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Words cannot express how much I hate having to say this, but I agree with you 100%. The conservative movement has been "Bush-whacked" again.

I say again because this is the second time a Bush has been put into the presidency by people who had a right to expect him to perform as a conservative, only to be sorely disappointed. I honestly thought Bush the Elder would be the best president the country had ever had, period. His CIA experience, his exemplary military service in "The Big War" and his tenure under the direct tutelage of Ronald Reagan. But alas it was just not to be. Time and again he declined to join the battle to carry the conservative battle to the MSM and the Left. I kept waiting for him to come to life in the race against Bill Clinton, but I came to feel he just simply didn't want to win reelection and we went from the height of the Reagan wave to the trough of the Clinton disaster.

Then, midway through the Clinton years here comes Newt and the revolution of 1994. It looked good for a while, but then it started to falter and Bush 43 came into office amid high hopes that he would reclaim the conservative mantle for us. Alas, it was not to be. I think he is a great President, especially considering the times we are in and his handling of the WOT. But widespread conservative support for dealing with Saddam and Iraq was based on the belief that we would get in there, get the job done and get out. But it soon became apparent that we were once again going to try to appease the MSM/Lefties by agreeing to fight a PC war. The rest is history. When you have a President and both houses of Congress from the same party the President is the head of the party but from the outset President Bush has seemed to defer to the minority party, apparently in hopes of returning some semblance of comity to Congress.

It was like we were never in the majority. Every time you turned around we were letting the Dems beat our brains out. It started when the Bush administration made the decision early on to let the past be the past and to forgive and forget all the shenanigans of the previous administration. Eight years of constant misbehavior by the Clinton administration, things like hundreds of FBI files, sharing high tech missile plans and gross campaign contribution irregularities were simply allowed to be forgotten and no one was ever called to account for those years.

In politics perception is everything and the perception has been that nothing is getting done. It's the same news day after day, week after week, month after month from Iraq. The formula is simple, lead with how many American fighting men and women have been killed that day, extrapolate the figure for the month, compare it to other deadly months in Iraq, report how many civilians have been killed in the latest suicide attack on a mosque or other 'holy' site, get Pelosi or someone to rant for a minute or two about the quagmire, then get ready to do the same thing tomorrow.

It's not that we can't win a victory in ANY fight we decide to get into, it's that we won't win a victory. It's a conscious decision by the powers that be that it's better to have Americans dying from IED's than have Iraqis dying because they are too near the fighting.

"In politics perception is everything and the perception has been that nothing is getting done"...great point.
IMO, part of what we have here is we have been bushwhacked by an absolute failure to communicate either to counter negative perceptions/mistruthes or to enforce positive ideas and positions...I am starting to wonder if this has been due to ineptness or for an uber-agenda...maybe my disdain for GHBush fortifies a certain amount paranoia!
We must find a RReagan-like leader soon....anyone in mind?

But widespread conservative support for dealing with Saddam and Iraq was based on the belief that we would get in there, get the job done and get out.

You and many people don't give enough credit to the wicked capabilities of the enemy. They are, after all, people, and as people are resourceful and capable.

When Admiral Doenitz surrendered Germany and Emperor Hirohito ordered his ministers to surrender Japan, the order to cooperate was widely, almost universally obeyed. I say "almost," because there were diehard SS units in southern Germany that refused to surrender and had to be quietly rooted out and exterminated by Allied forces over the next several months.

But for the most part, Germany and Japan were surrendered with intact governments and functioning ministries and utilities. They were still run by people who remained in place and responded to the authority of the occupation.

Contrast that with what happened in Baghdad, where Saddam, on his way out of town, held his "parking-lot rally" at which he told his remaining adherents to do......what? Resist, sabotage things, and then go to ground and start a guerrilla war -- just as, btw (and I keep reminding people of this), the Chinese government had advised Saddam to do, with practical suggestions about means and expedients.

Big difference. And that accounts for a lot, right there -- but all you ever hear people talking about his how someone "screwed up". Well, yes -- not bagging Saddam at the outset, not warring down his tigers when they showed themselves and began murdering U.S. soldiers, all that is true -- but the fundamental recognition of what the other side has brought to the conflict has been underestimated and overlooked IMHO, and the whole affair has been regarded and propagated as "blowback" or incompetence, rather than the strength of an evil enemy.