A couple of the bloggers I read regularly did support Bush. A number of those, including some who eventually voted for Kerry, said that they drew some comfort from the likely changes coming in a Bush II administration. This example from Belgravia Dispatch (a good blog, even if I disagree with him on a lot) is typical:

A final note. My Beltway spies tell me that a Bush II team (even sans Colin) will have a more pragmatic, realist tilt. Wolfy/Feith are not in the ascendancy anymore. Put differently, regime change is not coming to Iran in February of ‘05 in any Bush II (Bush just hinted at this strongly saying diplomacy had been given 12 years in Iraq; just one so far in Iran…)

Now, don’t get me wrong. There’s not going to be any Poppy restoration with Brent Scowcroft and Jim Baker rushing about hither dither. But a Bush II team is likely going to feature foreign policy practitioners more tethered to reality than some in Bush I. If nothing else, people are going to have learned from their mistakes. Wars (particularly securing the peace) takes soldiers. Lots of them. Intel needs to be judiciously and cautiously examined without histrionics and hyperbole. People, once liberated, turn on liberators quickly (ingrates abound in this world, let’s never forget!). Exiles, particularly of the Knightsbridge variety, twist and turn with the winds with breathtaking gall.

Or this example:

Let me also say this. A Bush II will not be a Bush I repeat. By that, I guess, I mean that we are not rushing into Iran or Syria. The neo-cons, of course, have lost a lot of street cred. Bush might be stubborn and not wont to admit mistakes. But he’s not an idiot. He knows, say, a land war in Iran would be folly. And he knows he has gotten a lot of bogus advice from the Pentagon. Bush is a hard competitor, indeed he’s ruthlessly competitive. Above all, he’s a survivor. He will be getting advice from a broader swath of advisors in his second term, I trust. [emphasis added]

You can go to his blog today and he’s happily defending (with reservations) what amounts to the status quo continuing in the Bush II admin. This is not good. Instead of major changes, we’re getting a cabinet that’s getting selected by their loyalty to Bush over other criteria.

Even more disheartening to me is that these people are getting promoted for getting everything wrong. Just one example: the people that ignored the State Department’s post-war Iraq plan are the ones that are remaining in the government. Even if you believed that the plan wasn’t the best plan, it seems obvious that it shouldn’t be ignored. By most accounts, that’s what happened. The folks that did the ignoring are staying. The folks that advocated that position strongly (Powell/Armitage) are going. I’m worried that Rice will do nothing to help bring opposing thought and opposing ideas into the debates at the White House. Perhaps it’s a sign of America today that even at the highest levels our government is striving for more homogeneity of opinion and thought. To be clear, I’m not saying that the cabinet should be heterogeneous, left-right mix necessarily, but that cabinet officials have a duty to represent the full range of their agency’s opinions when necessary. I’m not convinced that these appointees will do that, Rice in particular.