Say what now?!

Yesterday, I agreed with George Will. Today, I'm agreeing with Wick Allison, a self avowed conservative who was the former publisher of the National Review after being personally recruited by William F. Buckley, Jr. Writing in D magazine, Allison offers his reasons why John McCain isn't really all that conservative (and yes, I'm aware it's bordering on, if not flat out is, the "no true Scotsman" fallacy):

But today it is so-called conservatives who are cemented to political programs when they clearly don’t work. The Bush tax cuts—a solution for which there was no real problem and which he refused to end even when the nation went to war—led to huge deficit spending and a $3 trillion growth in the federal debt. Facing this, John McCain pumps his “conservative” credentials by proposing even bigger tax cuts. Meanwhile, a movement that once fought for limited government has presided over the greatest growth of government in our history. That is not conservatism; it is profligacy using conservatism as a mask. Today it is conservatives, not liberals, who talk with alarming bellicosity about making the world “safe for democracy.” It is John McCain who says America’s job is to “defeat evil,” a theological expansion of the nation’s mission that would make George Washington cough out his wooden teeth. This kind of conservatism, which is not conservative at all, has produced financial mismanagement, the waste of human lives, the loss of moral authority, and the wreckage of our economy that McCain now threatens to make worse.

And in a step that left me confused for a few seconds, Wick Allison goes on to endorse Barack Obama for President:

I disagree with [Obama] on many issues. But those don’t matter as much as what Obama offers, which is a deeply conservative view of the world. Nobody can read Obama’s books (which, it is worth noting, he wrote himself) or listen to him speak without realizing that this is a thoughtful, pragmatic, and prudent man. It gives me comfort just to think that after eight years of George W. Bush we will have a president who has actually read the Federalist Papers.

Most important, Obama will be a realist. I doubt he will taunt Russia, as McCain has, at the very moment when our national interest requires it as an ally. The crucial distinction in my mind is that, unlike John McCain, I am convinced he will not impulsively take us into another war unless American national interests are directly threatened.

So, yes, this may be a WTF moment, but at least it's a moment that offers hope that there still are people out there who are willing to set aside party labels to do what is right for the country. And more importantly, it offers hope that some of those calling themselves "conservatives" aren't the foaming at the mouth, right-wing reactionary caricatures liberals and libertarians imagine them as being.