LIKE HIS RECENT PREDECESSORS, BUSH IS BOXED IN BY SECOND TERM - Yahoo! News

Bush is nothing like any other president in my life-time. His administration may, at times, look like any of his predecessors, but this administration is nothing like any administration in the abject criminality of it.

We think of this administration as comprabble to anything we have ever fcaced in this country before, we do it at our own peril.

LIKE HIS RECENT PREDECESSORS, BUSH IS BOXED IN BY SECOND TERM - Yahoo! News:

"I'm doing as I damn please for the next two years and to hell with all of them.' (Harry Truman, 1946)


That was 60 years ago. Truman went on to have a fairly successful final two years of his term -- and then he won a second term. President Bush isn't in that position; he's already served nearly six years and is barred from seeking another term. But he's not barred from saying to hell with all of them and vowing he'll do as he damn pleases for the next two years.
But it's not likely he will -- or get away with it. Mr. Bush isn't Truman, and America in 2006 bears almost no resemblance to America in 1946. Sixty years ago, America had completed a war; today, we're in one. Sixty years ago, there was a broad consensus about how to fight communism; today there is no broad consensus about how to fight terrorism. Sixty years ago, the press was tame by contemporary standards; today's press, though not as robust economically as it was in 1946, is in fighting trim philosophically and isn't about to relinquish its watchdog role in American politics.
So Mr. Bush may proclaim in private that he'll do as he darn pleases -- Mr. Bush is a bit more restrained in his rhetoric than Truman was, and there's no evidence he's ever been tempted to punch a reporter in the nose, as Truman was -- but he's got a lot of restraints. They're instructive, for they tell us a lot about the political culture we have today, and they provide hints about the amount of latitude Mr. Bush has, even in a period when people are speaking openly about a nuclear attack against Iran."