[gcruse]

"Funny, but I always thought of W as all hat, no cattle. The nautical equivalent is just as good. "

Actually, the expressions do not mean the same. I believe all hat, no cattle, means someone who talks a good game, but does not have the wherewithal to back up what they are saying. In the case of 'all sail, no anchor,' the person is said to lack strongly held beliefs (think moral clarity) and is thus buffeted about by every change in the breeze. In the case of Bush, he told us during the campaign that he would get good advisors and rely on them. Which he did. But now the advisors are disagreeing, and Bush is waffling because the direction he needs to go is not being generated by strongly held values.

[Twodees]

Yes, I know they're expressions with different meanings. They're both good descriptions of him, though. "All hat and no cattle" means a phony, pretending to be something he's not, usually used on people who are transplants to ranching country who try to act like ranchers when in fact they simply own some land that has been used to raise cattle before. It was used on Bush (and still is) because he's a phony "Texan" from Connecticut who owns a ranch for appearances' sake and who talks with a phony Texas drawl that isn't used by any of his siblings or by either parent.

When it comes to conservatism, W is all hat and no cattle as well.