Maybe the Republicans Should Slow Down

David Brooks, who just might be America's most astute columnist and writer (he's part moderate conservative, part modern anthropologist/sociologist), has a very interesting column in today’s New York Times.

Brooks thinks the Republican party is in danger of offending the conservative nature of Americans. Not “conservative” as in ideals, but conservative as in not feeling comfortable with too much change. Brook says:

[I]t may be time [for the GOP] to think about methods. Public opinion is not always right, but it is always worth respecting. And the message the public seems to be sending these days is that there is a need for prudence. The world is risky enough. Leaders who want to change things had better not give off the impression that they love change for its own sake.

The public face of the Republican Party these days should be, when he recovers from minor surgery, the House speaker, Denny Hastert. This is a moment for leaders who seem stolid and secure, a moment for tortoises, not hares.

At times the Bush presidency has felt like a trip down the autobahn in a car with bad suspension. I think a lot of us out here wouldn’t be too upset if the next couple of years were slower and smoother. If the rest of the world will let us have a little peace, then it’d be wonderful if our Government could too.