Quite the candid assessment, tucked in the Washington Post's non-analytical news report:
In trying to adopt such ambitions as his own, Bush hopes to regain the
initiative after his party lost Congress in November and to counter his
reputation as a president who took a budget surplus and turned it into
record deficits, analysts said. Bush has never proposed a balanced
budget since it went into deficit, never vetoed a spending bill when
Republicans controlled Congress and offered little sustained objection
to earmarks until the issue gained political traction last year.
No criticism here. It's refreshing to see some front page information not couched in the middling language of false objectivity, with "both sides" of a clear, one-sided issue represented, or damning information hedged with "some observers say." Facts are facts. You don't have to back away from them. If they make it seem like Bush is bandwagoning, well...