what's a McCain, after all?

Everyone knows that liberals are baby-killing tax-raising gun-hating flag-burning global-warming Satanist evolutionist atheist surrender monkeys, and that John McCain also has a thing for bananas. QED, right?

But now that W has come out and said McCain's one of us conservatives, heck yeah, you might be asking yourself: What exactly is a conservative? And do I want to be one?

If you look at the records of Reagan and W. Bush (who, it should be pointed out, was the original second coming of Reagan), Republican conservatism consists of war against {Communism | terrorism}, tax cuts, limitless defense spending, and a strong record of lip service to all things morally conservative. (Also space shuttle explosions, spending time on the ranch, and the pulling down of walls and/or statues in foreign countries [Whoops! My bad. Berlin '89 was during BushOne. But Reagan called for it to be torn down.]. Certain persons with nationwide radio shows in the early afternoon are circulating the idea that Republicans also are really the party of small government. Wouldn't that be nice?)

I don't see anything in those legacies that McCain is opposed to. Has anyone else got a definition of conservatism that excludes McCain, but is still capable of containing the Republican party? Or are conservative Republicans gone the way of the dodo?