Mr./Ms. "donaldrex":
You refer to one book by Tanenhaus. The piece, like any inflammatory political commentary, weaves and distorts issues to suit its own arguments. It aroused much controversy, but I don't necessarily agree with its premise that the complete "death" of conservatism is possible. Certainly, traditionalism is a fruitless effort - history shows this quite well, also - but it will always garner some support from the socially "uncomfortable" or the closed-minded. Where are you getting your information? The War on Poverty had considerably positive effects; it drastically lowered the number of Americans living below the poverty line (by almost 10%), and its legacy persists to this day. Ensuring that millions more of our citizens may live in financial security is not a waste of "trillions." It is only those who (selfishly) resent temporarily heightened or income-based taxes who try to smear it, to portray it as LBJ's social "injustice." If your "blood" is the necessary taxation imposed on the rich for the benefit of those with less, liberalism can and should "suck" more of it. Hey...lots of protein and minerals.
I'm not going to restate my list for you. You managed to ignore it previously, anyway. If you are so determined to give up on Obama, trying to divert your thoughts from Fox's spin isn't going to prove practical for anyone. However, I might add that most progressives did at least (initially) give Bush a fighting chance in 2000; the relentless criticisms against Obama at present only demonstrate that conservatives make sore losers.
Teddy Roosevelt was a pretty pragmatic fellow (probably a liberal by modern definition), but his foreign-policy catchphrase was intended to support his corollary to the Monroe doctrine - not as a tactic for averting nuclear crises. In Roosevelt's time, we had protection from European threats in the form of the Atlantic Ocean. In today's world, if Iran saw a big, threatening stick anywhere in its vicinity, I wouldn't be too surprised at its explosive and horrific reaction. So far, the worst the U.S. has done is impose sanctions; if we threatened to launch our missiles, our major population centers would be reduced to rubble within weeks (whether we have MDSs is the Czech Republic and Poland or not). Our stalemate with the Soviets was a result of approximately equal firepower; that is, both sides knew that any conflict could destroy the entire world (several hundred times each, no less). We have thousands more warheads in our armory than in Iran's paltry stockpile, and we can be assured that any wrong moves would result in irrational acts of desperation. If we were to give an inexperienced and foolhardy leader like Palin a "big stick," she wouldn't "speak softly" - but she WOULD put her own eye out with it (with potential fatality to millions). In the meantime, cooperative, "consensus-building" diplomacy is our best option. Words are more powerful than any weapon.
A bit of convenience is a puny sacrifice for universal healthcare. It works just fine in all other "first-world" countries. If a relative of mine (or yours) were dying and unable to afford treatment, that "visit to the Post office" would seem like a saving grace. How can you justify your view?
Schwarzenegger is the governor. Not Prejean. Do you really believe such silliness? Can you prove it?
The proviso for governmental welfare is provided right away in the Constitution's Preamble: "We the people of the UnitedStates, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insuredomestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, _promote the generalwelfare_, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, doordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." Domestic aid is an integral aspect of our government. Ayn Rand's radically capitalist and self-gratifying ideals merit literary analysis, but they aren't pragmatic for society.
Call it "wishful thinking" all you like, but there is a certain degree of skepticism and openness to reason in my perspectives. If Palin were, for example, to prove me wrong and become a successful, forward-thinking, practical president, I wouldn't hesitate to revise my position. However, in the meantime, my impression of her (and conservatism as a whole) remains far from favorable.