It's Obama's White House, but it's still Bush's world

[mike r]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/12/AR2010081204734.html

It's Obama's White House, but it's still Bush's world
By Julian E. Zelizer
Sunday, August 15, 2010; B01

When conservatives brand President Obama a socialist or a foreigner, his aides laugh it off. When critics disparage him as arrogant or aloof, they roll their eyes. But if liberals dare compare Obama to his predecessor in the Oval Office, the gloves come off. "I hear these people saying he's like George Bush," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told the Hill newspaper last week. "Those people ought to be drug-tested. I mean, it's crazy." Gibbs went on to deride such critics as the "professional left," who will be content only "when we have Canadian health care and we've eliminated the Pentagon."

Even though Gibbs later semi-apologized, saying he had spoken "inartfully," it's not hard to see why the comparison stings. As the midterm elections approach, Democrats have made George W. Bush a focus of their fall campaign. Speaking at a Texas fundraiser Monday, Obama asked: "The policies that crashed the economy, that undercut the middle class, that mortgaged our future -- do we really want to go back to that, or do we keep moving our country forward?" Their message is clear: Republicans still embody the Bush agenda, and only with a Democratic White House and Congress will the nation be able to truly break from the past.

The president is correct in part. Just look at the health-care overhaul, Wall Street reform and the new emphasis on diplomacy in American foreign policy to see the difference that one election can make. Yet the break between Bush and Obama should not be exaggerated. Dismantling the past is extraordinarily difficult. In a host of arenas, Obama is holding on to the Bush administration's policies and practices, even some that he decried during his presidential campaign and vowed to undo. From the wars we fight to the oil we drill for, we're still living in the Bush era -- like it or not.

First, consider the strengthening of presidential power. Every president since Richard Nixon has fought to restore the authority of the executive branch that was diminished as a result of Watergate. No chief executive was as successful as Bush, especially since he had the help of Vice President Dick Cheney, who had dedicated much of his career to criticizing the 1970s reforms that he thought had emasculated the White House. Bush relied on signing statements and executive orders to implement initiatives such as warrantless wiretapping without having to get approval from Congress. Obama has not done much to reverse the trend...

[jaxx]

1. Good example of the professional left.

Compare compare compare.....and tell him what to do.

[bkozumplik]

3. whereas the unprofessional left

loves loves loves without criticism or thinking, and complains about those who do think.

[Demeter]

2. Change Takes Forever, If You Never Start