So-called conservatism...

Chris Bray makes exactly the right point about the so-called conservative movement:

In the alternative universe we currently call home, "conservative" writers now celebrate moments in which the state takes bold action against the status quo in the service of dramatic societal transformations; a "conservative" is someone who urges his neighbors to march to utopia behind the banner of the liberationist state. I have previously described the application of this new ideal as the conservative Great Society program for the Middle East, a fevered embrace of the nearly unlimited application of state power. The United States government, possessing great human truths, will make common cause with the world's oppressed, and spread its system of freedom across the globe....

The interesting development now underway is that putative conservatives, having abandoned moral modesty in global affairs in favor of an unyielding ideological certitude, are now compelled to take a distinctly Soviet attitude toward the simplest realities. While people who follow the U.S. military closely are describing a "manpower meltdown" -- especially in the army, and especially among soldiers in the combat arms -- the emerging collapse of the very force needed to sustain the liberationist project is entirely absent from the neoconservative radar. Look at Michelle Malkin's blog, or Victor Davis Hanson's website. See any signs in there that American military power is reaching its limit on the ground? Any mention of the growing crisis in recruiting and retention?"

Meanwhile, Hanson wonders publicly if it isn't maybe time -- you can't make this stuff up -- to "press on" and begin bombing Syria. The war is going so well, in the alternative universe these folks have constructed for themselves, that it's time to think about extending the project.