THE past few weeks have been a time to reflect on the legacy of the Bush administration. It has not been a kind time for George W. Bush. Most analyses have been harsh, raking him over the coals for everything from Hurricane Katrina to Abu Ghraib to the financial meltdown to his advocacy of nearly unfettered executive power. I would join in many of those criticisms. But there is one area where President Bush’s legacy will be strong and admirable — the way he is leaving office.
Presidential transitions are always difficult. The United States has an extraordinarily long three-month interregnum during which the person departing the presidency retains full power while the person elected to assume the office waits to take over. I have likened it to a man who moves in with his fiancée — while her soon-to-be former husband still lives in the house. This awkwardness combines with the natural tension between the old and new over policy and personnel that exists even when the outgoing and incoming presidents are in the same party (ask members of George H. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan’s staffs about the 1988 transition).
For an outgoing president, there is always some resentment that the new guy is expected to act as president starting the day after the election; everyone anticipates his policies and ignores the actions of the lame duck. The president is often skittish about providing the newcomer with top-secret information, in part because the new team is not formally in place. For the president-elect, the outgoing president’s 11th-hour actions, including appointments of his loyalists to career positions, stir resentment.
Over the next couple of weeks, as Canada's Parliament resumes, it is likely that all of the major party leaders will all attempt to emulate the new United States President Barack Obama. For all three of Canada's party leaders, their biggest hurdle is that not one of them actually appears capable of accomplishing that feat. Source.
