They both took advantage of a crisis to do what they wanted to do. Bush wanted to invade Iraq, Obama wanted laws expanding Headstart, Pell Grants and a host of liberal projects he had been working for. Both men were going to have a hard time getting what they wanted. Then along came, for Bush, the 9-11 attacks and, for Obama, the Great Recession. Have to have military operations. Include Iraq. Have to have a stimulus to the economy. Work in the liberal agenda.
It's hard to see how, without a crisis, either one would have gotten much public and Congressional support. Imagine, out of the blue: "Let us invade Iraq in order to bring freedom and democracy to its people." Imagine: "Let us now finish the New Deal."
Of course I don't know their actual motives. I'm making inferences from their behavior and known views. In Bush's case these are pretty well documented and I don't need a columnist to point them out. I did need one in Obama's case and on Monday Ross Douthat stepped in and supplied the need:
The hope was that the [stimulus] legislation would do more than just kickstart a recovery: It would lay a new foundation for the economy, with an electric car in every garage and a Solyndra solar panel on every roof. The result, predictably, was a bill that looked less like a temporary exercise in crisis management and more like the Democratic Party's permanent wish list. (NYT, 9-12-11)
Obama joined Bush when he went along with that bill.
The difference between the two is seen in their words after the defects in their policies became clear. Obama is now making speeches that, according to Douthat, suggest
that he intends to campaign for re-election on what should have been the blueprint for his first four years in office: a short-term stimulus highlighted by a payroll tax cut, a medium-term push to overhaul the tax code and a plan for long-term entitlement reform.
In this, which Douthat sees as "a request for a presidential do-over," a "second chance to get things right," we see a man who learns by experience and admits a mistake.
That's the opposite of what we see in George Bush, who in his recently published autobiography, Decision Points,, rests in the belief that the invasion of Iraq was thoroughly justified. And, going by what we are now hearing from Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, that belief is not likely to change. Those whose views were closest to his (and even, some say, responsible for his) are suggesting that the Arab Spring confirms that justification.
Sometimes the nation benefits when a perceptive leader takes advantage of a crisis. President Roosevelt, with an eye on the long term, added Federal Deposit Insurance, the Security and Exchange Commission, and the Tennessee Valley Authority to his immediate recovery measures, slipping them in when the opposition was most frightened.
In the end the benefit depends on the perceptiveness of the leader, and the trust of that perceptiveness in the voters who elect him and keep him going. In 2004 voters trusted Bush enough to keep him going. In 2012 they'll have to gauge their trust in Obama. If we judge by reaction to mistakes the men are more significantly different than they are alike.
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