MANDATE SQUARE GARDEN:

Short fuse betrays Kerry (Jim Wooten, 9/5/04, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

In expression and demeanor, Bush is the American ideal, the man next door who rises to the occasion, who finds his resolve in our condition. And despite the stress of crisis leadership, he retains a sense of humor about himself. He's not an easy target for angry Democrats who despise him.

Rising to the challenge to address domestic issues, too, Bush laid out an ambitious agenda with a common theme: slowly weaning the country from over-reliance on government by encouraging greater self-reliance and by rewarding individuals for being responsible.

It's an ambitious agenda that, like the war on terrorism, will be completed by his successors. But there's no denying his agenda is the reflection of a vision.

"In all these proposals, we seek to provide not just a government program, but a path, a plan to greater opportunity, more freedom and more control over your own life."

Liberals hear that as conservative jibberish. They're wrong.

It may take it as long as it took to win the Cold War, but George W. Bush has a domestic and a peace agenda as grand as Ronald Reagan's.

Except for a couple of real cranks unreconciled to the fact that deficits don't matter, it seems safe to say that Ronald Reagan is the sine qua non of modern conservatism. It's instructive then that President Bush, besides securing more legislative and executive achievements, has rolled the dice on the 2002 midterm and won and is now going for a mandate for significant further reform and will certainly make an effort to bring in a bigger congressional majority with him. one of the best early essays on Mr. Bush came from a surprising source, Bill Keller of the NY Times, and it was called Reagan's Son. the possibility exists though that Mr. Bush will surpass his political father just as he has his biological.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 4, 2004 8:19 AM