Watched the State of the Union until about 10 p.m., when he got into Iraq and teh terrorists and liberty and the whole simplistic routine. Wildly applauded by the Republican cheering section, of course.

What struck me, though, was the sharp dichotomy at the heart of what might be called Bushism, the manner in which this president has redefined “conservatism.” While he fretted, justly, over what social programs like Social Security are going to cost the country in the future, he - and the wildly cheering Republicans - seem to have no limits on what they’re willing to spend in terms of war in the Middle East; Iraq is a money pit but we must continue throwing money at the problem - and maybe, if we’re there another 10 years or longer, maybe things will turn out all right; maybe we’ll have some kind of return on that money.

Would Republicans back a similar “investment” strategy anywhere else?

All of the Iraq and Afghanistan war money — about $11 billion a month — is effectively being put on a government credit card at a time when U.S. government debt has skyrocketed to more than $9 trillion, up from around $5.6 trillion when Bush took office in January 2001.

Bush has opposed paying the cost of waging war in Iraq and Afghanistan with tax increases or other specific offsets.

That means that nearly every penny spent gets added to the U.S. debt. The CBO estimated that just the interest payments on the debt would total $234 billion this year, more than the likely $250 billion budget deficit for the year.

This is conservatism?

Conservatism used to be the opposite of this. But the ruling conservative philosophy long ago decided that we can never spend too much on these wars of choice in the Middle East (because we have “no choice,” though we most certainly do), while social spending at home is a train wreck waiting to happen and simply must be curtailed.

We can’t afford the butter. But no amount of guns can ever be too much.