ABSTRACT
Columnist James Reston writes of "a disenchantment among the liberals". Less noticeable, but equally disturbing, is a corresponding frustration among the liberals—at a time when they seem politically invincible. The liberal frustration is of course harder to spot. It is not often advertised by absurdities like dime-smashing. The liberals are in power. The liberal impulse is, like the conservative one, essentially valid. Yet the liberal spokesmen for this ideal are quietly writing it off. Only when they find a relatively new cause, like Negro rights, on which they have not yet built a history of governmental failure, do they revive for the moment their old elan. Both the left and the right are abandoning their idealism. Their fringe groups angrily kick the machinery. Their "responsible" leaders are deciding to muddle through a basically hopeless situation. And the American dream fades.
