South Carolina Senator and John McCain water carrier Lindsey Graham did his man no favors on the Sunday talk shows. Just five days after McCain pleaded with voters during his disastrous "green screen" speech not to believe that he represents a third term for George W. Bush, Graham agreed that "John McCain is calling for an extension or maybe enhancement of the Bush policies." Amazingly, Graham's pronouncement came just one month after he dared the media and voters to equate McCain with his predecessor by proclaiming, "Good luck making him George Bush."
As John McCain's speech Tuesday, his new ad this week and his campaign's close coordination with the White House all show, running away from President Bush and his Republican Party is an essential strategy for the McCain campaign. Somehow, Lindsey Graham didn't get the memo, or forgot having read it.
Appearing on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopolous, Graham stated in no uncertain terms that John McCain's tax and health care policies represent a continuation of the Bush approach:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me bring Senator Graham back in on this because you brought up two. You said the tax policy and the health care policy were essentially, Senator Graham, John McCain is calling for an extension or maybe enhancement of the Bush policies.
GRAHAM: Yeah, absolutely.

Graham's admission stood in sharp contrast to his performance in early May, when he took great pains to deny George W. Bush's policy paternity when it came to a McCain presidency. Using the environment as the issue to drive the wedge between Bush and McCain, Graham on May 4 stuck to the campaign talking points:

"I think there are a couple areas that would be different. One global climate change. John has been talking about global climate change for many years now. I think he would help lead the world to a solution there.
On the domestic front, I don't think you'll have a stronger advocate for limited government than Sen. McCain. And when it comes to foreign policy, I think John can put together the alliances that we need, strengthen some alliances that have been frayed a bit that will help us confront places like Iran. John is his own guy. Good luck making him George Bush."

As it turns out, equating John McCain with George W. Bush is a simple task. After all, John McCain in his eternal quest for the Republican presidential nomination has adopted virtually the entire Bush agenda. Over the past year, McCain voted with Bush 100% of the time.
At the end of the day, Lindsey Graham can be forgiven for inadvertently speaking the truth about his close friend. Across almost every issue foreign and domestic, John McCain did a copy and paste of the Bush platform. It's no wonder McCain surrogate Roy Blunt (R-MO) was only too happy to acknowledge to CNN's Wolf Blitzer that McCain's tax policies "would be in effect a third Bush term:"

"It would be. I think it would be. And I think that's a good thing."

As for George W. Bush, he no doubt never read the McCain camp's memo. Offering John McCain his support on March 5, 2008, Bush praised McCain, saying "he's not going to change" his foreign policy.