Ambushed on the Potomac

Those who expect an Obama foreign policy to differ significantly from the most recent policy of the outgoing administration will be surprised by what is likely to be a seamless transition: not from White House to White House, but from State Department to State Department. On all the main issues—Iraq, Iran, Russia, China, Islamist terrorism, Syria, the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, relations with allies—Obama’s first term is likely to look like Bush’s second.
***Another interesting article you posted. Thanks. Again, due to long-windedness of the authors I’ll need to finish it later. But this is an interesting point worth considering.

I think this Perle article is one of the more thoughtful reviews of Bush's accomplishments and failures in the foreign policy arena.

The Bush administration vividly demonstrates how events drive and shape a President. I don't expect the incoming administration will encounter anything different.

"I have always been fascinated by this undeniable reluctance on the part of George Bush to fight his corner. I have never thought that he was motivated by mean considerations. Rather, I believe that it comes from his upbringing and his Christian character which finds politicking and self congratulation, or even exculpatory explanation, to be somehow unseemly or ungentlemanly. He regards himself as a statesman not as a politician as a Christian and not a party man."

It is common that what we at first admire in a leader we later come to despise.

In management the very qualities that lead a board of directors to choose Candidate A for the CEO position later become his or her undoing as those very traits become sources of irritation, fail to adapt appropriately to changes in environment, or otherwise come to be disdained.

There was a time when Bush's particular character traits of stubbornness, loyalty, plain-speaking, etc. were viewed as assets and admired.

There's something Shakespearean about almost every Presidency these days. Familiarity indeed breeds contempt.

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