How Obama is making the same mistakes as Bush

From Time magazine's Mark Halperin on March 7:

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.

This is not to say that Obama has maintained Bush's policies, although his Administration's continuity on issues ranging from Afghanistan to Wall Street has alienated the left. And he certainly hasn't done himself any favors by failing to inspire the general public to rally around his agenda. But Obama's stumbles atop the high wire of running the federal government have created perhaps the greatest danger to his presidency, and they are oddly reminiscent of the misguided practices that tripped up his predecessor.

Consider all the ways in which the current occupant of the Oval Office has — inadvertently or otherwise — repeated the errors of the recent past:

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