One good thing about having a competent/Democratic administration, is that I have a lot more faith in the mid- and hight-level appointments. While I think it is doubtful Bush was very hands on in this decision, he appointed the guy that screwed it up. And when the CBO and GAO starting raising red flags, the Bush administration either missed the warnings or willfully ignored them.

Bush has so many huge screw ups that it is easy to miss these relatively small ones, but they are still important.

Let’s hope Obama is better at the actual work of governing, and when mistakes get made, let’s hope Obama fixes them and holds people accountable.

Of course, it may be a comforting notion,  despite being rejected by your contemporaries, that history will judge you more kindly.  But the analogy strains to the breaking point.

Where is Bush’s Marshall Plan?  Does wasting aid in Afghanistan only to see it crumble again count?

Sure Korea is divided to this day and the Korean War definitely didn’t go as well as planned, but I have a feeling that Baghdad and Iraq will be very different in 50 years compared with Seoul and South Korea today.  I doubt that in 50 years Americans could safely and freely travel to Baghdad in 2059.

The Truman Doctrine was in place for 40 years.  The Bush Doctrine  won’t even be in place for the next administration because it was such a disaster in Iraq (I agree with Charlie Gibson that it means preemptive war…even though there is some confusion on this point, and some claim that the Bush Doctrine means  not letting a country harbor terrorist and overthrowing them, but this isn’t necessarily a new idea, just a new situation for instigating regime change, which isn’t Bush-specific).

And if the PATRIOT Act and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security count as key accomplishments, not even history can save you.

Hopefully Obama will do something with the rest of the bailout money to actually affect home foreclosures, which is what is behind the capitalization problems at banks and the problem with mortgage-backed and other credit-related securities.  And if Obama succeeds in reducing foreclosures and stabilizing the banking sector, home prices should start to rebound, and the rest of the economy along with them hopefully.  If this chain of events happens, it will be another judgement on Bush (as if history or his legacy need any more damning judgements on Bush) that he wasted months dilly-dallying with a bailout that doubled the size of the annual deficit without actually acheiving any results.

I’m hopeful that Obama can do this and that the rest of the bailout money will be  managed better and more productively.  The crash in home prices has had a huge impact on the economy, as well as on the psyche of the population.  Yes, housing prices were overvalued and unrealistic (in some markets more than others), but the market needs to find a pricing floor, so people can accept their losses and move on.  People shouldn’t have to worry that their primary investment (or if thinking about buying a home, future investment) is going to be losing them money or is basically worthless (if you have a mortgage that is underwater).  Keeping foreclosures from flooding the market is an important step for stabilizing housing prices and stimulating the economy as a whole.

People care what I think, Dubya!

This rep from Iowa is a jerk. Rep. Steve King thinks it’s “bizarre” for Obama to be sworn in using his middle name. Maybe he’d prefer him to be sworn in as Barry O’bama?

When I taught a chemistry lab at UT in spring 2002, I took role on the first day of class and there was a kid name Osama. When I called his name, he said that he would prefer to be called “Sam”. I felt really bad for him because he seemed to be really embarrassed that I had called out his name in front of the class. Hopefully having Barack Hussein Obama take the oath of office will make things a little better for people out there like “Sam”. If there is karma in the universe, one can only hope that Rep. Steve King will be subjected to an unending stream of obnoxious jokes reminding him that his name sounds like Stephen King’s. “Iowa? I though you were from Maine…roflcopter!”, “Rep. Steve King (R – Haunted Indian Burial Ground)”, etc.

Other inaugaration thoughts…

How nice will it be to have a president that is relevant? I have never liked what Bush had to say, and I always thought his style of governing was ineffective. However, because he was the president, he could get my attention. For example, back in the day, I’d read about Bush’s tax cuts, and maybe I’d write a blog post about how they sucked. But sometime in 2006 or so, I just stopped listening to Bush. After his social security plan floppped, it was clear he couldn’t move major legislation. On Iraq, I tuned Bush out because I was more interested in hearing about a crazy little thing called reality. When Bush said he had complete confidence in Alberto Gonzalez, it shredded whatever remained of his already tattered credibility.

The financial crisis gave Bush a suprising amount of relevance at the end of his term, but even then I never regained any confidence in him. It didn’t seem like a question of “if” the bailouts would be mismanaged, but rather a question of “How exactly will Bush fuck this up.”

Wow, imagine having a president where the default assumption isn’t “gross incompetence”…amazing!

While Obama is taking great pains to distinguish himself from the current administration, he is also taking one page from Bush’s playbook — discipline.  Although the number of leaks from the Obama camp has greatly increased since the election, the overall level of drama has been remarkably low.  I don’t anticipate a repeat of the drama of the Clinton years, even with Hillary at the State department and Bill Clinton continuing to…well…be Bill Clinton.

The transition is fun to watch, but I  think it will be more interesting to see how Obama governs, particularly when something goes wrong.  Can he salvage a bill headed to a narrow defeat in congress? How open will he be if a scandal erupts?  Will any poorly performing or scandal-plagued advisers or cabinet member “enjoy the full confidence of the president” until they retire to “spend time with their family”, or will Obama fire them to show everyone where the buck stops?

Bush came into office claiming to be the first CEO president and maybe he was right.  Unfortunately for the country, he was more like the CEO of a big three automaker than a Steve Jobs or a Warren Buffett.

If Obama is successful, it will be because he is able to be something we haven’t seen in quite a while — a presidential president.

For Bush, too many of his cabinet members have been on the outside looking in.  In 2000, Bush named several big name moderates to his cabinet like Christine Todd Whitman and Colin Powell, but it quickly became clear that they had little influence with the president.  On the other hand, some cabinet members like Rumsfeld, with the president’s blessing, were given free reign.  Others in the cabinet assumed roles of glorified paper pushers, administering their agencies, but making few waves in formulating policy.  Quick…can anyone name Bush’s EPA administrator? How about the commerce secretary?

When Bush passed his prescription drug benefit in 2003, Karl Rove probably had a bigger influence on the legislation than Tommy Thompson, the HHS secretary at the time.  In the current economic crisis,  Paulson has played a major role as treasury secratary, but you hear almost nothing about the Commerce Secratary, Carlos Gutierrez.  And Stephen Johnson, despite his post at the EPA, is hardly a leading voice on the environment.

Far from having a “team of rivals”, Bush has governed with a team of haves and have-nots.  Paulson, Rumsfeld, and Albert Gonzalez have had the president’s ear and have been able to impact policy, while Gutierrez, Johnson, Powell, Whitman, et. al. have been expected to keep their heads down and not rock the boat.

As Obama goes forward assembling his cabinet, he should learn from Bush’s mistakes.  With all the problems that the country currently faces, Obama needs to fill his cabinet with the best and the brightest, not those willing to serve for years in near anonymity.