have voted for the duo, however.  

No.  It wasn't worth it.  The President had every right to invade, whether with WMD or not, given the need to enforce the UN resolution(s).   But it largely destroyed his Presidency much like LBJ with Vietnam, soured relations with just about every other nation, and the expense in treasure has been absurd, yielding us or opening the door for the guy we unfortunately have in office today.  A good man, W., just a bad exercise of judgment in this particular case.  

Well, fair enough -- but I was thinking that traditional mix of the traditional, the libertarian, and the realist hawk, from which the various policy mixes derive.  If that is the three legged stool, for the Squish, which is his weaker leg?  My guess would be his takes on some traditional issues, i.e. social conservatism.  But perhaps it is just a shtick.  He has suggested he's fairly ambivalent about SSM, but if so, I'd hardly consider that the basis for full bore RINO Squishiness he so frequently asserts.  Most of his comments seem to make him a pretty solid Republican, in my estimation.  

And yes, Colin Powell is the perfect current example on RINO Squishiness.  

The Modern Age, by Rev. James Schall

Bad Religion, Douthat