It seems every column Ryan Sager writes is a variation on the same complaint over and over again: “poor libertarians” or “poor ‘next generation conservatives’” or “poor conservatives with a conscience” in which “conscience” or “next generation” is defined as libertarian or libertine. Sometimes he mixes it up a bit and writes that if only his kind of conservatives were running the show the sunny uplands of history would be revealed to all.

Today he complains that conservatives are experiencing with the Miers appointment what libertarians have endured for years with Bush. That’s fine, to a point. But it seems his determination to stay true to his perpetual theme is skewing his analysis a bit. Any libertarian who voted for Bush did so knowing he was at best the lesser of two evils. There was nothing in his campaign in 2000 or 2004 a libertarian could have interpreted as a real overture to their concerns. Most of the libertarians I know voted for Bush with their eyes wide open, believing he’d better on foreign policy or less bad on domestic policy. Meanwhile, conservatives — or at least some conservatives — legitimately feel betrayed by Bush over Miers. He promised or (vide Ramesh) at least strongly lead conservatives to believe, that he would appoint Justices in the mold of Scalia and Thomas.

Libertarians have no such claim of betrayal because he made no such assurances to them that he would be a champion of small government. I’m sure someone can find quotes that run counter to this, but I don’t think anybody can seriously dispute the general point that Bush never ran as a government-is-the-problem conservative and to claim feelings of “betrayal” because he didn’t govern as one is simply dishonest.