It took me a little while to get to Mitch’s post from this morning, but I too am particularly struck by Alter’s suggestion that the Bush administration was driven by ideology. My first thought is, if only it were so. What could possibly have been the ideology of the Bush administration? Free market? They gave us TARP and the Medicare prescription drug program. Federalist? How would that square with No Child Left Behind. Maybe environmentalist–after all they tightened the ozone standard from the very tight Clinton era rules and declared the polar bear an endangered species. But something tells me that that isn’t what Alter had in mind. The fact is that there was no consistent ideology guiding George W. Bush’s administration. On the other hand Alter suggests that the Obama administration is the one not getting bogged down in ideology, but instead is focusing on statistics–whatever that means. But please tell me, is there anything he is proposing that is not consistent with a left wing, progressive ideological agenda? Anything at all?