From Andrew Sullivan, a thinking conservative, the only type I can respect anymore (link stolen from tremble and proliferated here):

A SUPERB SPEECH: It was the second best speech I have ever heard George W. Bush give – intelligently packaged, deftly structured, strong and yet also revealing of the president’s obviously big heart. The speech writers deserve very high grades for pulling it off, to find a way to get the president to deal substantively with the domestic issues he is weak on and to soar once again on the imperatives of freedom in the Middle East. I will be very surprised if the president doesn’t get a major boost from the effort, and if his minuscule lead in the race begins to widen. In this way, the whole convention was a very mixed message – but also a very effective one. They presented a moderate face, while proposing the most hard-right platform ever put forward by a GOP convention. They smeared and slimed Kerry – last night with disgusting attacks on his sincerity, patriotism and integrity. And yet they managed to seem positive after tonight. That’s no easy feat. But they pulled it off. Some of this, I have to say, was Orwellian. When your convention pushes so many different messages, and is united with screaming chants of “U.S.A.”, and built around what was becoming almost a cult of the Great Leader, skeptical conservatives have reason to raise an eyebrow or two.

THE END OF CONSERVATISM: But conservatism as we have known it is now over. People like me who became conservatives because of the appeal of smaller government and more domestic freedom are now marginalized in a big-government party, bent on using the power of the state to direct people’s lives, give them meaning and protect them from all dangers. Just remember all that Bush promised last night: an astonishingly expensive bid to spend much more money to help people in ways that conservatives once abjured. He pledged to provide record levels of education funding, colleges and healthcare centers in poor towns, more Pell grants, seven million more affordable homes, expensive new HSAs, and a phenomenally expensive bid to reform the social security system. I look forward to someone adding it all up, but it’s easily in the trillions. And Bush’s astonishing achievement is to make the case for all this new spending, at a time of chronic debt (created in large part by his profligate party), while pegging his opponent as the “tax-and-spend” candidate. The chutzpah is amazing. At this point, however, it isn’t just chutzpah. It’s deception. To propose all this knowing full well that we cannot even begin to afford it is irresponsible in the deepest degree. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the only difference between Republicans and Democrats now is that the Bush Republicans believe in Big Insolvent Government and the Kerry Democrats believe in Big Solvent Government. By any measure, that makes Kerry – especially as he has endorsed the critical pay-as-you-go rule on domestic spending – easily the choice for fiscal conservatives. It was also jaw-dropping to hear this president speak about tax reform. Bush? He has done more to lard up the tax code with special breaks and new loopholes than any recent president. On this issue – on which I couldn’t agree more – I have to say I don’t believe him. Tax reform goes against the grain of everything this president has done so far. Why would he change now?

I have to say it: at any other time in history, when there has been such an obvious oligarchy in place, such a distinct and unjust separation of classes, such a clearly racist and elitist leader making changes against the will of his people – at those times, there has been outright revolution. Civil war is not far away if things continue under Bush’s reign.

How people whose children are dying so that Bush can push any agenda limiting freedoms and taxing them into poverty can chant USA and believe him to be the people’s president is beyond my ability to comprehend. I am not familiar with, nor tolerant of that high degree of ignorance.

And yet, the people most outraged by this president’s policies are also those who are all for peace. Where is Martin Luther King, Jr.? Where is Gandhi? When does our leader appear, a citizen brave enough to stand before a government that will gladly have him killed so they can make a little more money from oil and control over the public.

I fear for this country. And as the see-saw leans further toward Bush, I fear for the world.