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BUSH: REAGAN REDUX. In today's New York Times, Paul Krugman writes:
As the Bush administration sinks deeper into its multiple quagmires, the personality cult the G.O.P. once built around President Bush has given way to nostalgia for the good old days. The current cover of Time magazine shows a weeping Ronald Reagan, and declares that Republicans �need to reclaim the Reagan legacy.�The Prospect piece by Cohn that Krugman references is called "Damaged Goods," and it can be read in full here. I do very much recommend giving it a look; you will do so with a shock of recognition. For a bit more on how George W. Bush's administration has acted through personnel, bureaucratic gutting, and regulatory fiats we rarely ever hear about, see this recent TAP Online piece by Genevieve Smith.But Republicans shouldn�t cry for Ronald Reagan; the truth is, he never left them. There�s no need to reclaim the Reagan legacy: Mr. Bush is what Mr. Reagan would have been given the opportunity.
In 1993 Jonathan Cohn -- the author, by the way, of a terrific new book on our dysfunctional health care system -- published an article in The American Prospect describing the dire state of the federal government. Changing just a few words in that article makes it read as if it were written in 2007.
--Sam Rosenfeld
