"The liberal project began to fail when it began to lie." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

From a review of a book on Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the NYT from last fall.  Very interesting.  DPM was arguably the last of the 'good government' liberals - ones who practiced an empirical liberalism:  focusing on what worked, not on implementing an ideology.  To my mind, his quote above refers to the point in time when liberalism became more of a philosophy of power than one of uplift - when it became more important to sustain the 'movement' than achieve the 'mission'.  In and of itself this isn't surprising:  all organizations and movements outlive their dynamic, useful phase and become ossified, cautious, primarily interested in self preservation.

We are witnessing the demise of liberalism - a great movement begun in such optimism and hope and now ending in venal squalor.  It will be interesting to see what replaces it.  Hat tip Bruce Bawer.