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Before there was George W. Bush, there was his patron, St. Ronald Reagan, who — unlike Bush — remains coated with Teflon.

But for my money, my family and my country, they are twins cut from the same awful cloth, easily the two worst presidents in American history — and not just because of their devastating policies and politics, but also because they deceived and divided.

They lied to the American people (Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages) and grossly misrepresented their policies and their effects on the country and its people (nearly 4,000 Americans dead in Iraq pursuing nonexistent weapons of mass destruction).

And that all matters, because in just two weeks New Mexico Democrats will cast their ballots for their presidential nominee, and one of the front-runners, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, thinks Reagan was transformative and unifying.

Yikes! More Reagan myth, but from a Democratic presidential front-runner? Actually, just more evidence that the junior senator from Illinois is naive, easily bamboozled, historically challenged and not quite ready for prime time.

It's not bad enough that America's corporate media continue to fawn over Reagan, who was almost as deceitful, disingenuous and divisive as W. Now Obama, who runs for change, suggests he's Reagan-like and will transform and unify the nation.

Transform? Senator, do you mean you intend to deliver not one, but two recessions? Run up record deficits and the national debt? Appeal to Southern bigots citing "states' rights?" Waste billions on a Star Wars fantasy defense? Flail when your Cold War adversary offers nuclear disarmament? Embrace death squads in Latin America? Bust unions and start a decades-long decline of the middle class family? And in the end raise taxes — not cut them?

In claiming a Reaganesque unity mantle, Obama is creating great skepticism among clear-thinking Democrats. Do they, and more broadly, does the country, want a president like Reagan or Bush — all about style, smoke, mirrors and failures?

Bush beats out Reagan as the worst president only because of the absolute disasters of the Iraq occupation, the Katrina aftermath and a burdensome national debt that makes Reagan's look like noon tea. Otherwise, these lightweights are nearly identical in the damage they've caused across the American social, economic, scientific and environmental landscape.

Likewise for their cowboy foreign policies (shoot first, shoot second, no questions) over golden opportunities to unify the world against the threats of nuclear weapons and AIDS (Reagan) and terrorism and global warming (Bush). They blew it.

As has Obama, who faces well-deserved fire from his Democratic opponents, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and New York Sen. Hillary Clinton. They place on Reagan's shoulders much that is wrong in America today, including: unfair tax, budget and debt policies; the decline of labor and the middle class; the demise of health care and education; reckless arrogance on energy and environment; and the politics of class, division and exclusion.

State Democrats should remember Feb. 5 that Reagan begat Bush — the guy Obama wants to replace by emulating Reagan.