STILL FALLING UP:

From king klutz to superwarrior: The transformation of George W Bush: He may have seemed a joke in the early days of his presidency ... but no one is laughing now. Trevor Royle profiles a man born into politics, moulded by oil money, family values and old-time religion, traumatised by the tragedy of the Twin Towers ... and poised to lead a reluctant world into war (Trevor Royle, 09 March 2003, Sunday Herald)

Few who saw him accept the presidency on a snow-swept day in January 2001 ever thought that young Dubya would step up from being an insipid interloper to a world leader, about to embark on adventures that will change the shape of the world. First the Taliban and their evil ideas were sent packing from Afghanistan, the noose is tightening around the al-Qaeda terrorist network that attacked the US homeland, and now the Iraqi leader is in Bush's sights. Two momentous events saw to that: the September 11 atrocities, which demanded strategic realignment, and the mid-term elections a year later, which provided Bush's power base with unshakable foundations.

Yet, for all that Bush has adopted the complexion of the chameleon, many still believe that grey is still the predominant colour. The man who will take the world into a largely unwanted war, once said: 'When I was coming up, it was a dangerous world and you knew exactly who they were. It was us versus them and it was clear who them was. Today, we are not so sure who they are, but we know they're there.' Dubya knew what he meant, or at least thought he did, but, somewhere along the route followed by the presidential thought processes, the synapses clicked at the wrong moment and the sentiment came out the wrong way round, upside down, and decidedly mangled.

In the Chevy Chase world of US politics, it is easy to smirk at Bush's solecisms and snicker at the commonly-held view that he's a few beans short of a full burrito, a dyslexic who gets it so wrong that he once went to a fancy-dress toga party dressed as a goat. It is even simpler to write him off as a numbskull or a front man who needs others to wind up the clockwork before he speaks or acts. It needs no second prompting to suggest he is driven by religious fanaticism, almost fundamentalist in its intensity, to save souls and bring them to the redemption stool. Such thoughts might be diverting for unreconstructed cynics, they might give comfort to those of a nervous disposition, but they do not tell the whole truth. [...]

But like many other bitter jests from those days when the heavens seemed to be falling, there was more than a knowing smile behind the words. The jury is still out on whether or not Bush is a blockhead -- he seems to possess a sly, animal intelligence -- but one thing cannot be denied or rewritten. It was money that got Dubya into the Oval Office. Here was a rich kid living off his father's reputation, a guy who had been handed everything because it had been bought for him, a thin-skinned semi-failure with a tendency to reinvent his own life history, an oil baron wheeler-dealer whose money came from dubious sources, yet this bluff Texas cowpoke with a penchant for homely maxims suddenly found himself occupying the world's most powerful position .

As he stands on the brink of plunging the Middle East into turmoil or, if you prefer, of leading the next stage of his crusade against terrorism, Dubya is that curious amalgam of modern times -- a man who came from nowhere going somewhere, a latter-day Peter the Hermit blessed or cursed with big bucks, who has been permitted to decide the fate of hundreds of thousands of ordinary people. His election was as shabby an example of power exercised without responsibility as could be found in Richard J Daley's Chicago during the heyday of boss politics. Here was Tammany Hall meeting Midland, Texas. [...]

Due to the collegiate system Bush encourages in his inner Cabinet, a vital factor in understanding him is to know the last person to whom he has spoken. If it's Cheney or Rumsfeld, hang 'em high will be the way forward. If it's Powell, the agenda will include compromise and caution. Condoleezza Rice brings her own brand of pragmatism, balanced by Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz's ferocious realpolitik. Since quitting drink , Bush has become a good listener and enjoys moderating his argumentative Cabinet as they kick options back and forth. Here he is among friends who know where he is coming from. That counts in Team Bush.

This whole thing is just so arrogant and misinformed it's ridiculous, but some of the highlights (lowlights) surely include failing to acknowledge that Mr. Bush's rise to power required defeating a popular incumbent governor and then an incumbent vice president in a time of peace and unprecedented prosperity. Also, that along the way he had to knock off John McCain and was able to do so because the conservative core of the party saw precisely this possibility, of transformatory political leadership, in him. McCain would have beaten Al Gore by 5 to 8%, but is constitutionally incapable of this kind of ideological leadership. A McCain presidency would have been about John McCain. The Bush presidency is about remaking the GOP, the country, and the world on the basis of traditional conservative ideals. He may have bitten off more than he can chew, or we can swallow, but what's being attempted in each area is revolutionary (well, in the first two spheres it's counter-revolutionary).

And President Bush demonstrated his faith in his own leadership qualities when he surrounded himself with this cabinet, the most qualified since George Washington's. After all, there was no political constituency for Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld, and much bureaucratic danger in bringing aboard two former presidential chiefs of staff. But he not only hired them, he also brought aboard Colin Powell, John Ashcroft, Tommy Thompson, etc.--men who'd run governments or, in General Powell's case the U.S. Military, and have significant support within the party in their own rights. No man who was insecure about himself would have built such a team, one where he could easily have ended being overshadowed by his putative subordinates.

One particularly hilarious example of how much smarter--at least in terms of management skills--Mr. Bush is than Mr. Royle is that last bit about doing whatever the last advisor said. That is, of course, how you handle staff, allowing a Colin Powell to believe that he's convinced you to do what you've already decided, then taking him out to the Rose Garden to announce it to the press with him by your side, thereby making him beholden to you for what you'd do anyway. This continuing refusal, or inability, of pundits to examine Mr. Bush's political career through the lens of his business background seriously diminishes the quality of their analysis, and leaves them needlessly perplexed and their readers shortchanged.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 8, 2003 10:15 PM