Sibirsky wrote:
Correct. Bush was not a conservative.
The hell he wasn't. He was everything the conservative movement stands for. Which, ironically enough, is very much the opposite of what it PRETENDS to stand for. However actions speak louder than words, and every single so called "conservative", and everyone backed by so called "conservatives", once they get a modicrum of power, lose all pretense of any kind of restraint, and reveal themselves to be exactly what they are.
And, of course, once their policies of the TRUE hallmarks of the "conservative" movement in American politics, become apparent, and their ass gets kicked out of office. Once that happens, the rest of the so called conservatives who supported him so wholeheartedly, knash their teeth, wail and moan about how this poor fool "abandoned conservative ideologies", and how they need to do things like "get back to their roots" and "fix the party".
In other words, it's a pure political hackery, a poor excuse of "gee, well you can't blame US for his poor policies, he wasn't a REAL conservative, but next time if you vote for a REAL conservative this won't happen!"
Until the next "real" conservative gets into office, and the cycle repeats, making it clear the only real conservative ideology is massive spending without regard for economic health, rampant moralizing of politics, and pandering to the religious right.
Bush was indeed a conservative. In fact he was everything conservatives ACTUALLY stand for. And by stand for, I mean not what they say on the campaign trail, what they write in their books, what they pretend to believe in. All of that is meaningless bullshit. The true measure of what a politican believes is not what he sayd, it's what they DO, once actually in power.
And in that vein, Bush Jr., once he ACTUALLY got into power, did exactly what every other conservative does when they get into power, just like his father before him, Reagan before him, Nixon before him, and so on down the line.