A true conservative does not falsely profess a "humble" foreign policy, while pursuing a misguided and counterproductive agenda of unwanted occupation and domination (in contrast to the original noble goal of disarming a tyrant), alienating our allies, inflaming our enemies and increasing terrorist recruitment.
A truly conservative president does not claim to be a "strict constructionist" and respect the constitution, while subverting the constitutionally designated role of Congress to declare war and authorize force with the use of cherry-picked, flawed "intelligence".
A genuinely conservative president does not claim that he qualifies as a believer in limited government, even though he dramatically increases the power, scope and cost of government, just because he refuses to pay for it, leaving that for future generations.
A true conservative doesn’t boast that he will cut spending and then promise so may programs that even his supporters at the Wall Street Journal complain that his agenda reads “like a litany of tiny, poll-tested programs of the kind that Dick Morris used to gin up for Bill Clinton."
A true conservative doesn’t rely on a political consultant such as Karl Rove as a key domestic and foreign policy adviser, and have him sit in on meetings of the cabinet and National Security Council.
A true conservative doesn’t attempt to portray his opponents as big-spending liberals who will wreck the budget, when he himself has increase discretionary domestic spending at the highest rate of growth in 40 years, creating record deficits from a surplus he inherited from Democrats.
A true conservative doesn’t portray himself as a champion of free enterprise while handing out billions in contracts to cronies who are campaign contributors and letting corporate criminals name their own regulators. To the contrary, a true conservative recognizes that an impartial government free of corrupting influence, and the absence of corporate welfare, is essential to the proper functioning, fairness, and survival of the free enterprise capitalistic system in which we believe.
A true conservative does not think he’s shrunk the size of the federal bureaucracy just because he’s put it on your children’s credit card.
A true conservative does not simply claim to be for “family values”, carefully selecting issues for maximum symbolic impact, then do little to advance those causes, even opposing loyal Republican social conservative candidates (e.g. Pat Toomey) when it is politically expedient.
A true conservative does not become the first president in history to ask lawyers to find ways to get around the Geneva conventions prohibiting torture.
A true conservative does not have hand picked lawyers give him a legal opinions that as commander in chief he has the prerogative to “set aside” laws at his personal discretion, and then claim he’s spreading democracy.
A true conservative doesn’t claim to have “no ambitions of empire”, and then fill his administration with professed empire-builders.
A true conservative doesn’t campaign on promises of a “humble” relationship with other nations and then, as Treasury Secretary and National Security Council member Paul O’Neill reports, start secretly planning how he can justify a war at his first cabinet meeting within 10 days of inauguration.
A true conservative does not ignore 228 years of American foreign policy to adopt a National Security Strategy of “preventive war”, and then use cherry-picked and flawed intelligence to mislead Congress about the real motive for the war.
A true conservative does not brag that he rarely reads newspapers and prefers to get his news filtered by his staff.
Nor does a
truly conservative president repeatedly ignore inconvenient facts and the advice of experienced military leaders and intelligence professionals when they conflict with his misinformed vision of reality, launch a misguided war while ignoring the warnings of experienced generals, commanders of CENTCOM and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, micro-mismanage the war against the advice of his generals on the ground, enact policies that massively increase terrorist recruitment and inflame terrorist passions, isolate America from our allies and inflame our enemies, and then claim that he’s made us safer.
True conservatives and Republicans recognize these claims as less than truthful.