DING DING DING DING ....
No more calls, please, no more calls. We have a winner.
Seriously, you have it precisely right. I would add, moreover, that it was the mandarin Acheson, not the former haberdasher Truman, who committed the verbal stumble (omitting Korea from a list of our guarantees) that brought on the Korean War. And it was the deep, wide counsel of the "wise men" in the Kennedy Administration (Averell Harriman, Maxwell Taylor, the Bundy brothers, etc.), and not the Main Street leadership of the Babbitt-like Sen. Bob Taft (R-Ohio) or his successor Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.) that took us to Vietnam.
As for what separates the luminary lords of Manor Bush from Babbitts like Taft, it is instructive to remember that the Bush founder/dynast Prescott Bush began life as a shoe salesman in Ohio (Taft's state) who, wanting to get ahead in the world, figured out that the road up lay through Yale University, where "Pressy" managed to "get over" on the fellows of the class that must be deferred to, in consequence of which Pressy eventually became a United States senator from Connecticut -- and George H.W. Bush a legacy Yalie and Bonesman.
Such is that which separates patrician Bushes from proletarian Tafts.
You realize that the Taft family has a longer Yale (and Skull and Bones—which Alphonso Taft helped found) tradition than the Bush family?
I agree.
I think it was Chesterton that pointed out that the most important duty in a traditional democracy was the meting out of justice, and our founders left that up to twelve anybodies culled from the street.
Buckley said he'd rather be ruled by the first 2000 names in the Boston phonebook than the faculty at Harvard.
There is a tradition of populism in conservatism and even in liberty itself. Our nation was not formed to be ruled by a junta of "experts". But by the people. The citizen-servant-representative.
Someone like Palin is an absolute godsend. If her principles are sound, then her judgements will be sound.
The ruling elite has proven that they have no principles. They cater to moneyed interests and political expediency, and our country has some serious problems as a result.
Anytime there is an opportunity to vote for someone that is not an Ivy leaguer, doesn't have a law degree, is unapologeticly pro-life, pro-military, pro-family, pro-guns, is a great speaker and communicator, energetic and hardworking....well, conservatives should give her their vote.