Beaten to the punch

I have noticed that the people who do all of the press for the White House have been trying to cast President Bush as a modern equivalent of Harry Truman. I was going to refute it, but someone beat me to it. The odd thing about the Bush people is how they are fixated on the past, while never learning from it.

Bush is often cast as a new version of Ronald Reagan, down to the same clothing and vacation activities (how much frelling brush does he HAVE on that ranch anyway?), and to businesses he shipped out as a modern Woodrow Wilson, clearing the deck for business to do whatever they want. Now, casting him as Truman seems to be how they are getting around the fact that no matter how hard they try, they can't get him past the approval of his hard core base. They have always pushed themselves as a "51% Presidency", not much caring about building a coalition or working to get more approval than they absolutely need, but Truman was popular overseas when he wasn't popular here.

I doubt anyone could say with a straight face that Bush has any support overseas that doesn't come from right-wing dictators or heads of state who are dependent upon the US for their economic existence.

The sad truth is that Bush is much like Grover Cleveland...not just in how single minded he is, or how ill prepared he is to work with the economy, but as someone who, when he goes, will open up an opportunity for the next President to fix all the things he broke, much like Teddy Roosevelt.