Is Bush in Obamaland?

Here's a smirking rightwinger who's proud to point out that Pres. Obama is keeping some of the Bush policies.
Obama lost a big chunk of me when he didn't arrest Bush & Cheney for war crimes, and didn't get our troops out of both of those loser wars. He has my support but it's not the same as before. The Dems don't seem to have a stable of good Pres. candidates for 2012. Of course, any Republican alternative is much worse. It's not that Bush was right, it's just that Obama is wrong, too.
What's happening in his administration is bad in two different ways... keeping those Bush policies is wrong, and it just gives aid and comfort to the Repubs.
- - - - -
Is Bush lurking in Obamaland?
By Ruben Navarrette
August 30, 2009

They say the older you get, the smarter your parents get. Likewise, it seems, the deeper President Barack Obama gets into his first term, the smarter President George W. Bush gets.

Hard-line liberals will never accept this. They have too much invested in the narrative of Bush-as-incompetent-dolt to make room for the possibility that the Texas Republican got one or two things right in eight years. Nor do they want to believe that the supposedly more enlightened Obama is emulating his predecessor. Yet the Obama administration has — on issues both foreign and domestic — adopted as its own some of what the president's supporters refer to derisively as “Bush-era tactics.”
snip
In one of the latest examples, the White House decided to continue the Bush administration's controversial practice of rendition...
snip
On Afghanistan, Bush started that war but Obama is dutifully carrying it on. In fact, the president sent an additional 21,000 troops to Afghanistan this year.
snip
...the Obama administration continues to do a lot of business with Xe. Jeremy Scahill, author of the best-seller “Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army,” said in a recent television interview that the Obama administration has more than $100 million in contracts with the firm for work in Afghanistan.
snip
On anti-terrorism policies, the Bush administration was criticized by civil libertarians for its lock-'em-up-and-throw-away-the-key approach to detaining terror suspects. Now Attorney General Eric Holder has said that, should a prisoner intend to harm the United States, “we will do all that we can to ensure that that person remains detained.”
snip
On education reform, the administration is pursuing an initiative called “Race to the Top.” Its emphasis on greater accountability, more testing, merit pay for teachers, and higher standards mirrors what the Bush administration trumpeted in No Child Left Behind. So it's out with NCLB, and in with RTT.
snip
Finally, on immigration policy, the administration continues many of the same enforcement measures — workplace raids, deportations, prosecutions — that infuriated those on the left during the Bush administration.

is trying to stir the pot. Comparing our President to Bush is laughable. Obama is carrying through on many of his campaign policies while looking forward in regards to the previous buffoon.

and welcome to DU.:hi: I thought the same thing when I read that piece of trash

Sorry for those who thought we'd go from hard right to hard left overnight. It wasn't in the cards...nor was it promised. Change, yes, but in good measure. Unfortunately not enough for some, but it is a bit disengenuous to expect 8 years of mismanagement and criminal activities, 12 years of rushpublicans running roughshod over the legislative and 30 plus years of media manipulation to think things would change overnight.

Sadly there's a lot of damage and we're still learning to what extent. Much of what President Obama has had to deal with in his first months have been to stop the bleeding and try to access the damage. It was to balance the best interests of the country with the need to begin change and reform. I admit that there are reforms I would hope he'd institute sooner rather than later, but we're dealing with a big hole and a government still mired in partisan games. Logic and promises take a back seat to changing a culture inside the beltway that not only is resistant to change but downright hostile.

:thumbsup:

exactly. A concept some can't accept.