Bush cut down to size

The most interesting thing about this WaPo dissection is how it reveals Bush to be what he is: a petty, weak man used by others to write their political dream stories. What's left -- since Bush as president could actually make decisions -- is a legacy of war and tax cuts leaving the U.S. with little to pay for it. Grover Norquist would be proud, but few else. After all, Grover is the great destroyer of federal governments. He's nearing his goal.

Most quotable line: "Peter D. Feaver, a Duke University specialist on wartime public opinion who now works at the White House, helped draft a 35-page public plan for victory in Iraq, a paper principally designed to prove that Bush had one."

Talking about a Bushling legacy, we can pretty much be certain that much of what remains of the 2nd term will be mired in scandal. Former Republican Congressman and arch-conservative Bob Barr -- famously a member of the House Judiciary Committee that reported out impeachment charges against and oversaw the prosecution of Bill Clinton -- opines that Bush is caught in the same trap of either lying, which can't solve his problems, or telling the truth, which will only deepen them.

The comparison to Clinton is only valid in the depth of the troubles, not the seriousness of them.