Peter Wehner is right in his debate with Mark Levin. George Bush was significantly to the right of Ronald Reagan–except I don’t see that as something to brag about. The same is true of the present day conservative movement, which would reject Reagan as a RINO or worse if he was still around.
That’s the way the conservative movement has trended. By the end of his career, Barry Goldwater was so fed up with the direction of the right wing that he considered himself a liberal. Reagan certainly was a conservative in his day, but the right wing has moved much further to the right in the past generation.
Levin is also wrong in his view of Sarah Palin. She is no Ronald Reagan. If she were, I would still disagree with her on most issues, but it would be a considerable improvement over how Palin is now. Palin is far to the right of Ronald Reagan, but that is not even the main difference between them. What really characterizes Sarah Palin is not how conservative she is, but her promotion of ignorance as a virtue far beyond what was seen in the conservative movement before Palin.
