Agenda already set for next president?

This MSNBC article hints that, despite the grand rhetoric of reform and change from both presidential candidates, the current administration's policies (and their subsequent fallout) preclude any large-scale transformations of American society in the near future.

Fineman writes:
"The next president’s foreign policy and defense script has long since been written. To simplify only slightly, it consists of winding down Iraq, declawing Iran and Hugo Chavez, and keeping Russia calm.

And now, after a scary and tumultuous fortnight of economic woes and corporate bailouts, his domestic narrative has also been outlined. And global credit markets, the Bush administration and Congress are holding the pen."

So will there be a "shrinking" of executive authority, since the president's economic power will be limited by the expanded power of the bureaucracies and Congress? Fineman says that this is supposedly the first time in history when the expansion of one president's authority has bound another president's hands to follow the same policies. I don't know if that's true, but he yearns for "another Lincoln or FDR" in the nation's time of need. Maybe expansive presidencies are viewed more positively in hindsight?