Monkey Do.

• Author: REED, BRUCE
• Position: Similarities between presidencies and management decision of Pres George W. Bush and former president Bill Clinton

Bush's White House is repeating the Clinton administration biggest mistake.

IF THERE'S A SINGLE PRINCIPLE THAT motivates George W. Bush, it's that he's no Bill Clinton. As a candidate, Bush didn't find his voice until a McCain commercial in the South Carolina primary compared him to Clinton. He closed every stump speech with a pledge to restore honor and dignity to the Oval Office, raising his hand more in 18 months on the campaign trail than he must have in 18 years of school. Every move Bush has made as president--from working banker's hours to shunning the bully pulpit--seems carefully choreographed to show that the era of Bill Clinton is over.

Yet for those of us who served in the early Clinton White House, the little ways the Bush administration has tried so hard to look different are less striking than the one big way it looks familiar. A Southern governor with lots of charm but an uncertain mandate wins the presidency by promising to take his party in a new direction. Then his administration spends its first months doing everything in its power to assure his party he didn't mean it.

The Bush White House, justifiably proud of its discipline, no doubt considers it a victory to get this far without a scandal like Travelgate, a distraction like gays in the military, or a domestic crisis like Waco. Though Bush lost one cabinet nominee over a domestic worker whose papers weren't in order, Clinton lost two.

But what nearly killed the Clinton administration in the cradle was not indiscipline and inexperience (although we had plenty of both). On the contrary, what hurt us most was that we did everything the voices of experience in Washington advised. We rushed bills that couldn't pass but congressional Democrats wanted, such as the economic "stimulus package" which gave obstructionist Republicans their first victory. We delayed bills like campaign-finance reform and welfare reform, which Clinton had promised to pass but Hill leaders didn't want. Instead of setting out to command a broad bipartisan majority across the country, we settled for a narrow, shrinking majority of our own Democratic ranks. The American people, who had hoped for better, took us to the woodshed in the 1994 elections.

One might have expected George W. Bush, whose political career got off the ground in the 1994 election, to recall that object lesson. After all, not even the Supreme Court could have elected Bush president if he hadn't run as a different kind of Republican out to change the tone in Washington.

Alas, it seems that some things never change. If the Bush team was ever sincere about putting country before party, it didn't take long to revert to form. On the defining issues so far--tax cuts, the budget, the environment, campaign reform--the man who promised to "trust the people" has deferred to his partisan base in Washington every time. Even as Bush has labored mightily not to make any of Clinton's early mistakes, he may be making the most important one of all.

Why don't new administrations know what's good for them? What kind of pressure could take an administration from promising to "leave no child behind" one day to easing arsenic standards the next? Well, they don't call it a presidential transition for nothing.

As I watch this new administration hatch, I feel some sympathy for the Bush team. Through eight years of ups and downs, I loved every day I spent in the Clinton-Gore White House. But I loved those first 100 the least.

Nonetheless, I see the Bush administration sliding down a familiar slope that, if not reversed, could have dire consequences for them and for the country. We learned our lesson and found our bearings, and so can they. But so far, this White House seems more proud than worried about its course.

What follows is a cautionary tale of the lessons new administrations learn too late, and ignore to their peril.

Man of the House

Early in an administration, the party in power thinks it is the center of the universe, let alone the country. In the glow of victory, every idea suddenly looks like a winner, every dream within reach. From the think tanks around town, wonks who have toiled for decades in darkness emerge to spread the dust of ancient policy schemes through administrations.

After 12 years in the wilderness, the early days of the Clinton administration were a mad land rush for Democrats. Clinton signed five executive orders on abortion...