George W. Bush : NeoLiberal, Not NeoCon

President Bush has sent shuddering waves of revulsion and horror through the pro-war, anti-immigration ranks of his die-hard supporters in the past two weeks, something we will look at it in detail here later, if only to catalogue for history some of the many blog comments that are so poisonously, and hilariously, outraged and unhinged.

The Bush Backers are feeling betrayed and confused because after supporting Bush through five years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and giving full cheer to his extremely controversial moves to detain and torture enemy combatants in Guanatanamo Bay; to allow wiretapping against innocent American citizens; to introduce the Patriot Act; to pursue the deeply unpopular 'War on Terror' and to generally act as though he was the King of All Radical Republicans, and a deeply committed conservative Christian to boot, the president's real colours are now becoming known to the True Believers and they don't like it at all.

Allow illegal immigrants to stay and become Americans. Excuse me?

Meet with the Iranians and sit down for a reasonable talk instead of blasting their nuclear facilitates into dust. WTF...Excuse me?

Let those goddamn Russkies call America 'Nazi-like' and then invite Putin to the family home in Maine for a weekend stay. Excuse me?

Harass Israel on bringing forward the Palestinian state and tell them to stop killing so many civilians. Excuse me?

And there's plenty more of these supposed radical Bush policy shifts already underway, and plenty more to come.

The Bush Backers are angry, furious, betrayed and outraged because they can now see the gut-churning Dawn Of Reality that they may have been cheer-leading a freaking Liberal In Disguise all along...

Which brings us to this interesting column from Richard Cohen writing in the Washington Post, who argues that President Bush is, after all, a NeoLiberal, or at the very least more liberal than NeoCon. And the proof is there for all to see.