As one might expect there is more to this story...
Category: US GOV: The Executive
Outline of Wilson and Dilulio
Clinton and the Veto
George C. Edwards, a professor of political science at Texas A&M University, calls Bill Clinton‘s use of the veto “nearly unprecedented.” Presidents typically veto bills to prevent something they dislike from happening — the creation of new domestic programs or entitlements, for example.
Clinton’s most successful use of his veto power was not to block Republicans — although he did halt most of their efforts to cuts taxes and shrink domestic programs — but to get increased spending for his domestic priorities.
Bush as the "Accidental Radical"
George W. Bush has been compared to a number of other presidents, such as Ronald Reagan, Harry Truman, and even William McKinley. It may say something, however, that at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner earlier this year, when National Journal’s Carl Cannon brought up the topic of former presidents, Bush expressed singular admiration for FDR. “He was a strong wartime leader, and a very strong commander-in-chief,” Bush remarked.
Had he pursued the subject, Bush might have found further parallels. Not the least is that Bush, like Roosevelt, is an accidental radical. He is an amiable establishmentarian who finds himself with the opportunity to effect transformational change, and who is seizing that opportunity and pushing the system to its limits. Or beyond.
Read the Jonathan Rauch piece “Accidental Radical” from the 2003 National Journal
Reagan and The Shrub Compared
Like a lot of Republicans who have watched both Reagan and Bush at close hand, Michael Deaver [the shrewd public relations man who played Karl Rove to an earlier president, Ronald Reagan] sees uncanny similarities between them. The presidents are alike in their outlooks and career paths, in their agendas of tax-cutting and confrontational deployment of American power, in the ideological mix of their advisers. (Whatever you read about the president’s inheritance from his father and Gerald Ford, the Reagan DNA is dominant in the staffing, training and planning of the Bush administration.) More than that, there are important similarities of character and temperament. And both are simple men who have made a political virtue of being in Bush’s word: misunderestimated by the political elite.