While much of the talk on this blog, appropriately enough, has been about the opportunities presented in defeat for a rethinking of conservative principles there might also be some occasssion for a reassessment of contemporary liberalism as well. The media insists on presenting Obama’s presidency in advance as a watershed moment in American history but in many ways it could result in a four year dimunition of executive strength—-might it be Congress that will really run the show? And if Peter Lawler is right that Obama’s"negative landslide" doesn’t come with an accompanying political realignment, we might reasonably expect some overextension by a Congress that certainly thinks it just received a popular mandate. Will Obama be put in the position of having to chasten a Congress controlled by his own party? And from the right of them ideologically? Will this begin a reconsideration of liberalism from within the party that is the steward if its principles? Or will the next four years be characterized by a completely untethered liberalism?
