TIME TO PUNT THE CRONIES:

The day after Democrats regained control of Capitol Hill, Mr Bush fired Donald Rumsfeld, his pugnacious Pentagon chief, and brought in Robert Gates. This proved a big improvement. Mr Gates handled a successful US troop surge in Iraq and restored relations with "old Europe". A few months before the midterm disaster, Mr Bush had replaced John Snow, the beleaguered Treasury secretary, with Hank Paulson, who became the president's most pivotal cabinet member. Mr Paulson helped to launch the Group of 20 leading industrial nations, declared global warming to be real and was central to the disaster management after Lehman Brothers collapsed in September 2008.

Perhaps the most critical change had been to elevate Joshua Bolten, an effective political manager, as White House chief of staff a few months before. Mr Bolten helped restore lines of authority to the Oval Office after Dick Cheney, the vice-president, had spent years circumventing normal channels. Karl Rove, who was Mr Bush's controversial chief strategist - "Turd Blossom", as he was sometimes nicknamed - was also sidelined. Mr Bush's administration finally began to function properly.

Mr Obama might also study Ronald Reagan's final two years after his midterm setback in 1986. Most people thought Reagan was a dead duck. Like Mr Bush, Reagan's renaissance hinged on finding a new chief of staff, Howard Baker, who had the authority to shake up a besieged White House - and did so effectively. Against the odds, Reagan emerged largely unscathed from the Iran-Contra scandal, passed an immigration reform bill, hit it off with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and left office with high ratings.

Could Mr Obama do the same? Not unless he radically changes the way his White House is run.

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