Posted on 12/03/2004 7:34:52 PM PST by RWR8189
A DEMOCRATIC SENATOR who attended a special screening of the movie Fahrenheit 9/11 was asked what he thought was the most revealing part about President Bush. The senator pondered a moment, then said it was the episode where Bush, in close-up, continues to talk to a grade-school class in Sarasota, Florida, for six or seven minutes after he's learned that planes had flown into the World Trade Center. What did it reveal? The senator couldn't say.
My impression, as Bush begins his second term in the White House, is that many in the political community, including the press, still haven't figured him out. One reason is the Bush presidency has emerged quite differently from what was expected. So here are five things about the president that help explain why he does what he does. They aren't the only five aspects of his presidency, but they're five important ones.
* ACTIVIST. The label is usually applied to liberal politicians, rarely conservatives. In Bush's case, it means he has a lengthy agenda and is impatient about enacting it. And it's an agenda--Social Security reform, altering the balance on the Supreme Court, tax reform, reversing cultural trends, a crusade for democracy around the globe--for change. Bush didn't get his activist streak from his father. George H.W. Bush was a caretaker president, dealing with items as they arrived in his in-basket. He lost his bid for reelection in 1992 partly because he didn't have much on his mind for a second term. Bush has a lot, and it's not trivial. One of his most stinging criticisms is to label a proposal "smallball"--in other words, not big or bold enough for serious presidential attention.
* OUTSIDER. Bush is an alien inside the Beltway. His election was the equivalent of getting a green card to work in Washington. He's not part of the social whirl. Nor has he made many close friends on Capitol Hill or around town. What separates him from the Washington crowd? More than anything else, it's religion. Bush is the first president who's a product of the modern evangelical movement, which means his Christian faith is personal, intense, and all-encompassing. It's not a part-time, Sunday-only thing. Leave Washington and you frequently encounter people who say of the president, "He's one of us." You don't hear that in Washington. A Texas friend recently sent the president a copy of Natan Sharansky's book, The Case for Democracy. Bush read most of it and asked Sharansky to meet with him at the White House. Bush praised Sharansky for his years as a dissident in the Soviet Union. To which Sharansky replied, "Now you are the chief dissident of the world."
* PRESS-BASHER. Bush has not made peace with the press, far from it. He views most reporters as political opponents eager to pepper him with gotcha questions. In Colombia last month, he appeared before reporters with President Alvaro Uribe. Bush didn't like the first question about a scuffle two days earlier involving the Secret Service. "This is a question?" he said, and gave a curt answer. Uribe said, "Do you want to get in one more [question]?" Bush said, "That's plenty. No. Thank you," ending the press conference prematurely.
Bush believes, correctly, that the Washington press corps favored John Kerry in the election. "Ninety percent for Kerry" is what White House aides say. Coverage of Bush reflected this. The Center for Media and Public Affairs found that coverage of Kerry was the most favorable for any presidential candidate since it began examining campaigns in 1988, while Bush's was mostly negative. Reporters complain they get little information from the White House. Chances are they'll get even less in the second term. Bush's calculation is that spending more time with the press would be time poorly spent.
* SURPRISER. Bush likes to defy the conventional wisdom. He often does it without even trying. I recently asked a leading supporter of Israel if he had known Bush would become the most pro-Israel president ever. He hadn't. Bush was expected to govern as a moderate conservative, but on most issues he's become hard core. He was expected to relax after November 2. Instead, he's plotting for next year. Presidents, indeed most politicians, are disinclined to give aides credit for their success. But Bush surprised Washington on the day after his reelection by calling Karl Rove "the architect" of his victory. The conventional wisdom is that Bush endorsed a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage to help win reelection but won't actually push it. The surprise of his second term may be that he pushes it aggressively.
* VISIONARY. Really. True, the word just doesn't seem to go with the Bush persona, or at least with the popular notion of Bush, the swaggering Texan. But in speech after speech, Bush has laid out a vision of democratizing the Middle East, then the world. In Halifax, Nova Scotia, last week, he pretended Canada shares his "great commitment . . . to enhance our own security by promoting freedom and hope and democracy in the broader Middle East." Most of Europe and Bush's own State Department disagree with this effort. But Bush is adamant. "It is cultural condescension to claim that some peoples or some cultures or some religions are destined to despotism and unsuited for self-government," he said in Halifax. With little fanfare, Bush also changed America's national security strategy from containment to preemption.
So where does all this leave us in understanding Bush? The first step is to abandon the original preconception of President Bush. He's different. The second step is to accept that he's attempting big things. And the third, as a result, is to get ready for a second presidential term like few we've seen.
Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard.
Misunderestimated!!
Really great piece by Fred Barnes. Fred is one of those people who reads better than he sounds. I also get the feeling that over time he has become more of a George Bush fan than he was in the beginning. I would admit, though, that I wasn't paying as much attention to Fred's positions at the start of the Bush presidency, so I could be wrong.
I'm almost certain that Fred considers himself an evangelical Christian, or at least a conservative Christian. I have heard him pretty heatedly defend Christian thought in politics, and get pretty riled up at the liberal, elitist snobbery about Christian conservatism.
An assessment of the President not shared by a lot of the media..... Probably has a lot of truth in it.
Wow, hold on to your hats. The more I read about Bush, the more I like.
Nice work, I'm starting to enjoy Freds writing more and more these days.
Dasshole gone
Chretien gone.
Kerry gone.
Gore gone.
Rather gone.
Brokaw gone.
Arafat gone.
Gephardt gone.
Edwards gone.
Saddam gone.
Taliban gone.
Kofi is on the ledge.
Putin is on the ledge.
The French still suck.
And President Bush is still standing tall.
Actually, my guess is that Fred is not an evangelical, just a fellow traveller of sorts. Would love to know what church he attends.
That's the man we voted for.
That's the man we love.
There could be another reason that Fred likes President Bush, and it isn't political.
Fred Barnes loves baseball, and so does President Bush. I wonder how Bush is going to play it now that Washington will have a team. I think he has stayed a Ranger fan, but he may change. Of course, since the Rangers used to be the Washington Senators, I guess they are "related" like cousins or something.
Char
You would be correct there. I have a friend in DC who attends the same church Barnes does. Brit Hume too.
I just love it when Krauthammer is on Fox. He pops up a lot on the weekend shows also, especially with Tony Snow.
I think Fred gets "yelled down" on Brit's show by Mort so much, that he doesn't expect to get much talking time, and then when he does he's surprised and just doesn't say things right sometimes. I do agree with his writing.
Good to see them all listed!
He da man.
Fred Barnes is an Episcopalian.
4th Pres., Bethesda, MD
I hate to tell you this, but I'm beginning to worry that Dashcle getting beat MAY NOT be such a great thing.
I read an article a little while ago on "The Hill" website about Harry Reid, who took Daschle's place. Oh, boy, he is adding something like 17 new staff members, and is forming a Democrat War Room in Wellstone's old offices in order to get "more organized". He also said that if people think because he is "soft spoken" that he will be easier for the Republicans to deal with, forget it, he says he plans on making it harder on the Republicans by not only better organization in the Senate, but with the outside groups like
NARAL, AFL/CIO, MOVE.ON.ORG, and other 527's.
Methinks we celebrated too soon. They also already have reams of notes on the records of every possible candidate that Bush will nominate for SCOTUS, with their records and their "negatives" ready to go as soon as name come up. That way their NEW press corps. will be able to get the smear job out before the Republicans can "promote" the candidate.
He then said, that they have to learn to smear people like the Republicans have done all these years, and that they (the Dems)have played "nice" for too long.
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