Maybe you don't remember Bush's father, who finally decided to change course and raise taxes. Did the Democrats applaud his willingness to change course, to "grow" in office, and do something about the fiscal situation?

Hardly analogous situations. The Bush (43) administration should admit mistakes, as Kennedy did after the Bay of Pigs, instead of letting his credibility suffer from a thousand cuts.

Bush 41 made a big deal out of his promise not to raise taxes during his acceptance speech at the Republican convention. "My opponent won't rule out raising taxes, but I will. And Congress will push me to raise taxes, and I'll say no, and they'll push, and I'll say no, and they'll push again. And I'll say to them: READ MY LIPS! NO NEW TAXES!"

His public statements regarding his reversal invited ridicule.

"I started going into the numbers finally, " Bush said. "And they're enormous."

After coining the phrase "voodoo economics" and then spending 8 years in an administration that helped run up more red ink than the cumulative debt of the preceding 200 years of American federal government, it simply isn't credible that Bush finally got around to looking at the unsustainable debt numbers.

Or did they shred him for doing what they had been telling him to do for months? What was the big issue at the polls?

I don't recall Democrats blasting him for raising taxes and I doubt you do either. (I hope you're not gonna assert that after 8 years of failed supply-side economics, Bush 41 shoulda stayed the course over the fiscal cliff.) Republicans weren't too happy about his reneging on his promise, though. And Bush's subsequent statements just made him look weaker.

"Let me be clear. I'm not in favor of new taxes. I'll repeat that over and over and over again. And this one compromise that -- where we begrudgingly had to accept revenues, revenue increases -- is the exception that proves the rule."

"Listen, if I had that to do over, I wouldn't do it. It was the worst mistake of my presidency. Look at all the flak I took. Anytime you get hammered on something, I guess you want to redo it."

Bragging about kicking Geraldine Ferraro's ass didn't do much for him, either. Even lil Georgie Will was comparing him to a lapdog. Consider a Bush statement on the arms-for-hostages debacle:

"On the surface, selling arms to a country that sponsors terrorism, of course, clearly, you'd have to argue it's wrong, but it's the exception sometimes that proves the rule."

Government by exception is weak government. Even when Bush was committed to kicking Saddam out of Kuwait, he went into his Hamlet act and Maggie Thatcher had to keep him from going "wobbly" on her.

41 was a lousy president, but he looks like George Washington compared to his kid.