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Have you ever heard of Machiavelli's metaphor of the lion and the fox? The Prince -- any political strategist -- has to be both a lion and a fox: like a lion in having strength and courage to defeat enemies in open fights; but since lions can be trapped and snared by the weak but cunning, the Prince must also be like a fox in being able to detect and avoid traps and snares and set them for his own purposes.

By temperament, most conservatives are lions. Think of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. We want stand up fights, with fair rules, honorable conduct, and clear decisions. But we are also prone to fall into traps, with the unscrupulous on the Left winning against us. Think of LBJ -- and the shellacking that he gave Goldwater in 1964.

Of course, too many times, Republicans are neither smart like foxes nor strong like lions. We sometimes act like well-mannered kids from prep school who wander into a bad neighborhood. Five minutes later, local delinquents have ripped the crests off the prep kids' blazers, stolen their lunch money, goosed the girls, and sent them all running away in tears and terror. A this very moment, in my imagination, I see these prep kids and recognize George Voinovich and John Warner among them.

A basic rule of politics and life is to pick your fights. Resources are always more limited than the fights available, and you cannot fight everywhere at the same time or be at your best in more than a few fights at a time.

Are Bush and his administration and the Congressional Republicans acting like a lion or like a fox? I think that they have a good measure of both and are getting it right on most issues and picking the right ones to push. We are regularly picking up 35 to 40 or so Democratic votes on major issues in the House. The Senate is dodgy, but they will be most vulnerable to pressure next year when election looms.

I have two major concerns:

(1) Massive illegal immigration, which has proceeded with the Bush administration's complicity. This is wrong in principle and is stirring up anger and disillusionment that is already weakening Bush and the Republican party.

(2) Bush's odd passivity for long stretches of time and poor attention to everyday political tasks: Congressional relations; White House media operations; pushing key appointments and getting the right people in place quickly; and dominating the media news cycle.

Do not get dispirited though because in politics, most things are badly screwed up. Progress takes time and even when you are winning, that may not be apparent until much later. The Democrats are doing much worse then we are.