Stumping Zoo Statecraft

Mr. Bush is reminiscent of the protagonist of "Appointment in Samarra," by John O'Hara
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Academy/6422/rev1183.html
Bristling with filial tension and nurturing the chip on his privileged shoulder, the son refuses to follow in the proper father's footsteps and instead engages in, "impulsive bellicosity,"

W. has rocked the nation and the world as he gallops fast, frantically trying to avoid his dad's electoral fate.

Senator Kerry evoked the voice of Bush 41 to get under 43's thin skin. The more Mr. Kerry played the square, proper, moderate, internationalist war hero, the more the president was reduced to childish scowling and fidgeting, acting like a naughty little boy who refuses to sit in his seat and eat his spinach and do all the hard things a parent wants you to do.

Playing the Daddy card was part of the Kerry makeover by the Clintonistas - Bubba eye for the Brahmin guy
The Bushes get very agitated when confronted with the specters of fathers who made them feel that they never measured up

It was a sign of how unnerved W. was that he had to rely on his own dark, foreboding and pathologically unapologetic surrogate Daddy, Dick Cheney, to clean up his debate mess and get the red team back in the game. The vice president shielded the kid by treating John Edwards as even more of a kid.