Why Obama Should Copy Bush

New Republic: Democrat Should Model His Presidency On Outgoing GOP Incumbent's Style

(The New Republic)  This column was written by Jonathan Cohn.

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You hear lots of talk about which former president Barack Obama should use as a model. Bill Clinton comes up regularly. Franklin Roosevelt, too. But what about the guy in the White House now?

I know, President Bush’s approval ratings are hovering around 30 percent. This election was in many ways a referendum on his tenure and the verdict could not have been more unambiguous. The voters didn't like it. “Saturday Night Live” got an entire skit (and a pretty funny one) out of John McCain trying to escape the stigma of his failure.

But was Bush really a “failure”? That depends on how you define it.

Consider what Bush has accomplished. He has overhauled the tax code, tilting it towards the wealthy and significantly reducing federal revenues. He signed a landmark education reform that changed the curriculum in virtually ever public school. He gutted the regulatory state and hollowed out the bureaucracy. He added a drug benefit to Medicare, thereby enacting the largest single entitlement expansion since the 1960s. He tipped the Supreme Court’s ideological balance with two strongly conservative appointees.

And that’s just what he did on domestic policy. Bush also sponsored a massive program to help treat AIDS in under-developed countries. He rewrote long-standing doctrine on foreign policy and human rights. And, oh yeah, he engineered--and then prosecuted--a war that overthrew a dictator, destabilized a region, and committed the U.S. to an occupation whose end is still unknown.

That’s quite a tally--arguably, one that no president since Lyndon Johnson can match. (Before that, you'd have to go back to FDR.) And with the exception of the Medicare drug program, every single one of those accomplishments represent a realization of goals that he, his fellow travelers in the conservative movement, or both had sought for years or even decades.

America today looks radically different than it did in January, 2001. And it looks that way because Bush made it so.

Now, for the most part, the country doesn’t seem to think Bush’s changes have left us better off. And I’d agree, with a few key exceptions. (High on the list would be that AIDS program, for which I believe Bush deserves more credit than he's received.) But he still achieved quite a lot. And, simply in terms of leadership style, President-elect Obama could do worse than to take a page or two from Bush’s playbook.

One of Bush’s most remarkable qualities--and one, I admit, that I frequently admired--was his stubborn focus on goals and willingness to push political boundaries aggressively. It took a president of uncommon gumption and boldness to push such a radical agenda; America, after all, is not a radical country by nature. But Bush understood political opportunity when it presented itself and he seized it. And while I’d hate to see Obama systematically ignoring policy experts and manipulating intelligence--or deliberately stoking partisan division for the sake of winning elections--I wouldn’t mind if, like Bush, Obama showed the same sort of singular focus.

Like Bush, Obama is pursuing an ambitious agenda: Re-organizing the country’s economy and infrastructure to fight climate change and achieve energy independence; overhauling its massive health care system; undoing all of the tax changes Bush signed into law and, in the process, addressing the country’s long-term fiscal crisis; beginning unprecedented levels of investment in young children’s education and well-being; repairing America’s image in the world and, in the process, finishing the fight against Islamic extremism.

Already, the opinion class is tut-tutting. It’s too expensive, they say, and too radical. But it’s not all that different from what Bush tried. The difference is that Obama would be pushing in the opposite ideological direction and, if the polls are to be believed, in a direction that the country happens to favor.

Not only does that mean Obama should, if anything, have an easier time achieving it. It also means that, if he accomplishes those goals, he can leave with his party’s majority intact--and his approval ratings higher than 30 percent.

Fortunately, Obama seems to get this. He hasn't given up the talk of "changing Washington" and bipartisanship; I imagine he believes it, too. But he's also made it clear he's not about to back away from goals just because they'll encounter initial resistance.

When asked repeatedly in the final weeks which of his legislative goals he planned to discard, because of the financial crisis, he refused to play along, insisting his agenda remained the same. Just today, incoming Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said something similar on ABC's "This Week." After making the case for energy independence and health care reform, even in the midst of an economic calamity, Emanuel said "This opportunity, this crisis, provides--as the president-elect has said repatedly--the opportunity to do things Americans have pushed off for years." President Bush couldn't have said it better.

[kansas1946]

Consider what Bush has accomplished. He has overhauled the tax code, tilting it towards the wealthy and significantly reducing federal revenues. He signed a landmark education reform that changed the curriculum in virtually ever public school. He gutted the regulatory state and hollowed out the bureaucracy. He added a drug benefit to Medicare, thereby enacting the largest single entitlement expansion since the 1960s. He tipped the Supreme Court%u2019s ideological balance with two strongly conservative appointees.
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Well, first you would have to consider the above things as significant accomplishments. The drug benefit is red-tape nightmare mostly because Bush caved to the drug companies when having it crafted. No child left behind has caused more trouble than it is worth and these "right-leaning" justices could have treatened women''s control of their own bodies.
GWB is the LAST person I would expect Obama to emulate.

[oldlazyguy]

To our sour loser conservative friends at The New Republic: Al Gore and Obama graduated from Harvard with honors. Gore was active with providing internet access to the country and won himself a shared Nobel prize for his work towards a world summit on global warming. Obama was a grassroots community organizer who became President of the Harvard Law review. In contrast W was proud of his low grades and covered up all questions about his undocumented lackluster ROTC record and his father''s monetary donations to his alma maters.

As I''ve been saying for 9 years, college delinquent G.W. Bush would get the U.S. embroiled in wars on multiple fronts like Napoleon and set the country on a path to an Orwellian hell with global warming thrown in. However, I forgot that W was also a spendthrift neocon nazi, and would ruin Wall Street with Ayn Rand-style corporate elitism causing a world financial meltdown.

Obama met with Bush and his wife socially yesterday at the White House (For the final time, at the Bushs'' insistence.) In a Texas exit poll last Tuesday 23% of the big oil state''s residents still insisted that Obama was a moslem terrorist. I know what I would have said to Bush if I were Obama. "Get your shiite outta my house!" [Note to GOP flaggers: ''shiite'' in this context means a muslim extremist.]

[wakeup60]

You''re kidding...right! Hate to state correct percentages... but "BUSH" has an approval rating of about or less than 20%...NOT 30% ... What would one wish for PRESIDENT ELECT OBAMA to copy of this past "8" years of THE DEFINING MOMENTS OF THIS ADMINISTRATION ?
FOR THE COUNTRY .... "ABSOLUTELY "NOTHING".
"NADDA"..."ZILCH"....."ZERO"...."YOU" STILL DON''T GET IT...DO YOU!!!
THAT''S WHY PRESIDENT OBAMA WILL BE OUR PRESIDENT...AND BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA DOESN''T NEED ANYONE''S PAPER TO COPY...HE HAS A BRAND NEW TABLET AND WILL BE CROSSING OFF MORE THAN ONE ISSUE THAT HAS TO BE DEALT WITH......THAT MR. BUSH HAS WRITTEN IN "RED INK"...OBAME WILL CORRECT AND PASS FAILED ONE''S....WITH FLYING COLORS...OUR ECONOMY AND GETTING OUR PRICELESS YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN BACK HOME IN ONE PIECE WITHOUT SHEDDING ANY MORE RED BLOOD FOR THE DUCKING WAR MONGER LAME DUCK PRESIDENT ... THAT WILL BE EASED WITH A BLUE SHOVEL TO DIG US OUT OF THIS HIDEOUS MESS "W" HAS PUT US INTO...ALWAYS HAS BEEN..."NOT" SMARTER THAN A 1ST GRADER !! BYE,BYE...AND COME ON JAN.20TH...WISH HE WAS RETIRING IN HIS HOME STATE OF CONN. RATHER THAN OUR BEAUTIFUL STATE OF TEXAS-NOT HIS STATE-! DON''T WANT HIM BACK!

[dj0114]

I really think that if President-elect Obama wants to fail he should do exactly as Bush has done: defile the Constitution, commit war crimes, don''t fund any *** education unless it is 100% abstinence only (ask Sarah Palin how well that works), torture detainees in violation of the Geneva Convention, pull out of treaties, alienate most of the world against the US, be such a coward that he rarely vetos a bill (just use signing statements- UNLESS you want to meddle in the life of a terminally ill woman) and decimate the middle class as he showers dollars on the rich.

Bush and Cheney are two criminals who will go down in history as text book examples of how NOT to run the country and lead the world.

Thanks goodness Mr. Obama has shown he has decent morals and a good intellect. He has a chance to heal the gaping wounds the Bush presidency have opened and lead the country back from the abyss.

[aakalan]

This is satire, right?

I mean, you''re joking. You have to be. Yeah, you are.

No one with a brain would suggest that -anyone- emulate George Bush. Assuming that you have your job due to reasonable intelligence, I have to also assume that this was a long-form comedy routine, but badly written, lacking the obvious cues that point out that this is comedy.

Still, it did make me laugh! :-)

[noloyalisti]

Copy a failed, arrogant war criminal who should be in jail along with his neo con crime family? Do what is all wrong for America and it''s people? Act like a dummy so people want to have a beer with you but stab them in the back at the same time? Why would anyone want to emulate white trash? Oh, well I guess McSame and Palin did!

[treknutz]

Was it me or did anyone else notice during the speech in the garden that Bush, when he was all flustered looked like Cheetah from the old Tarzan movies???

Astounding resemblence....go watch it in the video section yourself.

[mitch5511]

This is the worst kind of bloviating I have ever seen. Stop and think before you write such ***! Obama would be better off not following anyone else''s style!

[sincity_q]

Why Obama Should Copy Bush?

You mean, Obama should speak like he failed his English class in the fourth grade and never went back for remedial? Should he join the Presidential Psychic Friends Network and read the minds of people like Vlad (The invader) Putin?

On the other hand, maybe that would be the best option. The alternative is... what? A pocket full of hope?

[oleander8]

"I wouldn%u2019t mind if, like Bush, Obama showed the same sort of singular focus."

I''ll bet you wouldn''t mind it...it would be great for Republicans for the next election - but anything that has Geo W. Bush''s name on it is automatically suspect.

[jxknowles]

Say what? Surely the writer could have come up with something more substantive, wittier, or at least comprehensible. I wish I had my two minutes back.

[dubya_luvr]

IMPEACH NOBAMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by shafteriffic at 01:13 PM : Nov 11, 2008

Thanks for that idiotic screeching.

You can''t impeach a President-elect. You can impeach a President.

Republicans: no education? How about a job as a blogger?

[musethalia]

HAHAHAHAHA. Yeah, model your presidency after the most unpopular one in history. This is so funny I can''''t stand it. Bush is an idiot, and a liar, and did everything in his power to let his corrupt cronies ruin this country.

Posted by dnamj

LOLOL! just like clinton

[shafteriffic]

President DUMBO will ruin our country, even though he can fly with his ears!

[shafteriffic]

IMPEACH NOBAMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[frankson2]

Are you nuts?

[donevis-2009]

But was Bush really a %u201Cfailure%u201D? That depends on how you define it.

Who are you trying to kid? Bush belongs behind bars. I pray that Charolette Dennett (Vermont states Attorney) can make the charges stick and try the idiot for murder. Include Chaney, Rumsfeld, Rice, and the rest of the cronies that lied to us and took the lives of our offspring.

[inventagod2]

I predict that New Republic hits the fan too....

[earache4]

Yeah, take a vacation, legalize torture, trample the constitution, start some wars...

[cheekygal-2009]

Jonathan Cohn, you are an idiot of the highest order! Why in the he11 do you think McCain lost resoundingly and Obama won the presidential election? CHANGE, CHANGE, CHANGE. You want to keep your head up Bush''s behind until he leaves office, fine! However, some of us feel that monster can''t be gone soon enough. Every time I think about not being able to see our loved one''s body in their caskets heading for their final place I wish it was Bush in there rather than them!!!