Why I like Tac, Part II

Frequent and indispensable commenter Thad, among others, has given me a fair degree of grief regarding my recommendation of Tacitus.org. I haven’t decided yet how much grief I deserve; some, no doubt. But Tac has two posts up today that remind me why I like reading him. The first deals with the bankruptcy bill, and recognizes that it is an awful, awful piece of legislation. No great prize in that; the badness of the bill has failed to escape even Glenn Reynolds. What sets Tac apart is his willingness to identify the prime culprit; not the “government” or those “fat cats in Washington,” but the Republican Partyspecifically:

This is on us, folks. This is on the Republican Party. It’s going to hurt a lot of people; it is a pure giveaway to business sectors that need no state help; and it makes us look like the corporate toadies we apparently are. Shame.

The second post worth reading deals with John Bolton. My views on Bolton are clear, as are those of just about everyone else on this side of the blogosphere. Tac gives a principled conservative’s view of Bolton, one that is pre-disposed toward support, but that asks important questions along the way. In the end, Tac refuses to either recommend Bolton, as Andrew Sullivan does, or to condemn him, pending further evidence.

This is precisely the kind of behavior I would ask for from a conservative whom I know I will not agree with most of the time. It is what sets Tacitus apart from the Bush apologist sector of the blogosphere (Reynolds, et al), and the “I kind of like the word conservative, so that’s what I’ll call myself” sector (Andrew Sullivan and a fair percentage of libertarians).