As President Bush’s unpopularity and incompetence have become more clear, prominent conservatives have tried to disassociate him from the movement by arguing that he is not a true conservative. Even Jeb Bush blamed the GOP’s defeat in November on the party not being conservative enough.

But Joseph Bottum, a prominent social conservative, has the appropriate response to this argument in an article published in First Things:

The common turn among commentators, once they’ve recognized Mr. Bush’s weakness, has been to declare the betrayal of some form of authentic conservatism. In book after book–from Bruce Bartlett’s “Impostor” and Patrick Buchanan’s “State of Emergency” to Jeffrey Hart’s “The Making of the American Conservative Mind” and Richard Viguerie’s “Conservatives Betrayed”–a number of self-declared conservatives have announced the apostasy and treachery of George W. Bush. Thus Mr. Bush is an ideologue where sincere conservatives are pragmatists. Or Mr. Bush is a spendthrift where true conservatives are budget-balancers. Or Mr. Bush is an expansionist where genuine conservatives are isolationists. Or Mr. Bush is a religious believer where real conservatives are religious skeptics.

Some of these commentators, particularly the economic conservatives, have valid complaints, though like the rest of us they must face the fact that things would have been even worse under a Democratic administration. But their conclusion that the White House has flown under false colors is ludicrous. In all that he has tried to do–reform education, fix Social Security, restore religion to the public square, assert American greatness, appoint good judges–Mr. Bush has proved himself a conservative. Of course, along the way, he has also proved himself hapless. The problem isn’t his lack of conservatism. The problem is his lack of competence.