The American Spectator

Even George W. Bush's biggest fans will concede that their president isn't much of a political philosopher. So the thinking has been, especially among Bush's critics on the right, that the administration won't have a lasting impact on conservative ideas. Once this presidency comes to a close in January 2009, innovations like the Bush Doctrine and “compassionate conservatism” can be safely filed away alongside the “I Like Ike” memorabilia and bumper stickers advocating nuclear freeze.

Think again. Even if the president himself goes quietly into Crawford, members of the Bush brain trust are already working to define conservatism for the next generation. And both conservative institutions and the mainstream media have been eager to give them platforms from which to do so.

Karl Rove has new book, traditional conservatism “has a piece missing — a piece shaped like a conscience.”

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.

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.

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.