If you read this blog often enough, you might have the distinct impression that I am unnecessarily harsh with conservatives. I am harsh, just not unnecessarily. The reason is that there are few sincere conservative thinkers around, and by sincere I mean that they are expressing their honest personal opinion, instead of the opinion of their puppet masters. The conservative world is full of hacks, like Limbaugh, Beck, Palin, Hannity, Boehner, McConnell; or of innocently misguided individuals, who regurgitate the Right's talking points without understanding them or appreciating the gravity of what they are saying and the dangers inherent in the world view they propose.
So when a conservative says something intelligent, it is worth highlighting it. It shows other conservatives that you can be a conservative without being either a puppet-master or a puppet; and it shows liberals that we can have a civilized conversation about policy and the direction of the country, even though we certainly will disagree on many things, if not most of them.
Enough of the introduction. Ross Douthat is a conservative, he is intelligent, and he is often a good read, so kudos to the New York Times for bringing him into their fold to replace the stunningly incompetent and dishonest William Kristol. The piece I am recommending to you is The Devil We Know. Rather than giving a knee-jerk and ideological assessment of the situation in Egypt, as conservatives are wont to do in pursuit of an ever more manifest imperial foreign policy, Douthat acknowledges that U.S. meddling in foreign crises often leads to undesirable and unintended results. "History", he says, "makes fools of us all."
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