we witnessed the death of the great-man theory of Bush. The Bush presidency, in the minds of its most fervent supporters, has been built on the idea that Bush is a visionary with bold ideas that he forcefully pushes even when they sacrifice his own popularity. But the bold agenda is gone. His "addicted to oil" line will garner lots of headlines, but his actual oil-independence plan is so modest--tens of millions of dollars in a two trillion dollar annual budget--that it is barely worth mentioning. Instead of re-arguing the case for his Social Security plan, he called for another Social Security commission. The much-hyped health care proposals were mentioned in passing. His fancy American Competitiveness Initiative--a research and development tax credit and more money for math and science--seems reasonable but forgettable.
