You give him credit for too much cleverness.

Perhaps I'm just a tad bit more skeptical than Newsweek but I'm having a hard time swallowing the latest in a long line of administration spinjobs that they're doing things differently now.

But that was then, before Iraq turned into a quagmire, the Democrats won control of Congress, Rumsfeld was eased out and Bush began worrying more about his legacy. When The Washington Post exposed wretched conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the Bush team responded as if Texas had been invaded. The behind-the-scenes scramble to rectify the mess at the facility and to take better care of veterans is revealing of a new way of doing things in the Bush administration.

Wake me up when the administration finally starts PREVENTING or SOLVING problems before they erupt in the media and become a political liability. Short of that it's the same old, same old.

Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design.

The Bush administration has now decided that Pax Americana extends to space.

The US has claimed "dibs" on the Universe with its new space policy. The document, signed by President Bush, was released on a Friday, just before a long weekend in the States. This, in itself has caused a bit of a stir, but not more so than the tone and content of the document.

In it, the US government allocates itself rights to access and use space without anyone else getting in its way. It also sets security at the heart of the space agenda, frequently citing its right to use space as part of its national defence.

Great. Let's begin by securing that vast, uncharted barren patch of matter that sits between the President's ears.

Lady, I may be a born fool, but you got ten absurd ideas to my one, an' don't you forget it!

Digby has exactly right:

The overarching reason for all this was that when the Bush admnistration took office they were determined to do everything differently than Clinton, Bush Sr even Reagan. The egomaniacs in charge (and the empty brand name in a suit out front) operated on a childish level that said nothing their predecesors did was correct, none of their priorities were right and they were determined to prove it.

Where Clinton and his appointees that held-over to the Bush administration were screaming that non-state actors engaged in terrorism were the biggest international threat to the United States the Bushies were certain that their cold war mentality of states-as-actors was the correct approach. Where Clinton felt the federal government should be balanced the Bushies didn't have a problem with running a deficit. Where Clinton believed in surrounding himself with competent, dedicated professionals Bush...

I like to watch TV.

This Bush quote from Christy Hardin Smith's piece on a post-presidency Bush really cracked me up:

"I would like to leave behind a legacy or a think tank, a place for people to talk about freedom and liberty, and the de Tocqueville model, what de Tocqueville saw in America," Mr. Bush told Mr. Schieffer. "I would like for there to be a place where young scholars come and write and think and articulate and opine and teach."

Does anyone really believe our manchild of a President actually used the word "opine?"

If I were to walk up to Mr. Bush today and ask him what he admires about de Tocqueville could there be even the slightest doubt he would say something like "I don't do that anymore. Not since I found Jesus a few years ago. Toking a fatty is something I gave up."

It reminds me of how, early in his Presidency, they tried to make Bush look all smart and stuff by having him tell everybody that interviewed him he was enjoing the biography on Truman. When he was asked what his favorite part was he just stammered out a nonsensical answer.

Forget the think tank, George. Start a trout farm. Better yet-- start a perch farm with some of those magical 7 pounders you have at your ranch.