He's No Bush

But sometimes he smells that way. Obama is using signing statements in ways for which he criticized the shrub during his campaign.

...last month several leading Democrats — including Representatives Barney Frank
of Massachusetts and David R. Obey of Wisconsin — sent a letter to Mr. Obama
complaining about one of his signing statements.

“During the previous administration, all of us were critical of the president’s assertion that he could pick and choose which aspects of Congressional statutes he was required to enforce,” they wrote. “We were therefore chagrined to see you appear to express a similar attitude.”

Meet the new boss...

Followup: Frank Rich agrees, in a disheartening column.

The best political news for the president remains the Republicans. It’s a measure of how out of touch G.O.P. leaders like Mitch McConnell and John Boehner are that they keep trying to scare voters by calling Obama a socialist. They have it backward. The larger fear is that Obama might be just another corporatist, punking voters much as the Republicans do when they claim to be all for the common guy. If anything, the most unexpected — and challenging — event that could rock the White House this August would be if the opposition actually woke up.