“An outgoing president nearly always defines the next elections, Axelrod wrote, and people almost never seek a replica - certainly not after the presidency of George W. Bush.”
“Electing a black man named Barack Obama President in the same country that elected George W. Bush - twice! - is as far-fetched as a hustler from Marcy performing at that President's inauguration. But it happened.”
“JFK's great virtue, and the essential difference between him and George W. Bush, was that he had an instinctive appreciation for the chaotic forces of history.”
“Obama had campaigned against Bush's ideas and approaches. But, Donilon, for one, thought that Obama had perhaps underestimated the extent to which he had inherited George W. Bush's presidency - the apparatus, personnel and mind-set of war making.”
“Will this long presidency of George W. Bush ever be over?Living through it is starting to seem like some ghastly, upsettingnovel in which the hero is the country, and the president is thisdisturbing, pig-headed, oblivious villain who makes things worseand worse and worse.”