After a rough 2006, conservative magazines are seeing an uptick in subscription renewals, right-wing websites are getting more hits, and Republican and conservative groups here at Harvard (yes, Harvard!) seem invigorated. ~Bill Kristol

Well, in that case, all is well.  As long as the groups at Harvard are “invigorated,” there’s no need to worry (of course, one can be invigorated by desperation as well as exuberant confidence).   If the websites are getting more hits, that has to be proof that everyone is full of joy (“cheerful” is how Kristol puts it), because no one ever goes online to vent his frustrations and express the views that are not getting represented in the major conservative media, right?  Oh.

No, it’s time for big grins all around.  Why?  Well, check out these exciting reasons!  First, of course, the “surge”!  Kristol says:

The ouster of Rumsfeld and Casey and the announcement of a new strategy backed up by additional troops and a new commander, General David Petraeus, gave hope to those who still think success is possible in Iraq–which, polls show, is still a healthy majority of Republicans.

It’s true that a majority of Republicans supports the “surge,” but what this has to do with their being cheerful is beyond me.  Most of the pro-“surge” talk I’ve heard is grimly purposeful in a last ditch, “we’re on the verge of real disaster” sort of way.  No one is smiling.  In fact, if someone were smiling, I suspect that he would get smacked in the face by the other people who understand the gravity of the situation.  Presumably cheerful, happy Republicans would not now be abandoning Mr. Bush in ever-larger numbers, or perhaps by “cheer” Kristol actually means “discontent.”

But it isn’t just the “surge” that should cheer everybody up.  After all, there are always Republicans in Congress to give everyone that warm, fuzzy feeling.  No, really:

Mitch McConnell’s performance as Senate Republican leader has also–for the first time in a long while–given Republicans a congressional leader worth rooting for as he outmaneuvers the Democrats in their efforts to put Congress on record against Bush’s Iraq policy.

I guess if tying your party ever more inextricably to a bad policy and ensuring that everyone thinks that Iraq is a purely Republican war are smart moves, Mitch McConnell should be feted as a genius.  If putting some space between the GOP and the war is one of the few things that may prevent another electoral catastrophe for them, maybe blocking maneuvers to stop a non-binding resolution are the expressions of stupid, broadly unpopular, tone-deaf political posturing that they appear to be.

If that hasn’t made you as much of a grinning idiot as Bill Kristol, there’s more: the Democratic and Republican fields for ’08.  The Democratic field is pathetically weak, that’s true, so it can hardly be encouraging that in every generic ballot the Democrats are routinely whomping (see question 12) the Republicans by 15 or more points and the GOP’s “best” candidates right now are in close races with all of these pathetically weak Democrats.  Meanwhile, Bill Richardson, who bizarrely has more executive experience than the entire Republican top three put together, waits in the wings to take up the mantle of “electable, centrist Democrat” who has some foreign policy credentials and is also strongly antiwar.  Meanwhile, in the other corner are….Giuliani, McCain and Romney?  Good grief.  As a Gopper, you have to be hoping that isn’t the real field and that someone has been playing a cruel joke on you till now.  You have to be hoping that one of these lesser-known candidates comes out of nowhere.  If I were a Republican party loyalist (which I assuredly am not), it wouldn’t seem to be a time for smiling.  It would look like it is time to start drinking heavily.

Update: The smiling Republicans are apparently not at CPAC.  The Washington Times reports:

Regular CPAC attendees spoke yesterday of a “malaise.” 
“It’s a sense, a feeling that none of the top candidates really excite conservatives this year,” Illinois publisher Jameson Campaigne said.

Maybe by “malaise,” he meant “cheerfulness.”  Or maybe Bill Kristol is a tiresome party propagandist.