O! the Mighty: We’re beginning to see the leadership of the rightwing begin to distance itself from their Dear Leader. Just a few years ago, President Bush was a perfect vessel of God’s holy word who was incapable of error. Now we have Richard Vigurie, a Reagan era conservative fossil, offering excuse after excuse after excuse to explain why he and his fellow fantacists fell for the Bush’s deceptions and the do-nothingness of the GOP Congress:

As a candidate in 2000, George W. Bush was a Rorschach test. Country Club Republicans saw him as another George H.W. Bush; some conservatives, thinking wishfully, saw him as another Ronald Reagan. He called himself a “compassionate conservative,” which meant whatever one wanted it to mean. Experts from across the party’s spectrum were flown to Austin to brief Bush and reported back: “He’s one of us.”

And…

In 2004, Republican leaders pleaded with conservatives — particularly religious conservatives — to register people to vote and help them turn out on Election Day. Those efforts strengthened Republicans in Congress and probably saved the Bush presidency. We were told: Just wait till the second term. Then, the president, freed of concern over reelection and backed by a Republican Congress, would take off the gloves and fight for the conservative agenda. Just wait.

We’re still waiting.

Sixty-five months into Bush’s presidency, conservatives feel betrayed. After the “Bridge to Nowhere” transportation bill, the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination and the Dubai Ports World deal, the immigration crisis was the tipping point for us. Indeed, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found last week that Republican disapproval of Bush’s presidency had increased from 16 percent to 30 percent in one month. It is largely the defection of conservatives that is driving the president’s poll numbers to new lows.

Vigurie wraps up with a threat:

But unhappy conservatives should be taken seriously. When conservatives are unhappy, bad things happen to the Republican Party.

We can only hope.