I don’t agree with him on everything — e.g., immigration — but Jeb Bush’s central point in this Gerson column is absolutely right:

“Trying to be all things to all people isn’t going to work,” Bush contends. The goal is “not to redefine our beliefs, but to recognize challenges and adapt,” particularly on the issues of national security, health care, education, the economy and the environment. Republicans need to “focus on creating policies relevant to today — not things relevant 20, 30 or 40 years ago.”

I have to say the whole debate over the “listening tour” (a well-intentioned, but probably not terribly important exercise) has been profoundly silly. I hope we’ll look back at it as the very nadir of the Republican nervous breakdown of the first half of ‘09.