"It's no different from "real" conservatives distancing themselves from the Bush administration because the implementation of their political system ended up vi

"It's no different from "real" conservatives distancing themselves from the Bush administration because the implementation of their political system ended up violating most of its ostensible core values." To define American-style conservative and liberal philosophy as what the Republican and Democratic parties and their politicians do is ridiculously simplistic. The parties are just coalitions of interests and voter demographics, not philosophies - you might as well talk about what direction a plate of spaghetti points at. And as for conservatives' "political system" - whose? Do you mean evangelicals and other theocrats, PNAC neocons, populist teabaggers, or Lew Rockwell/Ron Paul fans? We're not talking remotely the degree of unity imposed by the Politburo and Comintern upon the global communist movement when it comes to either US party. In a bipolar system, both parties must be big tents or be crushed by the bigger tent. Elected officials are not (and Bush was not) advancing a single "conservative" or "liberal" ideology; they're trying to please various power blocs who agree or disagree with them on different issues. Bush's failures highlight the failure of particular policies and ideas, but they don't say much about the ideas of self-described "real conservatives" who thought Bush was a ridiculously free-spending, anti-federal, protectionist, power-consolidating, Big Government guy long before Iraq. (No more than Obama's decisions indict the ideas of supporters who disagree with him on those decisions, certainly.)