Over at the American Spectator, Jim Antle and Quin Hillyer comment on the prescription-drug debate Jerry Taylor and I have been having here. (They’re both basically on Jerry’s side.) Retrospective though it is, the debate is not, imho, trivial: Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians need to have an accurate understanding of the political events of the last eight years, after all. That’s why I’ve gone back and forth with Jerry on it even though it started out as a tangent to another discussion. Jerry, incidentally, is a smart guy from whom I’ve learned most of what little I know about energy policy. He’s also a riot. But we do have our disagreements.

Antle asks at one point what long-term benefit conservatives got from the prescription-drug program. If my previous posts are right, two answers suggest themselves: Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito.