A new column by E. J. Dionne just went up on our Web site.

Every nation needs an intelligent and constructive form of conservatism. The debate over the health-care bill, which mercifully came to a close on Sunday night, was not American conservatism's finest hour.In its current incarnation, conservatism has taken on an angry crankiness. It is caught up in a pseudo-populism that true conservatism should mistrustwhat on earth would Bill Buckley have made of "death panels"? The creed is caught up in a suspicion of all reform that conservatives of the Edmund Burke stripe have always warned against. Authentic conservatism is better than this.

Read the rest for his take on why America needs a healthy conservative movement, and why the current state of affairs is troubling.