Words I never sought that I would say, but this is a great editorial in the Wall Street Journal.

Thomas Frank calls centrism a “chump’s game”, and notes that the “triangulation” of Bill Clinton and his ilk did nothing but allow the radical right wing to move the “center” further right.

Mr. Frank is right, and here is my favorite bit:

And centrism’s achievements? Well, there’s Nafta, which proved Democrats could stand up to labor. There’s the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. There’s the Iraq war resolution, approved by numerous Democrats in brave defiance of their party’s left. Triumphs all.

Histories of conservatism’s rise, on the other hand, often emphasize that movement’s adherence to principle regardless of changing public attitudes. Conservatives pressed laissez-faire through good times and bad, soldiering on even in years when suggesting that America was a “center-right nation” would have made one an instant laughingstock.