Over at Politico.com, senior editor David Mark poses this question: “Why can’t Democrats on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue act as cohesively as the Bush White House did with Republican congressional majorities most of its first six years in office?”

It’s a fair question, actually. And since President Obama is so eager to compare himself to President Bush, it’s perhaps worth pointing out — as a reference point — that in Bush’s first midterm election, Republicans regained their majority in the Senate and added six seats in the House. It was only the second election in American history in which a president’s party gained seats in both the House and Senate in the first midterm election (the only other time was in 1934, when FDR Democrats gained seats in both chambers).

We’ll see how Obama does in comparison to Bush on this score. I suspect not well.