With a few notable exceptions, the Bush administration of 2008 most closely resembles the Bush administration before September 11, 2001: a realistic foreign policy and a right of center, but not ideologically rightwing, domestic policy similar to Bush 41. Want evidence of the foreign policy, look at my stirring video on the subject. On domestic policy, look at what is happening today. After striking a reasonable deal yesterday with Democrats on the auto bailout, which Republican rightwingers in the Senate rejected, Bush’s Treasury Department is now inching closer to using part of the $700 billion to bail out the companies. That’s a good thing – and not something that the Bush adminsitration Americans have grown to know and hate would have undertaken.
--John B. Judis.