I must say that while I have no issue with National Review panning my book — just so long as they spell my name right, as they say — I find the lack of intellectual rigor brought to the review absolutely appalling.

And given that the only quote from the book is actually from the press release that my publicist wrote — not even the book flap! — and the author spends the bulk of the review rehashing her own 2001 book, I have to ask seriously whether she even cracked the spine.

Anyway, onto the substance of the review, such as it is…

I guess the central thing I find shocking is that a reviewer from National Review — from whence the very concept of “fusionism” originated — seems to believe that fusionism “does not offer anything to social conservatives.”

In fact, the entire review is premised on the idea that I have somehow proposed that the GOP should “throw religious conservatives under the bus to win elections.”

Wow. Where to begin.

Perhaps by noting that social/religious conservatives are already locked into an increasingly dysfunctional relationship with the GOP, where they feel like they get thrown under the bus during every odd-numbered year and exploited every even-numbered one. I spend a chapter on the problem in the book, coming to the conclusion that the Religious Right has come to expect too much from politics (a view shared by not a few Evangelical leaders and activists I’ve talked to).

More to the point, however, I never say the GOP should abandon social-conservative voters. Such a move would lead to utter (and obvious) political disaster. Rather, I argue that social conservatives and libertarians should seek common ground — more specifically, that social conservatives should come back to an older understanding of the danger of government power. Instead of seeking power to affect social change by means of the government and via the GOP, I argue, they should realize that it’s always dangerous to give the government more power. They should, in other words, return to the fusionist bargain, which held that libertarian, small-government means can achieve traditionalist, social-conservative ends.

Morse actually seems to believe something similar, that Republicans should, as she puts it, “offer libertarian arguments for social-conservative positions.” This is, of course, a classic fusionist idea: You can’t have small-government without a virtuous society (something the founding fathers understood intuitively). The “libertarian” corollary, of course, is that big government — particularly the welfare state — works directly against a virtuous society.

So, we have a reviewer making an essentially fusionist argument but arguing that fusionism offers nothing to social conservatives. Now, it may be that Morse doesn’t believe the libertarian corollary of fusionism — that she believes big government is compatible with, perhaps even central to, a virtuous society (so long as it’s Republican/conservative big government). But, frankly, I can make neither heads nor tails as to what she believes in that respect.

Morse is half-right that social conservatives deserve little blame for the Medicare prescription-drug bill, NCLB, the farm bill, etc. Indeed, I don’t finger them as the primary culprit on this score (the primary culprit on this score would be simply the GOP “establishment,” from Rove to Hastert on down, who have consistently chosen the path of political expediency). At the same time, though, I think it’s undeniable that social conservatives have become unduly comfortable putting up with Bush-style big-government conservatism; these betrayals of conservative principle have consistently generated little protest from the GOP’s Religious Right base.

But, to close, let me go back to this question of whether fusionism (or my proposal for a renewed fusionism) offers anything to social conservatives. I think it does:

It doesn’t offer a federal marriage amendment (though, I’d note, neither has the current GOP succeeded in securing one); but it does say marriage laws should be set by the states — some of which will liberalize, while others are free to remain conservative.

It doesn’t offer abstinence education in every school; but it does offer school choice and wide latitude for home schooling.

It doesn’t offer a federal ban on abortion; but it does provide that these decisions would better be made by the states.

Yes, as a libertarian I profoundly disagree with many social-conservative positions, and I’d like to see my fellow Republicans move in my direction. But I also accept the critique that libertarians give short shrift to the issue of social stability, and thus I agree with Morse that “social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, and libertarians need to take each other’s issues seriously enough to start talking to each other.”

Fusionism encompasses both sides of this equation — that’s why I wrote a friggin’ book about it.

What Morse is talking about is the exact “discussion” I’m trying to start. But if all National Review can see when someone criticizes the modern GOP or the Bush legacy is some caricature of a libertarian foaming at the mouth, wanting to spit on our religious-conservative allies, well, I’m not the one coming to the table empty-handed.