But with about a year remaining before his term ends, Bush is now implementing policies that don't follow the ABC plan. On the contrary, he is beginning to seem reminiscent of Clinton.

A good example is the Middle East peace conference at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland on Nov. 27. Unlike the Clinton administration, Bush had paid little attention to the Israel-Palestine conflict over the past seven years of his term. Instead he gave top priority to the war in Iraq, regarding it as the biggest Middle Eastern issue.

What Bush is doing is reminiscent of what Clinton did seven years earlier. During the conference in Annapolis, Bush grasped the hands of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. With his mind on a Nobel Peace Prize in 2000, Clinton placed the highest emphasis on the Middle East peace process as his key foreign policy issue. Clinton stuck to the process until he left the White House, almost staking his political fate on it. Bush has pledged to produce tangible results by the end of his term by visiting Israel and Palestine early next year.

The Bush administration's North Korea policy, which took an about-face turn in the wake of North's nuclear test last year, has resembled the "Perry Process" of the Clinton administration.

Bush has been so aggressive for progress in recent talks with North Korea that he has been criticized by former U.S. ambassador to the UN John Bolton, a hardliner against the North from the early days of the Bush administration. During the first part of his presidency, Bush refused to talk with the North. But Washington-Pyongyang talks have now become so routine that articles about chief U.S. nuclear envoy Christopher Hill's visits to Pyongyang are carried in the corners of newspapers. Most recently, Bush went so far as to send a personal letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, calling him "Dear Mr. Chairman," just as Clinton did.

Bush is also laying emphasis on minor domestic issues as Clinton did, some analysts claim. U.S. media are reporting that in his final year, Bush is focusing not on big issues like Iraq, but on smaller ones such as reducing flight departure delays and dropping housing mortgage rates.

All in all, Bush seems to be changing everything in his last year. Some people close to the White House even say that Bush has been having a hard time keeping his administration staffed, as one aide after another leaves.

International politics is a complicated intermingling of good and evil. But Bush simply divided the world into two groups -- "good" countries and "evil" ones." He has lost support from traditional allies due to his self-willed policies. Until his party lost the off-year election last year, Bush had stuck to "politics of strength" rather than recognizing his domestic opponents and seeking compromise with them. As a result, he lost public trust. Rather than continuing to implement policies by obstinately ignoring the public, he has decided recently to make an about-face near the end of his term. Consequently, he is now been regarded as similar to Clinton, his political rival whom he disliked so much. This story about the incumbent U.S. president holds valuable lessons for Korea's presidential candidates.

This column was contributed by Lee Ha-won, the Chosun Ilbo's correspondent in Washington.