Bush : Conservatism = Stalin : Communism

This meme has popped up here and there, although I think Wolcott gets it best: The neoconservatives (and to a lesser extent, although Wolcott doesn't get into it, the fundamentalist right) are positioning themselves to cut loose of Bush and his ambitions for a "legacy," if it becomes necessary, by denouncing Bush as not a "real neoconservative" (or "real fundamentalist wacko," whichever).

(The fundamentalists are about to get their most fevered wet dream of the last thirty years--the evisceration, if not flat-out overturning, of Roe v. Wade--so they may not be ready to cut Bush adrift yet. Yet.)

But the "movement conservatives," always more loyal to the movement than to the utensil the president, can smell trouble: Iraq is spiraling into civil war; Bush's lame-duck status is becoming more painfully evident every day; and his approval ratings are sub-Nixonian, somewhere between one-half and one-third of Clinton's at the height of the impeachment froth. Rather than ride this particular stage coach over that particular cliff, they're more than ready to hop off and claim that Junior's failures weren't a true test of conservative principles, since he was never a "real conservative"--not a difficult argument to make, really, given that the empty-headed Governor had to be tutored on politics and economics by Rove and Rice before they could run him at the presidency, and that he's been one of the greatest champions that big government spending has ever known.

So brace yourself, in the months to come, for the sorry spectacle of the neocon rats preparing to desert the Bush ship.

Bill Kristol is mentioned often in Wolcott's post (Wolcott calls him "almost feline," although I might make a taxonomic quibble and describe him as "iguanian" instead), and his pedigree papers show why he's a true "movement man," not a "Bush man." But they left out the most important dues that he had to pay in his climb to the top: He was Vice President Dan Quayle's chief of staff, tasked with the unenviable mission of making his boss appear smart. Anyone who would be willing to make his bones by mucking out that stall is clearly in the movement for the long haul, not just for the sake of some upstart like Bush.

Update: Digby points out that this scenario also primes the pump for conservatives to launch a "restore our honor" revival.