Andrew Sullivan rightly zings Bush on his love of big government and overspending. There’s nothing wrong with that. Indeed, National Review — and particularly Ramesh — has been doing that for a while. In fact I did it again just the other day.

However, Sullivan concludes by asking “No president since Johnson has been so supportive of big government as George W. Bush. Why are fiscal conservatives still supporting him?”

This is surely another example of Andrew’s effort to build some sort of eagle-schwarzenegger-McCainiac-Catania-liberal Republican-pro-gay marriage-South Park popular front against Bush. So far, needless to say, the bonfire isn’t catching.

And I think I know why. Indeed, I think the answer resides in Andrew’s question: “Why are fiscal conservatives still supporting [Bush]?”

The answer is that fiscal conservatives aren’t single-issue voters, and I’m kind of astounded that Sullivan thinks they should be. A blog which soared with high-minded rhetoric about how the war on terror is the test for this generation and that Bush was the right man to lead that struggle, now day-after-day tries to whittle away at reasons to support Bush in the fall as if the war on terror were merely another issue which can be trumped by any other issue you happen to feel more passionate about. Maybe “fiscal conservatives” aren’t defined by their fiscal conservatism? Or maybe they think this election isn’t a choice about a single issue be it the deficit or, say, gay marriage? Maybe the election is about a choice between George W. Bush and the people he would appoint to staff his administration and the judicial branch and John F. Kerry and the people he would appoint and how those respective administrations would govern across a wide array of issues including first and foremost the war on terror? And maybe most conservatives find that a cost-benefit analysis on that question yields a fairly obvious answer. Perhaps conservatives are less afflicted with the identity-politics attitude Andrew seems to be imposing on them?

Some days it really sounds like Sullivan wants to jump into the anti-Bush pool but he just can’t muster the gumption if others won’t join him.