Oh, yes, and I really do miss some of Bush's early rhetoric. I cannot imagine a Republican today giving Bush's 1999 speech in Indianapolis titled -- shades of Barack Obama? -- "The Duty of Hope."

Bush criticized the view "that if government would only get out of our way, all our problems would be solved" as a "destructive mindset." He scorned this as an approach having "no higher goal, no nobler purpose, than 'Leave us alone.'"

On the contrary, Bush declared: "We have always found our better selves in sympathy and generosity, both in our lives and in our laws." Amen, and a Republican who expressed such sentiments today would be pummeled mercilessly by Fox News.

Now, there are limits to my Bush nostalgia. In brief: He sent troops to battle in two wars and cut taxes, largely on the wealthy, leaving us in deep fiscal and foreign policy holes.

The budget disaster he stuck us with requires little elaboration. But notice all the stories in the wake of the debate about Republicans moving back toward isolationism. The lesson here is that reckless interventionism inevitably produces a backlash into potentially reckless non-interventionism.

In particular, the war in Iraq was undertaken before we had settled the war in Afghanistan. Bush and his advisers did not think through the costs or the consequences of running two wars simultaneously. We are living with the terrible aftermath of these choices now, and Americans of all political stripes are understandably exhausted.

That's why Bush nostalgia only takes you so far. The 43rd president, who might have given life to a constructive sort of moderate conservatism, instead unleashed the tea party furies that now engulf the Republican Party and threaten to turn Michele Bachmann, of all people, into a political giant.