Barack "Bush" Obama

Barack Obama is not only America's first black president, he's America' first black George Bush

New boss, same as the old boss - by Doug Thompson

You can dress 'em up, trot in out in front of the cameras and even change their race but, in the end, Presidents of the United States turn out to be cookie-cutter, Stepford-wives robot clones who, for the most part, act the same.

Barack Obama is a better speaker than George W. Bush and he dresses nicer but the President who went before the nation Tuesday night with yet another troop surge plan said a lot of the same things as Bush back when the former President promised a troop surge would solve all our problems in Iraq.

Obama also said he would get American troops out of Afghanistan in 18 months but why should be believe him? Like Bush before him, this President lies and mangles the facts.

Obama said the hell-hole called the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba would be closed. It isn't.

Obama said lobbyists would not have a role in his government. They not only have a role but wrote the hopelessly flawed health care legislation that is moving through Congress.

Obama promised a transparent government but his White House is as secretive as Bush.

Obama promised to end the Constitutional abuses of the Bush Administration but, if anything, he has become even more of a despot, working to extend the onerous USA Patriot Act, expanding the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program and expanding government power to snoop into the lives of ordinary Americans.

The President's long-awaited plan to deal with the escalating — and deteriorating — war in Afghanistan is more Bushian than Obamian. When in doubt, send in more troops, overtax an already-overburdened military where divorce rates and suicides increase daily.

Afghanistan has become Obama's Vietnam — a war without end in a country with a long-history of outlasting intruders from the outside. Like Lyndon Johnson, Obama inherited the conflict. Like Johnson, he believes the way to resolve a hopeless conflict is to send more American men and women to their deaths.

It's an old pattern practiced by an old-style Chicago politician who promised change but delivers more of the same. Barack Obama's Washington is not one of change but a stereotype where the status quo rules and the game is played by the old rules.

Obama is neither a leader nor a game-changer. He is a follower and a practitioner who delivers more of the same.

And more of the same is the last thing America needs.