More defectors

It always makes me happy when conservatives turn away from the president on the war. But I find it totally annoying when they append to their criticisms unrelated swipes at liberals--just, you know, for the sake of hackery:

War, as has been said -- and as George W. Bush's assertion of vast presidential powers attests -- is the health of the state. But as Roosevelt demonstrated and Shlaes reminds us, compassion, understood as making the "insecure" securely dependent, also makes the state flourish.

There are arguments to be had about the economic benefits (or otherwise) of military spending and public works and welfare spending. But as both a moral question and a question about how those types of spending affect the benevolence of the government, there is not a square inch of ground in common between the sort of projects typified by Roosevelt and the monarchical abuses perpetrated by George Bush for the advancement of his war.