And The World Goes ‘Round

Some interesting things I’ve read today:

Rep. Frank: Obama ‘Overestimates’ Ability to Unify
“But my one question is, I think he overestimates his ability to take people, particularly our colleagues on the right, and, sort of, charm them into being nice,” Frank said. “I know he talks about being post-partisan. But I’ve worked, frankly, with Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay, the current Republican leadership. The current Republican leadership in the House repudiated George Bush. I don’t know why Mr. Obama thinks he’s going to have them better than George Bush.”

Bush’s Legacy May End Up Better Than You Think
“Instead, the forces that allowed the financial sector to blow up — deregulation, for example — were in place when he took office. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who failed to stem the crisis, was inherited from the previous president. Bush even tried to avert the crisis early and often in his presidency, as he sought strict limits on the actions of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage-finance companies that were at ground zero of the crisis.

Bush was unable to stop the housing crisis and its fallout, but he tried. In that failure, he is hardly alone. The crisis has touched just about everyone, wiping out wealth in countries run by both liberals and conservatives.”

Obama wants Bush war team to stay
The chance to stay is “available to all willing political appointees with the exception of those who are contacted individually and told otherwise,” he stated.

I predict that as time goes by, we will continue to see these ‘nicer’ evaluations of the Bush presidency from the mainstream media. I mean much nicer. I mentioned this several times, and I repeat: there are many similarities between Bush’s presidency and Truman’s. Both inherited huge military messes, and got the job done. Both were very unpopular during their terms (Truman much more than Bush) but got unexpectedly re-elected (hence the famous “Dewey Defeats Truman”) . They also went through economic transitions and left office during economic recessions. I don’t know how much time it took to historians to recognize Truman’s value, but now a days he is considered a near great one (WSJ poll got him to 7th place all time)

One of the main reasons for the end of Bush-bashing is that a lot of the political bickering will turn to within the Democrat party. I think the honeymoon with the Messiah will go sour really quickly if he continues with his centrist approach.