In a wide-ranging session with reporters, Mr. Rove suggested that the president ranked with Theodore Roosevelt as an environmentalist and predicted a close 2004 presidential race. He said the Republican Party had been strengthened by the controversy over Senator Trent Lott, and he played down his own reputation as the most powerful behind-the-scenes White House adviser, on both policy and politics, in generations. ...

Asked how Mr. Bush compared with Teddy Roosevelt on foreign and economic policy, Mr. Rove replied that the president is a populist.

"Give him a choice between Wall Street and Main Street and he'll choose Main Street every time," Mr. Rove said.

When faced with a decision whether to call for the elimination of the tax on dividends at the corporate level or the individual level, Mr. Rove said, the president sided "with the little guy."

Asked to elaborate, Mr. Rove said that "wealth is too important to be left to the wealthy" and that Mr. Bush wanted to reward risk-taking entrepreneurs. He said Mr. Bush's overall tax plan would actually put more of the total income-tax burden on upper-income people by removing more low-income people from the federal tax rolls.

Jackson was a frontiersman who spoke of the "idiots" in Washington. The cowboy-boot wearing Bush often ridicules Washington in speeches.

Jackson had a fierce temper and was ruthless against his enemies. Bush, too, is known for his hot temper and for dividing his world into friends and enemies. Bush keeps a scorecard with photos of wanted terrorists and checks them off as they are killed.

[Most importantly, Milbank noted, were the similarities between their world views:]

The Council on Foreign Relations' Walter Russell Mead, in a book last year titled "Special Providence," discerned four strains of American foreign policy: the Hamiltonian approach, which favors international commerce and institutions; the Jeffersonian approach, which frowns on costly international entanglements; the Jacksonian approach, an unapologetic flexing of military might; and the Wilsonian approach, an internationalism based on moral values.

The first President Bush had heavy Hamiltonian instincts. Bill Clinton mixed the Hamiltonian with the Wilsonian. Mead's book came out before it was possible to categorize the current president and his response to the Sept. 11 attacks. A recent conversation with Mead, though, allowed for some updating: Bush, he says, is increasingly pure Jacksonian.

A. Well, of course, he was referring to trusts. I'm referring to a lapse of ethics. And of the people forgetting the fact that they represent things other than their own compensation packages, however inflated they may be. That they have a responsibility to employees and shareholders. And I also understand how tender the free enterprise system can be if people lose confidence in the system it would be hard to attract capital in the markets. And that's one reason I've reacted so steadily against what I have seen. And I don't like it a bit. And I'm going to talk about it tomorrow. (Bush press conference, 7-8-02)