Obviously, "puppet presidency" is a hyperbole, a metaphor if you will. I think that a more matter-of fact statement would be that business is neither conservative nor liberal but pro-business, and that entails selective adoption of elements of any political agenda - conservatism liberalism and anything in between- as they are instrumental in advancing these pro-business interests. Clearly, oligarchy needs legitimacy and achieves that legitimacy by populist appeals and popularity contests - a role typically relegated to politicians.
This does not mean that politicians are mere puppets without power on their own, but that a significant element of power that politicians wield is derived from manufacturing legitimacy for business interests. That is to say, the power of a political office can be substantially boosted if the incumbent does a good job in creating that legitimacy, and substantially weakened, if not altogether destroyed- if the incumbent fails to create that legitimacy or purposely or inadvertently undermines it.
That may explain the behavior toward the so-called core constituency that, for the lack of a better term, can be described as "grinning in their face while pissing on their leg." Bush pissed of a lot of right wingers by, inter alia, increased spending and by failing to appoint right wing ideologues to the SC. However, it makes perfect sense form a machiavelian perspective. Business interests do not need ideologues on SC because that may undermine the value of that venerable institutions to legimizing business interests. What need is pliable functionaries and this is what they get. The x-tian right, flar waving patriots and other useful idiots helped Bush getting elected, but now their usefulness has expired since Bush does not face re-election any more. Therefore appeasing them is not the top priority of this - or for that matter any other administration (cf. Clinton), which is now free to dump ideology that may pose liability to business interest.
Wojtek