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If you think it is cognitive dissonance to think compromise and principles can go together, you are expressing the brittleness of which I spoke.

Reagan once said he'd rather compromise to get 80% of what he wants then not compromise and get 0%. Reagan was an expert at the art of politics and he compromised many times. My point is simple: Compromising to accomodate what is possible is not abandoning your principles. It is *implementing* your principles!

I believe Govt spends and taxes too much. So do others. I may want to abolish the income tax, but others dont. Do I refuse to support *any* tax cut bill that is not 100% to my liking? If I do, we may never get *any* tax cut because the pro-tax-cut majority cant reach consensus. But working with others, getting an effective majority, I can get closer to the goal.

Liberalism wasnt implemented in one fell swoop. It was done incrementally. If we are to advance Conservatism, we have to do it the same way. Just look at Partial Birth Abortion ban. Incremental. But it has changed the debate to focus on the unborn human for a change.

Liberalism wasnt implemented in one fell swoop. It was done incrementally. If we are to advance Conservatism, we have to do it the same way. Just look at Partial Birth Abortion ban. Incremental. But it has changed the debate to focus on the unborn human for a change.

Look at increased gov. spending, talk of extending the AWB, the medicare drug bill. Incremental liberalism.

And Bush isn't advancing conservatism at all. Besides the tax cut, I can't think of one truly conservative major domestic policy position that he's taken. I can think of some little things. Rebuke the Kyoto treaty, and enact a $7 trillion dollar Medicare entitlement . . . one step forward, two steps back.

By the way, enacting a tax cut and increasing spending by 25% isn't a tax cut at all, it's a de facto tax increase put off for a few years, with interest. We have to pay for it sometime.