"Conservatives didn't abandon Bush, he abandoned us"
To be fair, Bush never was a conservative. Whenever the dreaded "C" word was uttered, it was qualified.
Of course he wanted us to think he was conservative, but he never was - just seemed so after Clinton.
Are you saying he didn't intentionally posture as a conservative?
If he did, why all the lilly guilding now about how we should know he's not?
If he ran as a duck, by God, he better continue to "quack."