It is really too bad that conservative thought has been so mired down with the bigotry of the religious right. I so expected to hate the presentations by the RAND Corporation guys this weekend, but they were absolutely fantastic. Catherine and I had a long talk about my knee jerk reactions to conservatives, and it all comes down to: it's hard to imagine conservative politics without bigotry. And that's not fair. My boss, for instance, is a very good person, pro-choice, definitely not a bigot, but is a fiscal conservative. There should be room for her thoughts on this matter even if I don't agree with them.