What conservative principles?

Richard Viguerie, one of the central figures in the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy (VRWC), is positively shrill.

Once he took office, conservatives were willing to grant this Bush a honeymoon. We were happy when he proposed tax cuts (small, but tax cuts nonetheless) and when he pushed for a missile defense system. Then came the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and conservatives came to see support for the president as an act of patriotism.

Conservatives tolerated the No Child Left Behind Act, an extensive intrusion into state and local education, and the budget-busting Medicare prescription drug benefit. They tolerated the greatest increase in spending since Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. They tolerated Bush's failure to veto a single bill, and his refusal to enforce immigration laws. They even tolerated his signing of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance overhaul, even though Bush's opposition to that measure was a key reason they backed him over Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) in the 2000 primaries.

In 2004, Republican leaders pleaded with conservatives -- particularly religious conservatives -- to register people to vote and help them turn out on Election Day. Those efforts strengthened Republicans in Congress and probably saved the Bush presidency. We were told: Just wait till the second term. Then, the president, freed of concern over reelection and backed by a Republican Congress, would take off the gloves and fight for the conservative agenda. Just wait.

We're still waiting.

Viguerie laments Bush's betrayal of conservative "principles," but what, beyond lowering taxes and deploying a Flash Gordon-style missile defense system, have Republicans stood for since 1980? Talking tough to Communists? Negotiating arms deals with Iran? Corporate welfare?

The real problem is not that Bush has not "governed like a conservative." He has. Conservatives do not understand how to govern. Because all they do is "fight for the conservative agenda."

And because the man who they made a fetish of is flailing and the war they backed with full-throated blood lust is a disaster, suddenly there is talk of failure, not of the conservative agenda, but of the vessel they put in place to advance that agenda. Here's the tip-off:

In today's Washington, where are the serious efforts by Republicans to protect unborn children from abortion? Where is the campaign for a constitutional amendment to prevent liberal judges from allowing same-sex marriage?

Behold their real gripe. It isn't the war. It isn't handouts to big business. It's that Republicans in Washington haven't used their power to divide the country even more than they already have.