Kids in Mess o’ potamia
By A couple months ago, the Washington Post had a story (which I can’t find) about young applicants for Heritage Foundation internships finding themselves in the far more exciting field of rebuilding Iraq. The administration, rather than seeking out people able to do the jobs assigned to them, had simply hired inexperienced young ideologues. Atrios has another story along the same lines. And these people claim to be conservatives; Edmund Burke is spinning in his grave (as well as posting comments to this site; see below).
The balance between the pragmatic and the ideal seems to have shifted. Back in the Clinton days, the young conservatives would carefully explain to me that lefties were too idealistic, unable to take account of practical difficulties and think seriously about political problems. Now, John Kerry is denounced for breathing the notion that intervention for democracy should be limited by pragmatic concerns.