On Luthor and Bush:
The problem is, aside from a handful of stories (Kelly did a JLA issue with President Luthor that was so obviously an anti-Iraq War screed that, EVEN AS SOMEONE WHO WAS AGAINST THE IRAQ WAR, I hated it), Luthor-as-Bush didn't really map out quite the way they wanted, did it?
After all, part of the reason why Bush-haters (myself included) hated him so much was because Bush was dumber than a bag of hammers, whereas Lex, while assuredly evil, is one of the SMARTEST MOTHERFUCKERS ON EARTH.
I mean, seriously, casting Luthor as Bush is like casting Lex Steele to play The Man With The World's Smallest Penis - it simply doesn't fit, and what was fascinating about the DCU at the time was seeing how BADLY the writers' ORIGINAL intent was FAILING, because in an ironic twist, whenever their stories FAILED to hammer home the Luthor-as-Bush theme, the stories were actually BETTER as a result.
Lex's character, in particular, went through this fascinating evolution of suddenly realizing, "Holy shit, I took over the world, and I did it legally," and then, unlike what Bush-haters like me believe Bush did to America, Luthor actually kind of made America a BETTER place - partly because he had enough ENLIGHTENED SELF-INTEREST to want to make people's lives better, but partly because he ALMOST seemed to be GROWING A CONSCIENCE.
It was fascinating because Lex was finally using his big brain to GROW UP, and it's an example of how BETTER writing can actually be WORSE for a franchise, because once the arch-villain stops being a bad guy, what the fuck do you do?
In DC's case, you hand him off to Jeph Loeb, who gives him a case of Out Of Character Stupid so that he can be kicked out of office.