well put

I swiped this from Big Gray


The one thing we do not do is panic. With invective as treacherous and outrageous as any heaped at a candidate for national office in our history, John F. Kerry showed himself to be a man of courage, principle and commitment. He fought war against opponents who treat politics as warfare and came very close to winning. Of all the candidates who made themselves available, he was the best, and we should be grateful to him for his efforts.

The real disaster is on the legislative side. The country is in a very conservative mood, far more than I (for one) realized. For the first time in their history, Americans are about to experience what conservatism really means, and I am not sure they will be pleased with the results.

As the next few years unfold, Democrats should talk about such ideas as stewardship, responsibility, long-term consequences and other such ideas that are conservative in their own way, not conservative politically, but temperamentally. We are about to experience a very radical turn in our history. Reminding Americans that their traditions also embody respect for our society as a whole -- for its historic values, its beauty, its sense of the common good -- is the kind of conservatism to which people will respond when this particular version of our long national nightmare is over.

-Alan Wolfe