The similarities between Bush and Obama are becoming more and more apparent. It's not just that Obama is trapped "in a bubble more insulating than the actual president's." Or that they're both stubbornly unable to admit they were wrong about Iraq, which kept Bush from adopting a winning strategy and causes Obama to defend a losing one. Reports also indicate the two men have remarkably similar interests and appear to deal with pressure in the same way - despite holding diametrically opposed positions on public policy.
Just consider the absolute devotion both men have to exercising. Obama and Bush rarely miss a day at the gym. Each often spends hours a day, despite hectic schedules and busy jobs, working out. In a single day this past month, Obama made three separate visits to the gym totaling more than three hours. On another day, he apparently made six different trips to the gym. Bush's regimen is comparable. Formerly it was running and now entails mountain biking up and down scenic trails for hours on end.
Nerdish intellectual types who populate D.C. punditry class have long griped about President Bush's apparent commitment to physical fitness. In a lengthy article for the Washington Post, Jim VandeHei and Peter Baker cited "two-hour midday exercise sessions" in taking President Bush to task for his supposed "lackadaisical approach to the world's most important day job." Jonathan Chait of The New Republic dedicated an entire op-ed in the Los Angeles Times to Bush's alleged "obsession" with working out, remarking that it is "astonishing how much time Bush has to exercise."
Tellingly, these same Bush critics have said nary a word about Obama's exercise regiment, which if reports are believed, may actually exceed Bush's in time spent if not weight lifted. To win, Obama needs everyone to believe John McCain is really John McSame. That strategy is going to fail because commentators are beginning to realize that the junior senator from Illinois actually has a lot more in common with a certain one-term former governor of Texas.
