Ross Douthat is right to suggest that McCain’s loss wasn’t particularly clarifying for Republicans. But I think he is wrong to say that nominating Cheney and losing would have caused the party to get over its illusions. A lot of conservatives would have taken his loss as a verdict on the Bush-Cheney administration’s big spending and its support for an amnesty for illegal immigrants, wouldn’t they? It’s not as though Cheney as nominee could have walked away from either of those things.