Cato’s Gene Healy writes about the demise (let us hope!) of the so-called national greatness conservatism movement.

The NGC proponents insisted that it wasn’t a “governing philosophy” for the state to protect the rights of individuals and otherwise leave them alone. No — the government needed to have Great Big Projects to dragoon us into, lest we occupy ourselves with our own interests. I think that the influence of NGC thinking on Bush has much to do with the fact that we are now mired in NGL — Obama’s agenda of relentlessly expanding the interventionist state.