Few political myths are as frustrating as the one holding that George W. Bush was a very conservative president. Far from it. He may have been pretty darn sure of what he wanted to do, but his resolve was often mistaken for radical conservatism. The fact is, conservatives were hardly well served by the Bush administration, and really have not gotten their turn in about 20 years.

Jonah Goldberg sets the record straight by listing the certainly unconservative (and dare I say, liberal) actions by Bush, and concludes:

[T]he notion that Bush pursued conservative ideas with “dogmatic fixity” is dogmatic nonsense.

Most Democrats were blinded to all of this because of their anger over the Iraq War and an often irrational hatred of Bush. Republicans, meanwhile, defended Bush far more than they would have had it not been for 9/11 and the hysteria of his enemies.

[...] In short, conservatives have had to not only put up with a lot of moderation and ideological flexibility, we’ve had to endure nearly a decade of taunting from gargoyles insisting that the GOP is run by crazed radicals.

Conservatives didn't have what they wanted, yet were told that they did. The worst of both worlds.