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I think he's sorely mistaken on some things and dangerously misguided on most others, but I don't see him finessing answers to questions like Clinton did. But that also means I don't believe, as his apologists do, that his apparent lapses in principle are part of some brilliant plan. No, Bush really is basically friendly to the status quo. The conservatives who feel betrayed were projecting. IMO many of those who still support him are also projecting. But they believe his apparent lapses in principle will all turn out to the good in the end, that us mere mortals, with our deprived perspectives, are not qualified to judge the divine plan.

I prefer to believe that what you see is what you get with Bush; that he has no secret strategies; that there have been no lapses in principle. His principles are simply different from mine.

For example, Bush has said that he supports free trade. Yet he enacted protective tariffs on steel. At first blush this seems like a betrayal. But Bush is certainly not doing anywhere near what, say, Buchanan would like to do.

Bush favors free trade in general. But he does not favor it because he shares the set of ideological premises that produce absolutism on the issue. Bush is not an ideologue. He supports free trade in general because he thinks in general free trade is good policy that increases the happiness and well-being of the American people. Period.

Free traders who feel betrayed were simply projecting their sacred cows onto him. I daresay pro-lifers did also.

And we should all remember that this kind of pragmatism does not imply a lack of principles. Bush is a good father, a nice man, and a man of integrity. He is I think a man of virtue. He largely lacks the articulated principles of an ideologue. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. There are many horrible men who are pure adherents of one ideology or another. We can at least be sure that Bush will do nothing to harm us for the sake of some ideology.