Conservatism still twitching

But after 9/11, neoconservatives and evangelicals found common cause in their shared belief in American exceptionalism and in the idea that the country’s values could be exported abroad. Mr. Bush was receptive to the synthesis, and it became the ideological centerpiece of the war on terror, with its stated mission to combat the “axis of evil” in a global “war on terror.”

Today, of course, this vision, has been widely repudiated, if not altogether discredited. The public has grown skeptical, or maybe just tired, of the hard-edged and often polarizing politics. And this change coincides with broad-based skepticism of the Bush presidency itself — as witnessed by Mr. Bush’s and his party’s perilously low approval ratings. The G.O.P.’s embrace of the conservative movement is beginning, some say, to resemble a death grip.

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Meanwhile, the conservative movement finds itself in a new place. No longer insurgents, its leaders now form an entrenched establishment, just like the liberals and moderates they defeated a generation ago. But if Mr. Wolfowitz’s brief tenure at the World Bank is any indication, they are a long way from feeling chastened.