The fact is many people on the right were dead set against his TARP bailout and said so at the time.
Nor did all of W's spending and expanding of gov. pass w/o serious discussions on the right.
The deadly election of 2006 showed the dissatisfaction on the right of what the gop was doing.
Jonah is too close to the beltway fishbowl.
I think Jonah nailed it. Here's what he actually wrote about Tea Partiers:
"They're largely core conservative voters who held their noses while spending ramped up for a decade under George W. Bush. Many rationalized their support for Bush against the backdrop of the war on terror or their fondness for the man generally. But when Obama removed what little conservatism there was in Bush's "compassionate conservatism," massively hiking spending even more, they rebelled. Enough was enough. Liberals see it as hypocrisy. Tea partiers see it as finally getting serious, which is why they keep threatening to "primary" any Republican who wavers from the new sobriety." -Jonah Goldberg
Jonah didn't say that all Conservatives blindly followed George W. Bush's drunken spending and faux Conservativism, but he accurately assessed that most Conservatives held their noses for awhile because they liked the guy and rationalized that it would have been even worse under Gore or Kerry. Good article.