So enamored with George W. Bush was Peggy Noonan a year and a half ago that she quit her work as a commentator to volunteer on President Bush's reelection campaign. Now, as barely a third of the electorate approves of the president's job performance, Noonan suggests that George W. Bush fooled her. She didn't know then he was a big-government liberal, really she didn't. But now, now that his poll numbers have dipped so low, now it's all clear.

On the Wall Street Journal's opposite-editorial page, Noonan rejects the notion that "compassionate conservatism" was all along a euphemism for social spending. "That's not what I understood [Bush] to mean," Noonan maintains. "If I'd thought he was a big-spending Rockefeller Republican--that is, if I'd thought he was a man who could not imagine and had never absorbed the damage big spending does--I wouldn't have voted for him." Sure.

Noonan's article, which ran last week, is self-serving. It absolves herself, and other conservative enablers of the president, of five years of Bush sycophancy. In Noonan's reconstruction of the last five years, she and other Bush camp followers didn't go along to get along. They were tricked. The article's timing, just when the president's poll numbers have hit their nadir, is convenient too. Strange how these epiphanies always seem to occur when political fortunes have gone south?

George W. Bush didn't betray conservatism. Conservatives betrayed conservatism by lying to themselves that Bush was one of them, no matter how many times he told them he wasn't. Claiming the president as one of your movement's own has the upside of associating your movement with power. Claiming the president as one of your movement's own has the downside of associating your movement with someone who doesn't believe in your movement. Thus, when the president pursues policies antagonistic to what your movement stands for, your movement becomes associated with policies antagonistic to it. The next thing you know, the movement you joined is no longer the movement you're in.

Talk of a "Bush betrayal" might fit for the president's reversal on nation building--a practice few conservatives now seem bothered by. Talk of a "Bush betrayal" most certainly does not fit for increased government spending. Candidate Bush promised a prescription drug plan for seniors. He announced, over and over again, that education would be his number one priority as president. Rather than accept Governor Bush at his word, conservatives chose to project their own fantasies upon their favored candidate. The bows to liberal shibboleths such as subsidized health care and a more nationalized school system, conservatives assured themselves, were mere campaign promises. Once George Bush became president and did what he promised, the conservative rationalizations of principles betrayed for the election became conservative rationalizations of principles betrayed for the reelection. The spectacle of conservatives apologizing for the president for No Child Left Behind repeated itself a hundred times over. "We're at war" became the robotic response to any question raised about spending increases, even increases, such as the Farm Bill and Transportation Bill, that had absolutely nothing to do with terrorism.

Let the history rewrite begin! Peggy Noonan and countless promoters of limited government weren't apologists for the president, but his critics! That is, unless his poll numbers shoot up. Then they will be supporters again.

Noonan's service to the conservative cause perhaps compels us to award her a mulligan for her prolonged disconnect with reality regarding George W. Bush. But other Bush lackeys masquerading as conservative commentators, who aren't so sweet, articulate, and intelligent, should no longer be listened to as conservatives when they attempt to speak in our name. Perhaps the real "Bush betrayal" has been perpetrated not by Bush, but by Bush's conservative supporters. If they didn't consciously betray their principles, then they exhibited a massive lapse in judgment. Either way, it's unwise to place trust in people unworthy of it through perfidy or imprudence. A conservative who stayed silent, nay, who cheered on during the greatest swell of state power since Lyndon Johnson forfeits his credibility to speak as a conservative. Perhaps PBS, or the New York Times, or CNN will find advantage in elevating such voices. Real conservatives should seek out other voices to listen to.

Even if President Bush had betrayed conservatives, which seems a difficult case to make given that he never embraced conservative principles, he is beyond accountability. He has run his last campaign. His courtiers, unfortunately, won't be returning to Crawford with him. Failing to hold Bush's enablers into account only enables them to repeat this fraud all over again in 2008. Rudy Giuliani? John McCain? Condoleeza Rice? Some party conservative will attempt to convince all movement conservatives that his favored candidate is the second coming of Reagan. If they offered the same praise for the second coming of Bush, don't believe them.

Noonan just makes it clear that, D or R, big media plays by the same rules, regardless of ideology. When it's convenient to be a detractor, she'll detract...likewise the reverse if it sells papers.

Bush disappointed most of us, immediately after he took office, on issues related to stopping our culture's Nazi-like, utilitarian view of the value of human life. His SC appointments are being looked at with some hope, but I just can't allow myself to get too encouraged. These issues are, for me, of the most importance, and I believe abortion especially to be the monkey on the back of the entire country. Since this is the main way I gauge success, I'm afraid this President will be a miserable failure.

Did I have a choice, though? Who was I supposed to vote for? The world does not place value on Uncomprimising Men any longer, but rather seeks "unifiers" and "bridge-buiders", etc. To be rigid in anything is to be unenlightened in the eyes of the world. What kind of leaders do we expect in this environment?

Homer: I disagree that the pres's problem is that he is a compromiser, a unifier, and a bridge-builder. On the contrary, he seems to me to be extremely stubborn and convinced of the righteousness of what he does.

I think the problem is that he doesn't really hold the principle's I care about most, regarding abortion and other pro-life concerns (read: war) and big government.

Bush lost me when he buddie/buddied up to Mr. Clinton. Who then slapped him in the face. 3 times!

Homer,

I think that in 2000 one could have voted for Buchanan and then in 2004 one could have voted for Peroutka and the Constitution Party.

I advocate participation in the 2 parties nominations process and then voting for the authentically good candidate in the general election even if that candidate is a 3rd party candidate. Making a party like the Constitution Party viable would presumably force the major parties to move in that direction so as to coopt votes the 3rd party threatens to take away.

Finally, there is no shame in not voting at all, don't believe P. Diddy's "vote or die" or the Republican's "lesser of two evils" crowds.

Dan,

I really enjoyed this post and second your views. In fact, I think that this attempt on the part of the MSM acceptable conservatives to distance themselves from Bush's failed policies predates Noonan, and is self-serving basically across the board. George Will, Fukuyama, Buckley, all beat her to it.

Some of these establishment cons are really up to no good in their critiques of Bush as they connect it with a call for more of the same failed policies that led to Bush's current unpopularity. Will demonstrates what I mean in his latest column.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/17/AR2006031701795.html

Sure, he attacks Bush's Iraq policies but only b/c it apparently distracts from the "real threat" of Iran during what he considers to be one of the most "dangerous moments" since WWII for our country. War in Afghanistan and Iraq not going well? Just attack Iran and everything will work out then!

Btw, I wouldn't be so quick to let Noonan off the hook, her roots are totally liberal anyway. She followed a similar personal journey to what she takes to be conservatism as so many other mainstream conservatives/neocons of her generation.

Peggy Noonan has been critical of the president many times in the past, sometimes at the height of his power. I especially remember her attack on his Inaugural address in January of 05. On the issue of abortion and cloning, Bush has done everything a president could have done and has clearly done better than Reagan (remember O'Connor and Souter).

It is true that Bush either never had a conservative conception of structural issues (like federalism and a limited national government) or just sold out those ideas. But support for those ideas among the population has almost vanished and a politician, like a general, has to carefully choose the ground on which he will fight. One could as easily say that conservatives failed George Bush because they have not made those positions tenable for a politician who feels vulnerable.

If you think that Bush picked the wrong ground on which to fight when he decided the country had to counter attack Islamic fascism and that he should have defended other things instead, it is natural that you would be deeply disappointed in him. Since I see the world situation as extremely dangerous now, but slightly less dangerous than when Bush got into office, and certainly much less dangerous than if Al Gore had been elected, my disappointment is slight.

We should have low expectations for politicians. A common politician can't do much until we change the culture. A politician who can get elected and help change the culture at the same time is a miracle. We were spoiled by Ronald Reagan.

Of course I meant Kennedy not Souter. Sorry for mixing up the twin disappointments.