"They want to stop living a public lie."

If you had any doubt that President Bush was living in a dream world regarding Iraq, David Brooks' column today (which lives behind TimesSelect) should relieve you of that impression.

Brooks starts by noting that "President Bush’s self-confidence is the most remarkable feature of his presidency," which is a true statement, though mighty ambiguous. His is the self-confidence of the wildcatter who has turned up nothing but dry wells, but is sure that the gusher is just around the bend, if only we believe. Brooks teases out Bush's belief that character is destiny, and more, the character of the leader determines the destiny of a nation. Here's a key quote that Bush gave Brooks in a meeting the other day, explaining why he hasn't lost his optimism:

"It's more of a theological perspective. I do believe there is an Almighty, and I believe a gift of that Almighty to all is freedom. And I will tell you that is a principle that no one can convince me that doesn’t exist."

Well, look, I believe there's an Almighty too, and that He desires his human creatures to live in freedom. But good grief, you can't start wars based on that messianic principle,, and continuing them on the same grounds! Andrew Sullivan just nails it, calling this theological view lovely, but saying that

...as a political or historical principle, this is dangerous, delusional hogwash. There is a dstinction between theology and politics, a distinction between theory and practice: a distinction at the core of the very meaning of conservatism. The notion that free will or even human freedom is destined to be humanity's future, and that this destiny can be achieved by a Supreme Leader, is a function not of conservatism in any sense, but of a messianic, eschatological ideology. It's the most naive form of Whiggery on half-baked evangelical steroids. It is all the more disturbing to be allied with what can only be called Bush's attachment to the Fuhrerprinzip - the fascistic notion that all human affairs can be commanded and determined by a Great Decider. Our dumb luck, alas, is that our supreme leader is a trust-fund kid with a chip on his shoulder and zero understanding of history or war.

As Andrew explains, this social-engineering ideology is anti-conservative to the marrow. Brooks goes on to say, with regard to Bush's faith in the power of leaders to direct their societies:

Tolstoy had a very different theory of history. ...[Leaders] think their public decisions shape history, but really is is the everyday experiences of millions of people which organically and chaotically shape the destiny of nations -- from the bottom up.

According to this view, societies are infinitely complex. They can't be understood or directed by a group of politicians in the White House or the Green Zone. ... Politics is a thin crust on the surface of a culture. Political leaders can only play a tiny role in transforming a people, especially when the integral fabric of a society has dissolved.

Andrew seems to believe that Brooks is in some sense exonerating Bush. I don't read it that way. In fact, I think the Tolstoy passage, with which Brooks ends the column, explains why Bush's vision for Iraq is, finally, doomed. Iraqi society and culture has devolved to the point of primitivism. The idea that America can save it from itself is delusional -- and we will only draw ourselves further into a predicament that we control even less than we understand by continuing to delude ourselves.

I think a lot more conservatives understand this now than are willing to say so publicly. They are standing by Bush and the war not because they believe in it, but because to cease believing in it is too painful to accept. Denial cannot go on forever, though. Which brings us to a remarkable post today by the conservative blogger James Poulos at The American Scene.

Poulos argues that if they would save themselves -- and be faithful to what they know in their hearts to be true -- conservatives (including the GOP candidates for president) ought to abandon President Bush and return to conservative principles:

Rejection is not the same as mockery, derision, and disgrace, though there are conservatives who would have no trouble heaping any or all of these three upon Bush. Emotional adulthood requires in this case only firm, clear rejection to be effective. Humiliating the president does nothing to solve the problems facing the United States. Nor does humiliating ourselves in a last-ditch attempt to salve the bleeding wounds of loyalty. Treating the Bush legacy the way Bush treats the surge -- no Plan B, it'll work because it has to -- will not shore up our pride but bring it to ruin, not least because supporting a presidential candidate who cannot repudiate the president in an election focused solely on the bitter fruits of his policies will eventually make Nixons of us all, disillusioned, sorry for ourselves, estranged from our own accomplishments, drinking, muttering, doomed.

It will not be political suicide for the GOP candidates to break clearly and decisively with Bush on Iraq, argues Poulos:

What the candidates have already gotten away with, in the way of tepid criticism of tactics in Iraq, has gone over like a dream. Mitt Romney's more adventurous knocks against Bush's leadership have gone unanswered. This is because everyone knows they are accurate. They want more. They want to stop living a public lie. Instead of the national reign of fear predicted by the president's leftist critics, it is the political right that suffers silently in dread. This is a needless shame and waste, and the clock is ticking.