A Problem with the 'Obamantra'...

I want to take issue quickly with Obama's repeated charge against McCain, namely that a President McCain would amount to 'four more years' of George W. Bush.

There is a significant difference between what President Bush suggested, what he attempted, and what he accomplished. Admittedly, almost everything that he accomplished has become a failure - on the whole, because it was the wrong policy. But that leaves what Mr Bush suggested and what he attempted - neither of which can be considered Bush accomplishments, and thus shouldn't be seen as 'what Bush did' during his 2 terms. For example, Bush attempted to fix Social Security, in part using Health Savings Accounts (in my opinion the right policy, and nowhere proven as a failed policy). Certainly HSAs alone are not going to provide the solution to the pension problem; but they are part of that solution. But when Obama criticizes McCain, who also wants to use HSAs to help fix Social Security, he says something along the following line:

My opponent in this general election, John McCain, his idea of Social Security amounts to four more years of what was attempted and failed under George W. Bush. Yesterday he tried to deny that he ever took that position, which leads us to wonder if he had a change of heart or a change of politics.

But this is - or should be - largely beside the point. If Mr Obama wants to criticize McCain as amounting to another four years of Bush failures - for which criticism there is plenty of legitimate fodder - he should limit that criticism to Bush's failed (and thus accomplished) policies. If he wants to include in his criticism proposed Bush policies that never had the opportunity to fail, like HSAs, he should not use the same refrain: that McCain's policies here amount to another 4 years of Bush failures.

The point is - and the same point will apply for immigration as well, if it ever becomes central to Obama's speeches - that HSAs and other Bush policies only failed in Congress, they did not fail outright. Bush's legacy might have been much better if such proposed policies had truly been tried; or, they might not. But when he criticizes the Bush legacy as it stands, Obama can't honestly include in that criticism issues like Social Security reform or immigration reform. By lumping such issues together with genuinely failed Bush policies, Mr Obama is participating in the kind of dishonest politics he finds deplorable and aims to transcend.