THE SAMENESS IS AMUSING, THE DIFFERENCE INSTRUCTIVE:

It Seemed Familiar, and Yet So Different (ALESSANDRA STANLEY, 2/10/09, NY Times)

[M]r. Obama’s first prime-time presidential news conference had an eerie similarity to the first one held by George W. Bush, in 2001.

That, too, was a time of crisis, one month to the day after the Sept. 11 attacks.

It isn't just that W always understood who he was and what he wanted to do, but that he had a fully developed understanding of how to govern. It is impossible to imagine him flailing around in the fashion that President Obama is, holding press conferences and multiple press availabilities every day three weeks into his presidency desperately fighting for trivialities within a bill that advances none of his priorities. Thus, when an issue came where he needed his words to have weight he had not squandered his presidential political capital nor made his personal appearances so routine that we'd already shut him out. The UR, by contrast, is acting like a junior Senate staffer and a press secretary and, in the process, shrinking before our very eyes.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 10, 2009 7:27 AM