Lots of confusion on both sides of the aisle, so let me throw this out - Bush isn't actually a conservative at all, he's a progressive president. On the good side that accounts for an activist foreign policy that takes the fight to the enemy despite the screams of the establishment. On the bad side it prevents him from controlling government spending and the size of the government. It isn't "progressive" as defined by the liberals, but who decided that they should have the definitive word on that term? It is progressive inasmuch as it is dynamic change - many old ideas such as "he's a sonofabitch but he's our sonofabitch" are being reconsidered or trashed; such as Social Security, the defense of which has left the Dems in a profoundly conservative - and losing - position; such as new energy policies that utilize resources on which environmentalists have assumed a conservative - and losing - position; in short, Bush is not what the conservative side of his own party expected and certainly not what the now very confused majority of his opposition were counting on.
But as I said, it does have downsides, one of which is, IMHO, a position on immigration and border security that is less responsive than many conservatives - well, me - prefer. And it is up to us to communicate that to a fellow who owes us in large part his job. That does not mean he'll give us everything we want, but that's politics.
...Bush isn't actually a conservative at all, he's a progressive president. Well, he IS his father's son after all. I think some people forget where GHW Bush came from - I remember the campaign of 1980, where he was capaigning against Reagan's "voodoo economics". Don't get me wrong, GHW is a decent, honorable man. But ideologically I think W is closer to his dad than some would like to believe. At least he inherited some of Barbara's communication abilities.