George W. Bush is a conservative.

There are many of my fellow Republicans and conservatives who don't consider George W. Bush a conservative (i.e. he isn't their kind of conservative because, in the wake of the Miers nomination, he didn't nominate their kind of conservatve justice). The notion is absurd but is common nonetheless. Fred Barnes of The Weekly Standard puts such nonsense in it's place in a recent editorial:

Bush, of course, is a conservative, but a different kind of conservative. His tax cuts, support for social issues, hawkish position on national security and terrorism, and rejection of the Kyoto protocols make him so. He's also killed the ABM and Comprehensive Test Ban treaties, kept the United States out of the international criminal court, defied the United Nations, and advocated a shift in power from Washington to individuals through an "ownership society." On some issues--partial privatization of Social Security is the best example--he is a bolder conservative than Ronald Reagan, the epitome of a conventional conservative.

Right on Fred!