Just as Richard Nixon "created" Jimmy Carter...

...and Jimmy Carter "created" Ronald Reagan, so has George Bush "created" Barack Obama. By this I mean that the three most unpopular presidents of my lifetime each created a climate that demanded the opposite traits in his successor. Or, as Jerry Seinfeld might put it, Barack Obama is "Bizarro George Bush."

For those of you too young to remember, Richard Nixon was one of the most divisive politicians of modern times. I think the shortest and best description of Nixon can be found in this quote by Adlai Stevenson:

Our nation stands at a fork in the political road. In one direction lies a land of slander and scare; the land of sly innuendo, the poison pen, the anonymous phone call and hustling, pushing, shoving; the land of smash and grab and anything to win. This is Nixonland. But I say to you that it is not America.

Well, it was America. Or at least a piece of it from his first run for Congress in 1946 to his resignation of the presidency in 1974. And the American people were sick of it.

Then along came Jimmy Carter. One-term governor of Georgia, Washington outsider, born-again Christian. His signature line was "I will never lie to you." In short, the Bizarro Nixon.

But things didn't work out so well for Jimmy Carter. The economy suffered as unemployment and inflation rose and interest rates soared to historic levels. Abroad, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan and Iranian "students" stormed the American embassy and held 52 hostages for over a year. Carter was seen as ineffectual and incompetent. The nation hungered for Bizarro Carter, which turned out to be Ronald Reagan.

Reagan had been on the national political stage since his famous speech endorsing Barry Goldwater for president in 1964. He represented the right wing of the Republican Party that was for small government, low taxes, a strong defense, and traditional values. Nuance was not one of Reagan's long suits, however. He saw the universe in black and white: the American people were good and the Soviet Union was the "Evil Empire." While much of the Washington establishment dismissed him (Clark Clifford famously called him an "amiable dunce"), the American public ate it up.

Which brings us to George Bush. I think in many ways Bush combined the divisiveness and mean-spiritedness of Nixon with the ineptitude of Carter.

Although he came to Washington as a "uniter, not a divider," Bush used wedge issues to divide the electorate and demonize his opponents. One of the great ironies of his tenure is how he and Karl Rove set out to create an enduring Republican majority and instead presided over a dramatic contraction of the party.

And as despicable as the Nixon administration was, I don't think they had anything over the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld legacy of Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and torture.

As for examples of Bush's incompetence, the list is long: 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, Katrina, the financial meltdown...take your pick. It would make Jimmy Carter blush.

So the country welcomes Barack Obama today, the Bizarro George Bush. This is the guy who first attracted attention by speaking at the Democratic convention in 2004:

Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes.

Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America.

The pundits, the pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too:
We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States.

We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the Red States.
There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq.

We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America. In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or do we participate in a politics of hope?

Hope. Change. Competence. That's what America is yearning for in the wake of George Bush.