Ponn Man, let me respond a bit lightly to your post, which I take the point of, believe me. You write, “Republican politicians recognize in practice that the public has no great desire to shrink the federal government, much less slash it, and act accordingly. But the ambition to do so still lurks within the Republican heart . . .”

Sounds to me like thought-crime! (Heart-crime?)

And it reminded me of something I wrote about Bush and foreign policy, toward the end of Bush’s (second) term. This came in a piece called “Diplomatic Health: On Bush, our alliances, and varied perceptions.” I did a quick tour d’horizon, then wrote,

A senior administration official . . . makes a shrewd point, in an entertaining way: “It all comes down to style and attitude. Our alliances are fine. It’s just that global elites, including American elites, hate Bush and hate conservatives and hate those who favor a forward American policy. In this administration, we think the worst of the Iranians, but we haven’t been belligerent toward them. Same with Chávez. We obviously think the U.N. is basically useless, but our policies haven’t reflected that. One of the things I guess people say is, ‘Yeah, despite what you do, we know what you really think,’ and, in a way, that’s right!”

Similarly, people say, “Yeah, you don’t do anything to reduce government, or even to slow the rate of increase. But we know you want to, you cavemen!”

P.S. Just to be clear: I recognize that Ponn is paraphrasing someone else’s argument, not making his own.