THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

During the Cold War, conservatives did everything to please liberals. That is why the end of the Cold War had to wait for Ronald Reagan.

Liberals have no interest in American victory over anything but right-wingers like Hitler.

Liberals want a continuing crisis so the government can have the power to pursue their real goals. World War II was fought against Hitler and Mussolini and to save Stalin, so it was the liberals' dream war.

Conservatives cheer for anything that expands the military so they loved WWII as much as liberals did.

After World War II, liberals did not want to fight Communism but they did want to keep the government big and intrusive. Conservatives were willing to sell anything out for a big military.

The result was that conservatives got their big military and lots of anti-Communist talk. That army was used to enforce integration on the South. After all, said conservatives, we needed to suppress segregation to get the third world on America's side in the Cold War.

Eisenhower created the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. He told conservatives that to keep liberals on our side for a big military we had to give them lots and lots of things.

Today, the policy of getting a big military by giving liberals lots and lots of goodies is called "compassionate conservatism."

So Bush openly gets us back into the "nation building" his father started in Somalia. He says that will get us support for a war in the Middle East.

Please see September 21, 2002 - We Don't Owe the Iraqis or the Israelis a Damned Thing.

Whatever Bush says, conservatives say "DUHHH!," which is respectable conservative language for "Yes, Master!"

So when Bush says "territorial integrity," conservatives say "DUHH!"

Every time Bush repeats another liberal cliché, conservatives sit there with their mouths open.

Please see March 1, 2003 - A Man with a Memory Looks at "Territorial Integrity" and - "The New Colonialism Fights for the Old Colonial Borders".

So the bottom line in the Cold War was that conservatives did the fighting and liberals got the spoils.

And if that doesn't sound familiar yet, you haven't been keeping score.