Bush's Ghost

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Maybe they should have made a place for President Bush at last night's debate, so that he could respond to all the gibes -- from both sides.

Democratic candidate Barack Obama and Republican candidate John McCain each summoned Bush repeatedly. Obama savaged the Bush legacy and argued that a McCain presidency would be de facto third Bush term. McCain, meanwhile, urgently tried to create a sense of distance from his party's profoundly unpopular leader.

From the transcript, here is Obama on the current economic crisis: "I believe this is a final verdict on the failed economic policies of the last eight years, strongly promoted by President Bush and supported by Sen. McCain, that essentially said that we should strip away regulations, consumer protections, let the market run wild, and prosperity would rain down on all of us."

Here's McCain on his proposal that the government buy up all the country's bad home mortgages: "[I]t's my proposal, it's not Sen. Obama's proposal, it's not President Bush's proposal."

(Continued here.)