The mark of the tipping point has arrived: the major media actually refrain from labeling any Bush critic as a liberal by definition

The Washington Post finally acknowledges that Conservative Anger Grows Over Bush's Foreign Policy, maybe after being prompted by yet another incisive blast of the Bush administration by their own George Will, although the category of conservative Bush critics is enormous and growing. Come to think of it, it's hard to think of any actual conservatives, in any definition under which that term was understood prior to the Bush administration, who remains an enthusiastic Bush supporter.

Of course, this Post article is discussing not the condemnation of the Bush administration's authoritarianism and lack of interest in the form of government established by the Constitution, but rather the disappointment in Bush's foreign policy dithering by the military überadventurers who for some reason are shelved on the conservative aisle these days. Even for the Kristol Krowd though, I can't understand why they still want the Bush administration to pursue any of their overseas objectives. Eliminating foreign threats and spreading democracy, per se, are excellent goals. But the Bush administration pursues these goals with such disastrous incompetence, and such offense to innocent bystanders and would-be friends and allies, that it is turning neoconservativism into a hiss and a byword to persist for the next two generations. I can't imagine a greater harm to inflict on their cause than to continue encouraging the present administration to serve as its champion.

Actually, their truest champion should be the leader behind the most successful recent intervention to act aggressively against a fascist dictator - who hadn't even attacked us - and promote democracy among the oppressed - that intervention being in Kosovo, where we accomplished those goals without a single American combat fatality, and that leader being Bill Clinton.

Speaking of alienation between the Bush administration and conservative principles, I'm going to be attending and blogging John Dean's visit in a few days, while he promotes his new book, Conservatives Without Conscience. Should be lots of fun.