Progressive Conservatism: Rebuilding New Orleans and America

Harold Meyerson, on the American Prospect web site, criticized Bush's New Orleans speech as a return to the "failed" compassion conservatism ideas of Jack Kemp.

The only thing Meyerson got right was that the ideas are all Kemp.

The main bone of contention is this,

"... banks and other lending institutions -- had scant interest in getting such businesses up and running even under perfect Milton Friedmanite conditions. Inner-city entrepreneurial cultures did arise, of course, but more frequently among immigrant groups, such as Koreans, with a strong entrepreneurial culture and lending institutions of their own."

What Meyerson seems to fail to understand is that he has provided his own rebuttal and condemnation of progressive liberalism (as opposed to the progressive conservatism of Kemp). Is Meyerson implying that newly immigrant peoples have something that Americans have lost, namely the ability to build nations? Is Meyerson implying that America has lost its way because of a welfare state that mollifies the entrepreneurial spirit with economic Ritalin?

Need I say more?