The most uplifting piece of political commentary I have read in years - and I mean that literally - has come from the pen of none other than right-winger Robert Novak. His column last week filled me with hope. I coulda kissed the guy.

Novak had attended an Aspen, Colorado political forum staged annually by Republican financial angel Theodore J. Forstmann of the prominent New York buyout firm, Forstmann Little & Co. Gathered were more than 200 “mostly prestigious” types, and guess what? “For two full days,” reported Novak, “George W. Bush was bashed. He was taken to task on his handling of stem cell research, population control, the Iraq war and, especially, Hurricane Katrina.”

What made that synopsis especially uplifting was this: “The critics were no left-wing bloggers. They were rich, mainly Republican and presumably Bush voters in the last two presidential elections.” For two full days these movers and shakers of supply-side splendor confabbed over such diverse issues as world poverty, human rights and the international economy - and “the connecting link,” Novak noted with as much surprise as lament, “was hostility to President Bush.”

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