Dionne: Conservatism Dead? SWNID: If So, Liberalism Is Double Dead.

E. J. Dionne, a lefty pundit whom SWNID reads with some expectation of decent thought, fulfills that expectation in part with his column today. It poses the question, which Dionne says is quietly making its way through conservatives circles, as to whether political conservatism is dead. In fact, he asks whether it died this week.

Dionne's evidence is the fissures among the conservative coalition over Iraq, government spending, immigration and taxes. Do these signal the end of conservatism as a coherent, confident, forward-looking movement? More particularly, is the cynical move by the Republican majority in the Congress to introduce a bill, since defeated, that would raise the minimum wage while eliminating inheritance taxes on the largest of estates a sign of political mortality?

Dionne closes this way:

Political movements lose power when they lose their self-confidence and sense of mission. Liberalism went into a long decline after 1968 when liberals clawed at each other more than they battled conservatives -- and when they began to wonder whether their project was worth salvaging.

Between now and November, conservative leaders will dutifully try to rally the troops to stave off a Democratic victory. But their hearts won't be in the fight. The decline of conservatism leaves a vacuum in American politics. An unhappy electorate is waiting to see who will fill it.

Of course, the problem is that there's nothing there to fill it. If conservatism is dead, as Dionne seems to hope or believe, then liberalism is dead, decayed down to dust, and blown apart in the wind without leaving behind a gravestone.

And we chide Dionne for not noting that the Rs' backing of a bill that both raises the minimum wage and lowers estate taxes is no more politically cynical than the Ds insisting on raising the minimum wage to begin with. The Ds' support for the minimum wage is not genuinely charged by concern for those who earn it, a tiny and ever-shrinking percentage of workers. It is charged by organized labor, which negotiates contracts setting union wages at multiples of the federal minimum wage, giving their workers an automatic wage hike every time the minimum wage goes up.

Such political cynicism is nothing new, and Dionne, who does know history (he rightly credits modern political conservatism as the product of the 18th century's Edmund Burke and the 20th century's William F. Buckley), knows as much.

We suspect that the current fatigue of conservatives will pass as debates on issues clarify choices for November. That should inject a bit of life into the sick body politic for the short term.

But note what has to happen for a real infusion of life: the Democratic party must loosen its ties to its discredited antiwar and antibusiness elements, move closer to the center right, and begin a debate centered on the specific details of broad policies historically proven sound.