Obama Channeling George W. Bush in UN Speech

In his Wednesday address to the United Nations characterizing the Islamic State (ISIS) as "a network of death," President Barack Obama sounded more like his tough-talking predecessor, President George W. Bush, according to a host of writers, political pundits, and the twittersphere.

The National Review's Jim Geraghty refers to the president as "Barack W. Bush," while the Washington Post's Dana Milbank points out that Obama, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has morphed into a "linguistic heir to George W. Bush's Axis of Evil" in making the case for war against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL.

"Look, we're stuck with this guy as president for the next two years," Geraghty wrote. "I'd rather have Barack W. Bush than the guy golfing his way through his second term."

"Those who have joined ISIL should leave the battlefield while they can, the peacemaker threatens," mocks Milbank.

And Politico boasts the headline: 'Obama's new muse: George W. Bush'

Using the hashtag #historyrepeats, one twitter user wrote:

I may be crazy, but doesn't Obama's "network of death" sound very similar to "axis of evil"? And he campaigned anti-Bush. #historyrepeats

— Jason Park (@jpark_21) September 24, 2014

The comparisons are striking considering Obama's "rejection" and "ridicule" of Bush during Obama's first presidential campaign, according to Politico writer Carrie Budoff Brown.

"His rejection of the Bush worldview was so emphatic that it seemed to prompt the Nobel Peace Prize committee to give him the award just for getting elected," Brown writes. "So much for all that."

She points out strikingly similar verbiage between Obama's speech and one that Bush delivered post 9/11.

"There can be no reasoning — no negotiation — with this brand of evil," Obama said Wednesday.

In an address to airline employees weeks after the terror attacks Bush said: "We face a brand of evil, the likes of which we haven't seen in a long time in the world."

Obama aides have rebuked the comparison, according to Brown, saying the president has taken the same tone and used the same language for years.

Responding on twitter to a poster who wrote that "Obama's quotes are just ripped from Bush speeches wholesale," senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer tweeted:

@BenjySarlin I don't think that is true at all, this is how he has talked abt his CT strategy for as long as I have worked for him

— Dan Pfeiffer (@pfeiffer44) September 24, 2014

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