The American Spectator

Newsweek as well as a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, may be the most ambitious (or imperious) in his instructions to fellow conservatives. Gerson takes his conservatism “heroic,” because, he argues in his new book , traditional conservatism “has a piece missing — a piece shaped like a conscience.” p>In place of the “anti-government” and presumably anti-poor ideologies of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, Gerson proposes a “vision of compassion and freedom.” In his prose, he lacks Rove's sense of humor and Wehner's generosity toward older-school conservatives. But Gerson is poised to become a visible spokesman for compassionate conservatism long after the president identified with that phrase has left Washington, even if much of the rest of the country presently seems unpersuaded of its heroism. p>After every administration, some alumni develop outsize roles in the parties and movements to which they belong. On the Republican side, Bill Bennett emerged from the Reagan Department of Education as an influential conservative voice. Bill Kristol went from being Dan Quayle's chief of staff — talk about a Republican officeholder who wasn't seen as an intellectual — to playing a major role in GOP policymaking and intra-conservative debates in the 1990s and beyond. p>Over the next few months, former figures from the Bush administration will increasingly immerse themselves in the intra-conservative debates of the next decade. Wehner and Gerson, whether separately or acting in concert , are sure to be among them.

Conservatives hoping for a return to pre-Bush normalcy, you have been warned.

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