Photo credit: White House photo of Bush, Cheney, and Pelosi as Bush delivers his state of the union speech Monday night.
Prior to President Bush’s final state of the union speech Monday evening, Jacob Weisberg offered a recap of Bush’s previous SOM messages in a NY Times op-ed. And once again, I was struck by how much Barack Obama sounds like the current president, especially in the highlights Weisberg provided from Bush’s first speech to a joint session of Congress seven years ago.
Weisberg writes:
“Mr. Bush began his February 2001 address by hailing the new spirit of cooperation he hoped would characterize his relations with Congress. ‘Together we are changing the tone in the nation’s capital,’ he declared. The new president’s top priority would be education. He intended to marry the liberal desire for more federal money to the conservative demand for higher standards.
Weisberg writes:
“Mr. Bush began his February 2001 address by hailing the new spirit of cooperation he hoped would characterize his relations with Congress. ‘Together we are changing the tone in the nation’s capital,’ he declared. The new president’s top priority would be education. He intended to marry the liberal desire for more federal money to the conservative demand for higher standards.
“The rest of the speech was similarly moderate in tone and substance. Mr. Bush planned to use part of the enormous fiscal surplus he inherited for a broad-based tax cut. But he also wanted to expand Medicare benefits, preserve Social Security, extend access to health care and protect the environment. He concluded with an exhortation to bipartisanship — in Spanish. “Juntos podemos,” he said. “Together we can.”
Weisberg continues:
“Mr. Bush seemed genuinely to want to be the kind of president indicated by that first address. He meant to build a broad coalition on the model of his governorship in Texas, where he worked closely with Democrats in the Legislature, made his chief cause correcting racial disparities in education, and was re-elected in 1998 by an almost 40 percentage point margin, including 27 percent of the black vote and at least a third of Latinos. I always sort of liked that George W. Bush. Whatever happened to him?”
Obama, too, seeks to build coalitions, and he has recently demonstrated his skills at wooing the opposition party. In an interview with the editorial board of a Nevada newspaper, Obama spoke favorably of Ronald Reagan and credited Republicans for having been “the party of ideas;” he easily won the conservative-leaning paper’s endorsement.
Further on in his op-ed, Weisberg concludes:
“So often with Mr. Bush, compassionate government began and ended with the heartfelt public avowal. He was too distracted by war and foreign policy, and too bored by the processes of government to know if the people working for him were following through on his proposals.”
Portraying himself as a visionary, the management style Obama suggests he would bring to the presidency appears to closely resemble Mr. Bush’s approach; that is, he would eschew the hands-on management duties of a CEO such as checking in now and then to see how people are doing in completing their assignments.
Other similarities between Obama and Bush include the likeability factor. Candidate Bush was deemed more likeable than Gore in 2000 and more likeable than Kerry in 2004. And as the media in 2008 has repeatedly taken pains to point out, Obama is favored over Hillary Clinton in the category of “someone I’d like to have a beer with.”
Although Obama has not yet gone as far as Bush in claiming that God called him to be president, I’ve gotten the impression from recent statements by Sen. Obama that he feels confident that he can unite the country and go on to change the world solely through the power of his personality.
Like Obama, Bush was once all about cleaning up the corruption in Washington and moving the country beyond the old politics. In a similar vein, Obama's stirring rhetoric, crafted by his speechwriters and read from a teleprompter in the cadences of Martin Luther King, Jr., now offers hope for sweeping, though, amorphous change.
As the crowds pick up the rhythm of Obama’s speeches and begin to chant, sometimes in Spanish, “Yes, we can,” we are reminded of Bush’s first state of the union speech that as noted above, he concluded with “an exhortation to bipartisanship — in Spanish. ‘Juntos podemos,’ he said. “Together we can.”
The media continues to amplify the drumbeat to select our next president, not through a rational decision-making process, but in an emotional upsurge for Obama, while prominent pundits in both the MSM and blogosphere simultaneously lead the ongoing savaging of Hillary Clinton. Remember the abuse the media heaped on Al Gore?
In a strange convergence of events yesterday, Obama’s former fundraiser Antonin (Tony) Rezko was sent to jail; Ted and Caroline Kennedy cloaked Obama in the Kennedy mystique with their endorsement; and President Bush delivered his final state of the union message.
Weisberg had predicted that Mr. Bush might provide a glimpse of his earlier “compassionate conservativism." I listened to the speech in its entirety, although zoning out several times in response to his pleas to make his tax cuts for the wealthy permanent; his linking of the invasion of Iraq to 9/11; and his threats to veto any legislation not giving him what he wants. If Mr. Bush displayed any compassion, I missed it.
Nevertheless, the audience broke into applause about 70 times, as the cameras showed most often Republicans standing while Democrats kept their seats, emphasizing Bush’s role throughout his presidency as primarily a divider, not a uniter.
For a complete transcription of Bush’s state of the union speech, go here. For a transcription of the Democratic response given by Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, go here.
Obama, too, seeks to build coalitions, and he has recently demonstrated his skills at wooing the opposition party. In an interview with the editorial board of a Nevada newspaper, Obama spoke favorably of Ronald Reagan and credited Republicans for having been “the party of ideas;” he easily won the conservative-leaning paper’s endorsement.
Further on in his op-ed, Weisberg concludes:
“So often with Mr. Bush, compassionate government began and ended with the heartfelt public avowal. He was too distracted by war and foreign policy, and too bored by the processes of government to know if the people working for him were following through on his proposals.”
Portraying himself as a visionary, the management style Obama suggests he would bring to the presidency appears to closely resemble Mr. Bush’s approach; that is, he would eschew the hands-on management duties of a CEO such as checking in now and then to see how people are doing in completing their assignments.
Other similarities between Obama and Bush include the likeability factor. Candidate Bush was deemed more likeable than Gore in 2000 and more likeable than Kerry in 2004. And as the media in 2008 has repeatedly taken pains to point out, Obama is favored over Hillary Clinton in the category of “someone I’d like to have a beer with.”
Although Obama has not yet gone as far as Bush in claiming that God called him to be president, I’ve gotten the impression from recent statements by Sen. Obama that he feels confident that he can unite the country and go on to change the world solely through the power of his personality.
Like Obama, Bush was once all about cleaning up the corruption in Washington and moving the country beyond the old politics. In a similar vein, Obama's stirring rhetoric, crafted by his speechwriters and read from a teleprompter in the cadences of Martin Luther King, Jr., now offers hope for sweeping, though, amorphous change.
As the crowds pick up the rhythm of Obama’s speeches and begin to chant, sometimes in Spanish, “Yes, we can,” we are reminded of Bush’s first state of the union speech that as noted above, he concluded with “an exhortation to bipartisanship — in Spanish. ‘Juntos podemos,’ he said. “Together we can.”
The media continues to amplify the drumbeat to select our next president, not through a rational decision-making process, but in an emotional upsurge for Obama, while prominent pundits in both the MSM and blogosphere simultaneously lead the ongoing savaging of Hillary Clinton. Remember the abuse the media heaped on Al Gore?
In a strange convergence of events yesterday, Obama’s former fundraiser Antonin (Tony) Rezko was sent to jail; Ted and Caroline Kennedy cloaked Obama in the Kennedy mystique with their endorsement; and President Bush delivered his final state of the union message.
Weisberg had predicted that Mr. Bush might provide a glimpse of his earlier “compassionate conservativism." I listened to the speech in its entirety, although zoning out several times in response to his pleas to make his tax cuts for the wealthy permanent; his linking of the invasion of Iraq to 9/11; and his threats to veto any legislation not giving him what he wants. If Mr. Bush displayed any compassion, I missed it.
Nevertheless, the audience broke into applause about 70 times, as the cameras showed most often Republicans standing while Democrats kept their seats, emphasizing Bush’s role throughout his presidency as primarily a divider, not a uniter.
For a complete transcription of Bush’s state of the union speech, go here. For a transcription of the Democratic response given by Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, go here.
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