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in case you think "compassionate conservatism" is a meaningless
phrase that can be attached to just about any policy, you should
know — you're right.
The other day
brought one of the more egregious uses of the term. Justifying the
administration's support of protectionism for the steel industry,
Bush trade representative Robert Zoellick said: "Open markets
improve the lives of people by increasing opportunity, choice, and
economic freedom. But 'compassionate conservatism' also recognizes
the reality that the effects of rapid change fall harder on some
communities and industries."
Now, what was
supposed to be radical about "compassionate conservatism,"
its defenders told us, was that it would highlight the latent compassion
in conservatism, the way conservative policies would better help
people and families in distress. School vouchers would be the ur-compassionate
conservative idea in this conception.
But skeptics
always worried that it was instead a weaselly way to distance Bush
from traditional conservatism, and that it surrendered to the Left
the idea of there being something notable and new and utterly distinctive
about a conservatism that is compassionate.
And this indeed
is the import of Zoellick's comment (which is just one comment —
but a telling one): What's compassionate isn't conservatism, but
its opposite. Protectionism, instead of being a market distortion
that hurts everyone, including the poor who have to pay more for
consumer goods, is the caring solution.
By extension,
this reasoning could apply to the rest of the liberal agenda — there
isn't anything that makes steel quotas markedly different from any
other regulatory policy. A conservative, then, by this way of thinking,
can be considered compassionate to the extent that he surrenders.
So, maybe Bush
really is a compassionate conservative. He's conservative on tax
cuts, missile defense, and Social Security. He's compassionate on
Vieques, steel quotas, and California price caps.
Maybe this
is a defensible political posture, but why it should be considered
a great theoretical departure, or a boon to conservatism, is a mystery.
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