One of the biggest criticisms of Clinton was his bent for "compartmentilization." He was (often rightly) charged w/ trying to be all things to all people. W's greatest purported strength, OTOH, is supposed to be his "steadfastness" and his "consistency." That steadfastness and that consistency has been less than evident in his approach to the Church that draws about 25% of the American public.
In 2000, W made a pilgrimage to Bob Jones "University," a bastion of fundamentalism that has always been known for its virulent form of anti-Catholicism. One member of its founding dynasty called the Church "the whore of Babylon," and another called the papacy "the Antichrist." In order to defeat McCain in the critical SC primary that year, W implicitly supported their agenda.
5 years later, W found another form of religion. In order to gain support w/ Catholics, and in order to use some of JP II's reflected glory to pull up his sagging poll numbers, W became the first president to attend a papal funeral. To the best of my knowledge, this blatant inconsistency has received scant notice.
Howard Dean was deemed to be unelectable b/c he was "too angry." His "I have a scream" speech, in all likelihood, permanently ended whatever presidential prospects that he might've once held. The speech was played about 600 times on various cable and network outlets in the following 3-4 days. It is unlikely that anyone who voted in November was unaware of the speech, and it is probably the first thing that would've come to mind when a plurality of those who voted were asked about Dean.
W was never deemed to be unelectable b/c he openly identified w/ a fringe group that has openly disparaged the faith of one quarter of the American public. Few Americans know that he ever visited Bob Jones, and fewer still know about the views of the school's founding dynasts. W obtained the support of almost half the voters who belong to "the whore of Babylon" in 2000, and he obtained over half the support of those voters in 2004.
I'd feel slightly better (or, in actuality, slightly less worse) if a Broder or a Russert or a Judy Woodruff or even a Mark Shields pointed out this slight hypocrisy on W's part. Of course, I'd also feel better if I won the lotto this w/e, and the chances of the latter event occuring are better than the chances of the former event occurring.