bush in a swense, he has run a competent presidency but without the vision overlay that you would want if you really want readch. for george w. bush, he wanted to be ronald reagan with his values. i do not think his vision sold as well as reagan's had. he reminds me a little bit of woodrow wilson in the downside way, who was i think a little bit too rigid, especially in the early years. he loosened up and got better in a lot of ways in his second term. but these guys, you can see amalgams of their predecessors. it is never an exact fit. they will have a little bit of this one or that one. i invite readers to make their own club sandwiches out of these guys. peter: of course, one thing that both of them faced but now particularly president obama is a context in which there is full-out political gridlock, in which there is very little cooperation of any description between the executive and legislative branches. how does that effect this exercise in constitutional interpretation from the perspective of the presidency? hal: what is has done, i think for anybody who might be in the white h