President Obama and the Blame Bush/Republicans Campaign

In 2008, President Obama was able to run his campaign on the promise that he would not be George W. Bush, which was a wise choice considering the state of the economy and the approval ratings Jr. came out of office carrying.  Knowing this, then it should come as no surprise that the president is not going to run his campaign focused on what he did while he was in office, he will try to direct the voter anger towards Republicans by linking them with Bush. 


The problem with this is that much of what Obama has done while in office has in effect been a continuation of what Bush had been doing when he left office. 


Lets start with the most glaring similarities between the last two presidents, foreign policy. 


In 2010, Tony Karon of Time Magazine said this:

Obama's promises of outreach to adversaries and consultation and coordination with allies certainly cleared away some of the negative atmospherics left by the Bush Administration. However, his substantial policy positions have proven to be remarkably similar to those of the second-term, chastened-by-reality George W. Bush. Indeed, anti-war Democrats groaned when the President, in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, referred to "evil in the world" and hailed America's willingness to use force abroad over the past six decades as an essential component of global security. The neoconservatives cheered.

The reality is, for the most part the president as acted much in the same way Bush would have.  In some ways Obama has done what the Democrats had wanted the country to believe Bush did, launch wars of choice with out the approval of the other side.  Obama launched the war in Libya without congressional approval.  If Bush would have tried that he would have had to spend the next year explaining why he defied the will of the elected government.  Of course, Bush had not launched a war without congressional approval, he went to the house to get permission to strike both Afghanistan and Iraq.

President Obama issued this statement regarding the United States’ involvement in Libya: “Today we are part of a broad coalition. We are answering the calls of threatened people. And we are acting in the interests of the United States and the world.”

 
This statement had no doubt sounded much like one that would have been given by Bush.

It similarities reach beyond foreign policy. Both presidents have provided tax cuts to Americans, which includes the wealthiest citizens that make up the 1%.  Sure, the two parties do fight about their respective ideologies in the media, but for the most part the economic policies have been similar.  Both presidents have passed stimulus packages that were supposed to create jobs - although Obama's was much larger - and both had ran up record deficits trying to fix the economy and in the name of helping Americans stay healthy - Medicare Part D and Obama[care].

Another similarity is that both presidents issued signing statements that thwart the intent of the elected government, even though President Obama had stated that he would not use them. Eli Lake, of The Daily Beast reported on one this is January.

Lake wrote that "As a candidate in 2008, Barack Obama promised that if he was elected president he would not issue obscure declarations known as signing statements that thwart the intent of laws passed by Congress. But as the president now seeking reelection in 2012, on at least 20 occasions Obama has embraced the same tactic he criticized George W. Bush for using, raising allegations of double-dealing in Congress and questions of constitutionality from the American Bar Association." 

It is important to iterate that I am not claiming that Bush and Obama are the exact same, because they are not.  They both had moments where they were very ideological. However, since 2008 the President Obama has blamed Bush for everything that has gone wrong in this country.  Bush had begun infusing the economy with tax payer money, and Obama continued this, but when it comes to giving his predecessor any credit, nothing.  Bush had begun bailing out the banks before Obama did.  

When President Obama talks about "the same policies that got us into this mess", what policies is he talking about.  The fact is, Bush did not govern in his second term the same way he did in the first.  As long as the president is blaming him for the economy - almost four years after he took office - point out what policies had caused this, and give him credit for changing course. The president is trying to have it both ways, in reality he has not veered a whole lot of the course Bush had set for this country.