1. "I don't care. I like the guy." Show people a list of outragesperpetrated by the Bush administration in its first year, and most of them arelikely to respond with the moral equivalent of a shrug. Yes, you and I knowbetter and this is a sad state of affairs that we must all view with alarm, etc.etc. It also happens to be the case, and we had better start dealing withpolitical reality. The reality of the present moment and the foreseeable futureis that people in the aggregate like this president, whatever they may think ofhis policies.
Old 43, smirk and all, is infinitely more likeable than his father, who wasnever accused of being a "man of the people." More importantly, BushII is not personally disliked on a large scale, as was Bill Clinton. Peopleadmired Clinton, feared him, loathed him and lusted after him, held him in aweor in contempt, but few actually appeared to have liked the man.
2. Bush's personal failings only seem to make him more likable. People enjoymocking him for his verbal ineptitude, his lack of depth, his inability to eat apretzel and watch football at the same time, but they don't hate him for thesedefects. He comes across as human in a way his father's stiffly-controlledhysteria never was able to do.
Clinton's weaknesses appeared all the more appalling (and damnable) against thebackground of his formidable strengths. We wondered, how could anyone sobrilliant have been so miserably stupid?
Bush's perceived strengths emerge from all his shortcomings as a pleasantsurprise. He's better than we thought, whatever we thought.
3. Because we like him, we're going to let him get away with stuff we wouldn'ttolerate from others. This will be true long after Cheney has been tossed to theinvestigators and the last Enron executive tries to cut a deal.
4. The more we like him, the smarter he seems. Whoever debates him in 2004 isgoing to have to knock him out to beat him.
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5. Bush is every bit the politician Clinton, who should know, warned us thathe was. Clinton was extremely lucky to have made his first race for the WhiteHouse against the father and not the son. As Bob Herbert put it in the New YorkTimes, the Democrats now find themselves "placed in check by a fellow whowas initially viewed, at best, as a political lightweight."
6. They had better start taking him seriously, if they aspire to anything morethan the right to say "I told you so."
7. There really is an awful lot of addictive behavior in that family. We don'tcare, we still like him. Who doesn't have an irresponsible cousin or uncle whocan get away with murder and still be the family darling? And this just in froma Texas source: "You know, I think I'd drink and take whatever pill I couldget my hands on, too, if I had to grow up in that family." (A viewevidently shared by Dubya.)
8. The more he leans toward the center (and stiff-arms the religious right), themore we like him. He understands this. Only Nixon could go to China, etc.
9. The job approval rating is bound to fall. But not necessarily because wewon't still like him. It's amazing how much of the glow of "The WestWing" seems to have rubbed off on Bush, of all people.
10. It's the economy, stupid. Granted, people could care less about the economywhen they're running for their lives and scared to open the mail. Even thatenvelope with the tiny tax refund in it. But sooner or later the dust and feardie down. England gave Churchill the boot the minute the Second World War wasover.
The city of Houston used to feel much the same way about Ken Lay that thecountry now feels about Old 43. Then reality broke through, like a scene fromGLAMOUR: A WORLD PROBLEM, and perception was no longer reality. Find someone wholikes Ken Lay now.
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(David Vestis a regular writer for CounterPunch,where this piece first appeared, as well as a poet and piano-player for thePacific Northwest's hottest blues band, The Cannonballs)
