The Japan Times editorial of Oct. 11, titled "Almost all wrong on Iraq," strongly criticized the foreign policies of the conservative U.S. administration. But on the same day and on the same page the conservative U.S. commentator George Will was quoting heavily from a book written by two London Economist reporters called "The Right Nation," which praised conservative U.S. domestic policies.

Who is right? Both, maybe. Few would deny the foreign-policy disasters caused by U.S. conservatives over the years. Even the conservative London Economist with its patronizing assumptions of infallibility now admits its support for the United States over Vietnam was wrong, that it might also have been wrong over China and is beginning to waver on Iraq.

Conversely, progressives (leftwingers, liberals, call them what you will) who usually get it right in foreign policy often get it wrong in domestic policy. Progressive policies of excessive welfare protectionism created a subclass that believed it could exist forever on government handouts. Conservative pressure was needed to force individuals to take more responsibility for their lives and their futures. Conservatives also fed heavily on the backlash against the progressives' excessive leniency toward crime, pornography, environmental extremism, dubious asylum seekers, immigration floodgates, demands by homosexuals and a range of other social issues.