Conservative leaders across the country are working now to make sure that any politician who hopes to have conservative support in the future had better be in the forefront as we attack those who attack Tom DeLay," he said."

If you look at the major organs of conservative opinion, you'd start with the Standard and National Review, add in The Wall Street Journal editorial page, and probably include columnists like Brooks, George Will, Charles Krauthammer, and Robert Novak. You could toss in The Washington Times editorial page and, arguably, talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. Depending on your definition, you could add or subtract from this group and have a good sense of all the opinion outlets that wield any significant influence over the conservative movement and the Republican Party.

So, what major issues do these conservative intellectuals disagree on? They all supported the Iraq war, with the exception of Novak, who has tellingly muted his criticism. They all supported every one of Bush's tax cuts and Social Security privatization. They all clucked their tongues at Bush's Medicare drug benefit but, like the White House, have refused to recognize any connection between the deficit and Bush's tax cuts. They all passionately supported Bush's judicial nominees. They all basically endorse Karl Rove's political strategy. They all see Bush as a towering Churchillian figure of compassion, wisdom, vision, homespun virtue, and basic decency.

Basically, these organs agree on everything--certainly every major political issue of the last five years. Even if you follow Brooks's bizarre definition and include Reason and The American Conservative, you'll get some dissent on judicial nominations and the war and a less worshipful view of Bush as a man. But you'll still have basic agreement on all the major domestic policy questions.

[...]

Brooks insists, "Conservatives have thrived because they are split into feuding factions that squabble incessantly." In fact, on every important debate of his presidency, Bush has enjoyed a solid phalanx of conservative pundits all repeating the same talking points on his behalf. It's a successful arrangement. It also worked for the Comintern, for a while. I'm sure the communist intellectuals who relentlessly backed Moscow's every move liked to flatter themselves by insisting they were a bunch of squabbling freethinkers, too.

...where's the refusal to face up to big disagreements and ideas? For that matter, what serious factions are missing and therefore leaving converts no place to join up? Is there no DLC, no MoveOn, no place for liberals and greens and law-and-order types and moderates? Because, correct me if I'm wrong, but don't Marc Cooper and Al From pledge allegiance to the same ticket every four years, but spend the intervening periods screaming at each other?

[...]

In recent months, various folks -- notably Mike Tomasky -- have called for liberals to learn or relearn their history, to understand their evolution. They're right to do so. But they've been joined and, in some cases, mixed up with the David Brooks and Jonah Goldbergs of the world, conserva-scolds who wear their semi-functional knowledge of Hayek and Hobbes on their sleeves, all the better to allude to the moral and intellectual grounding they've got that progressives don't. It's ridiculous, and we shouldn't buy into it. Knowing our history is critical to understanding the genesis and thus root causes of contemporary problems, but that imperative shouldn't be expanded to transform politics into a game of trivial pursuit. If philosophers aid your understanding of your values, fine, great, I suggest you read them. But no Republican needs to know Burke's views on the French Revolution in order to comprehend his movement and no liberal needs to rattle off philosophers to conservative columnists in order to have her beliefs judged legitimate.