Agile and Lean really Hipopalorum and Lopopahirum

In his blog this week, Martin Fowler attempts to explain away the misconceptions that "lean" and "agile" software practices are two different methodologies. I wanted to add that the idea that these were different came from consultants who are trying to convince you that the differences are so complicated that you need a consultant to succeed.
Whether your talking about Extreme Programming, Scrum, Lean, or Agile, you are really talking about tools that follow the same basic practices and understandings that make these all work.
As I explained in my guest post at Management Craft, you are talking about common sense.
Agile practices work well in Software Development, but if you boil them down to their basic common denominators, you are talking about something that can work for anyone—without consultant hand-holding.
Being a history buff, this whole Lean versus Agile debate reminds me of something Senator Huey Long used to joke about in the 1930s.
There were two patented arthritis medicines on the market, one was called Hipopalorum and the other was Lopopahirum.
One you rubbed on your body from bottom to top and the other you rubbed on your body from top to bottom. The ingredients of the product were exactly the same. They were just being promoted by different salesman.
This is not unlike the different business consultants that confront us today.
Anyway, just to finish the story...
Long—aka "the Kingfish"—had been elected Louisiana governor, then United States Senator, and he announced his candidacy for President of the United States in 1935.
Most of his speeches compared our political parties to Hipopalorum and Lopopahirum—and their product vendors.

"The only difference between the two parties is one skins us from the top down and the other skins us from the bottom up."

Huey Long was assassinated in September of 1935.