Is Obama the New Nixon?

So asks Stephen Walt, and he also compares the current president to Carter and Clinton. This is Stephen Walt, so he's mostly talking about security initiatives, but there's a bit of IPE as well. Obviously, we have no reason to think that Obama shares the personal flaws of Clinton or Nixon; the post is purely about policy.

I tend towards Clinton for the obvious reasons: he's come into office following a Republican (Bush) administration, carries a "third way" flavor, has quickly ingratiated himself to other world leaders, has been exceptionally ambitious (but has probably bit off more than he can chew this early in his administration), and seems to have taken a pragmatic/technocratic approach to governance.

Obama is his own man, and parallels are in the eye of the beholder, so I wouldn't want to stretch anything too far. And yeah, this sort of game is kind of pointless, but it's also fun.