A great thread today about the base abandoning Bush put it just right, I think. I wasn't too thrilled with the Miers pick at all, but I was alarmed at how the base FREAKED over it on such flimsy reasoning, and the MSM leaped on that. As the article pointed out, the main opposition seemed to be based on the idea that she "wasn't OURS", i.e. someoen Ann Coulter went to Republican fundraisers with, all the supposed justifications to the contrary. (Alito and Roberts had more substantive strikes against them, and it amused me how all those who want term limits and "regular folks" in power positions in government descended on Miers's lack of judicial track record).
You've hit the target with the Buchanan wing comment, though. Like the DUmmies they will never be satisfied until the Republican party is 100% THEIR version of Conservative and in turn the President is, as well. That ain't gonna happen in a nation so closely divided politically as this one. I know it's heresy to those folks to consider that even Pat or Savage! couldn't run the country as they claim they would, but, sorry, they couldn't, and neither could any Republican president, not with this Congress, at least. Absolute fidelity to an imaginary Conservative Ideal will never be reached; a President can only strive for it within the constrictions he's got in a politically-divided nation. He should be judged on that reality, not in his inability to create a Conservative fantasyworld.
You've hit the target with the Buchanan wing comment, though. Like the DUmmies they will never be satisfied until the Republican party is 100% THEIR version of Conservative....and so Conservatives return to minority status for another 50 years.