Hoisted By Their Own Petards  Whenever I ask myself, “What were
the Republicans thinking?” I find the answer in the immortal
collection of essays by Irving Kristol, Neo-Conservatism: The
Autobiography of an Idea. In that book, Kristol lays out his
grand plan for how the Republicans can truly achieve immense
power in the United States, but that to do so will mean
abandoning principles of fiscal conservatism and balanced
budgets and embracing the “conservative welfare state.” Kristol
further instructs that in matters of economics and foreign
policy, the people aren’t to be listened to (as democratically
elected politicians sometimes mistakenly believe), rather they
are to be led because they are ignorant of these matters and
they know it. In addition, Kristol and his associates guided the
New Right to create a budget crisis by implementing socialist
policies to compete with those of the left and to use this
crisis to force the public to choose between traditional
socialism and market-based social engineering. W