There certainly are things to complain about in Bush, but after the advertised Reagan and Gingrich "revolutions" didn't happen, it's pretty clear that there will be no Bush "revolution." So maybe he's just clearsighted and honest about what is politically possible. While it's pretty obvious that there won't and couldn't be any large-scale rollback of government programs right now, if Bush does fail on national security or international trade questions, it will come back to haunt him, and us.
Because of the war, people aren't concerned about the way the entire US economy is being exported to Red China. This will eventually reduce us to a third world country, with a technical capacity less than Red China's, but perhaps not as bad as Brazil's. As far as trying to co-opt "liberals," all that's happening is that Bush tries to champion moderate, centrist positions, while the bounds of political discourse are moved ever leftward. This means that the center of today is the hard left of yesterday, and no there is no ideological progress because Bush is unable to see the problem and is unwilling to do anything about it for the sake of affability. Ultimately Bush is trying to make friends with psychopaths by sacrificing me and mine for political expediency. How, pray tell, can Bush be considered a conservative champion, then? How can he substantively be considered a conservative?
I don't think so. I think he is on the offensive in domestic affairs, with his own blend of conservatism, which some don't, but I don't care about labels. He is not afraid to push in the domestic arena what he cares about, whether it is tax policy or education, or whatever. He is a moderate conservative overall (but not that moderate on certain issues), and of course disappoints those who are more to the right, but Bush never suggested he was otherwise. Bush may have flaws, but false advertising is not one of them.