REACTIONARY UTOPIANISM. David Frum, who not too long ago described President Bush as The Right Man (this just before Saddam Hussein was winkled out of his spider hole) has since grown frustrated with the President and his party, and he offers Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again. Maybe, but Book Review N^o. 17 suggests that conservatism, Washington-style has been obsessed with winning to the exclusion of getting things done. Whether that's Grover Norquist taking battles with self-styled progressives personally, or Ronald Reagan toning down his libertarian instincts in order to win 49 or 50 states rather than put personal retirement accounts in the 1984 platform, the past quarter-century has been one of frequent missed opportunities to rethink failed public policies. (To a large extent, the so-called progressives are really the conservatives, as in conserving precisely those policies.) Mr Frum recognizes that the failures of those policies created opportunities for conservatives. He also recognizes that many of the mainstream conservative positions are not popular with the public. Perhaps he's really arguing that there is no coherent libertarian voice in the Republican line-up. Consider his first policy goal, "A Better Deal for the Middle Class," where he notes failures of the government-funded schools, pension plans, and medical monopolies, without offering a coherent alternative to the status quo. Somehow, though, those schools, pension plans, and medicine men, along with new immigration and trade policies are supposed to "Keep China Number Two," the second policy goal. (That the Chinese might be inflicting that on themselves with their monetary policies and gasoline subsidies and export of their brightest economists does not come up.) Next comes the obligatory nod to the culture warriors in the Republican coalition, "New Life for the Pro-Life." Is this a great country or what? One political party allies Ph.D.s and high school dropouts, the other entrepreneurs and creationists. Thus, despite the failures of the regulatory commissions, the alphabet agencies, the Great Society departments, and Homeland Security, the country needs an Office of Marriage and Children. There's "Green Conservatism" (a case for a carbon tax: are those bacteria that fix carbon by excreting petroleum to be subsidized or taxed? It's also necessary to "Win the War on Terror" and "Rediscover Conservative Ideals." That is, if there is any shared vision of what those ideals are.