Examples of two presidents' public record. First, President Bush:

• THE PRESIDENT: Ribs? Good. Let's order up some ribs.
• Q What do you think of the democratic field, sir?
• THE PRESIDENT: See, his job is to ask questions, he thinks my job is to answer every question he asks. I'm here to help this restaurant by buying some food. Terry, would you like something?
• Q An answer.
• Q Can we buy some questions?
• THE PRESIDENT: Obviously these people -- they make a lot of money and they're not going to spend much. I'm not saying they're overpaid, they're just not spending any money.
• Q Do you think it's all going to come down to national security, sir, this election?
• THE PRESIDENT: One of the things David does, he asks a lot of questions, and they're good, generally.

Next former President Bill Clinton:

"The world you enter today in 2003 may seem very different from the world you left when you embraced the confines of Syracuse in 1999. In 1999, the economy was strong, the world was making progress toward peace in Northern Ireland and the Middle East, Bosnia and Kosovo. Science and technology seemed to offer limitless possibilities for progress and prosperity. Since you came here in that year, you have seen a close presidential election resolved in the Supreme Court; a lethal attack on the United States in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington; conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq; the continuing war on terror; the failure of many high-tech companies; and the reversal of economic progress."

"Here's what I want to say to you as you go out with your education. There's a big difference between the trend lines and the headlines, and one of the things that you need to be able to do as you leave here is to draw that distinction: to understand when you see a headline, if it's troubling or good, whether it's consistent with the trend line. And to know that it is your job as citizens, either of our country or of some 70 other nations from which you come, to try to build your trend lines. For the world of 1999 and the world of 2003 are actually not so very different. In 1999, we had the dangers of terror and weapons of mass destruction - it's just that they weren't in the headlines because they hadn't happened here. But we were working hard to deal with them."

One manages to fill me with hope, the other fills me with dread.

Actually, this comparison might not be fair. Bush's speaking was off the cuff, while Clinton's came from prepared remarks. A better comparison might be this off the cuff duscussion Clinton had at one of the Davos conferences.