argues Peter Beinart. I agree with Beinart that the purity test is a mistake, and that Republicans have no strategy yet for responding to the country’s demographic changes. I don’t agree, however, that conservatives should copy Reagan’s mistakes. (Reagan didn’t need to promise to appoint a female Supreme Court justice to win in 1980, and he didn’t need to nominate O’Connor to win in 1984; the Israeli strike against Osiraq was a historical blessing.) Nor do I think it’s unreasonable to expect contemporary Republicans to have learned from those mistakes.