This is a long excerpt (the last quarter of the article) but it's worth reading.

Conservatism is on 'firing line':
"Right now, the conservative movement has an insufficient ratio of philosophers to tacticians.

Bush asserts that the security of the United States ultimately depends on the spread of freedom and democracy, particularly in the Middle East.

But Buckley pointed out that acting on American idealism internationally should be constrained by the need to act to protect ourselves. There is not much of that sort of restraint in the Bush doctrine.

Buckley said in the mock Firing Line that, although he initially supported the Iraq war, knowing what he knows now, he wouldn't have. As someone who opposed the Iraq war then based on what he knew then, in large part Bush's unconstrained regional ambitions, that's welcome company.

I asked Bill Buckley whether, in his opinion, George W. Bush was a conservative.

Buckley made a distinction between being conservative, which he said Bush was, and being 'a' conservative, in the sense of himself and Barry Goldwater, which he said Bush wasn't.

Much of the future of modern American conservatism depends on whether that distinction can be preserved over the next four years."  ¶ 12/10/2004 08:56:00 PM