Sullivan writes, “In Bush’s case, paternalism isn’t a metaphor. It’s a commitment worth trillions of dollars of other people’s money. The single most influential architect of this conservatism, Karl Rove, sees this as a virtue, not a problem. In a recent speech to conservative activists, according to John Heilemann of New York magazine, ‘Rove rejected the party’s “reactionary” and “pessimistic” past, in which it stood idly by while “liberals were setting the pace of change and had the visionary goals.” Now, he went on, the GOP has seized the “mantle of idealism,” dedicating itself to “putting government on the side of progress and reform, modernization and greater freedom.”‘ The model for Rove’s conservatism, in other words, is liberalism. The difference is merely how government directs its vast power, and for whom.” I don’t think Rove’s comments can bear the interpretive weight that Sullivan (following Heilemann) places on them.

Some liberals may well believe that to seize “the mantle of idealism” and to put government on the side of reform require bigger government—but the quote does not make it at all clear that Rove agrees. When conservatives changed the emphasis of their pitch for welfare reform from the money it wasted to the lives it marred, they were seizing the “mantle of idealism” without coming out for bigger government. Seizing “the mantle of idealism” was an important part of Ronald Reagan’s contribution to American conservatism, and it didn’t stop him from regarding himself as a foe of big government.