He also offers a framework for thinking about policy:

• An economic program, health care and social security reform, energy policy, and protection for the environment grounded in fiscally sound, growth-oriented, market-based solutions.
• A national security policy that maintains American military preeminence because it is indispensable to the defense of freedom at home and to the discharge of...]]> Peter Berkowitz of the Hoover Institution has an outstanding essay in the latest edition of Policy Review.  This is a must-read for students of conservative thought.  Berkowitz does a brilliant job of merging the core principles of conservatism with the tactical electoral realities conservatives now face.  His analysis of the “social” and ”libertarian” conservative split is also interesting as is his critique of the Bush administration. 

  He also offers a framework for thinking about policy:

  • An economic program, health care and social security reform, energy policy, and protection for the environment grounded in fiscally sound, growth-oriented, market-based solutions.
  • A national security policy that maintains American military preeminence because it is indispensable to the defense of freedom at home and to the discharge of global responsibilities abroad, and which, in its commitment to defending the nation against the new threats of mega-terror, is as passionate about individual liberty as it is about security and is prepared, based on constitutional principles, to responsibly fashion the inevitable, painful tradeoffs.
  • A foreign policy that builds on the Truman Doctrine, the Reagan Doctrine, and the Bush Doctrine by recognizing America’s vital national security interest in advancing liberty and democracy abroad while realistically calibrating undertakings — military, diplomatic, and developmental — to the nation’s limited knowledge and restricted resources.
  • An orientation toward international relations that promotes free trade, respects international law and institutions while protecting the legitimate prerogatives of national sovereignty, and seeks alliances and opportunities to operate within multilateral frameworks but, particularly where vital national security interests are at stake, is prepared to act alone.
  • A focus on reducing the number of abortions and increasing the number of adoptions.
  • Efforts to keep the question of same-sex marriage out of the federal courts and subject to consideration by each state’s democratic process.
  • Measures to combat illegal immigration that are emphatically pro-border security and pro-lawful immigrant.
  • A case for school choice as an option that enhances individual freedom while giving low-income, inner-city parents opportunities to place their children in classrooms where they can obtain a decent education.
  • A demand that public universities abolish speech codes and vigorously protect liberty of thought and discussion on campus.
  • The appointment of judges who understand that their duty is to interpret the Constitution and not make policy, who bring to their task a presumption in favor of vindicating constitutional principles and protecting individual liberty, and who, where the Constitution is most vague, recognize the strongest obligation to defer to the results of the democratic process.

  Surely, conservatives can find common ground in many of these areas.  The key, as Berkowitz notes, is figuring out how to embrace moderation without falling victim to ideological excesses.

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