Notes from a Parallel Universe

Courtesy of Joe Klein:

Karl Rove:

House Republicans had the wisdom to continue to talk to the Obama White House. This made them look gracious, even as the president edged toward a “my way or the highway” attitude.

Pete Wehner:

Right now President Obama and his team look at times amateurish and somewhat overmatched by events.

But look! Obama just passed a gargantuan piece of legislation. It may be a bad bill and it may not achieve its stated aims but it’s a “stiumulus package” of about the size Obama said was needed, passed about the time by which he said it needed to be passed. Whether one approves of the package is beside the point; the point is that the new President has cleared his first legislative hurdle. Republicans may not like that but pretending that a legislative victory is in fact a legislative defeat is not likely to impress too many people who aren’t already signed up to the unconvincing theory that Obama is an Amateurish-But-Still-Lethally-Dangerous-Trotskyite…

Anyway, if Obama is “overmatched by events” what was George W Bush?