Repeating Bush's Mistakes

Worth Clicking: Blasts from the past wound Romney

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March 08, 2010

Repeating Bush's Mistakes

Mark Halperin: "Who would have thought that one of Barack Obama's biggest missteps as president would be repeating some of the bad habits of George W. Bush? No single factor was more instrumental in Obama's 2008 victory than his pledge to completely reverse the nation's course once in the White House. Instead, over the past year, Obama has mimicked some of Bush's most egregious blunders, leading to much of the political predicament in which the present decider finds himself today."

Key mistakes: No chief economic spokesperson... Failure to integrate policy, politics, and communication... Tying the Administration's fate too closely to his own party's congressional leadership... Failing to empower Cabinet members on domestic policy.

Update: Andrew Sullivan responds: "Every single thing he cites in his latest brain-dead critique is, I believe, tangibly false, and the moronic attempt to grab some pageviews by a counter-intuitive and utterly dumb analogy - Obama is like Bush, guys! Aren't I clever? - is Beltway hackery at its worst."

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Taegan D. Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the Washington Post, USA Today, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and Christian Science Monitor.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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March 08, 2010