I don’t like him as a President, although as a Commander-in-Chief, I think he’s pretty good. I despise what he’s done in allowing Congress to sabotage both the future economy and future American liberties with Patriot I and II – you’d think Mr. Goldberg and the other conservative Patriot apologists would be sharp enough to discern the fact that something HAS NOT been used does not mean that it WILL NOT be used – and he did not take the opportunity to take the US out of the UN when it was sitting there like a fat pitch over home plate, just waiting to be driven out of the stadium, prior to the start of the Iraqi war.
What I like, though, is how President Bush is always visibly uncomfortable in a suit on a state occasion, especially when you contrast this with how happy and relaxed he appears when he’s in a flight jacket surrounded by the soldiers under his command. For all his failings, I can’t help but like seeing a president who manifestly doesn’t get off on the trappings of his power.
Will I vote for him? No. But I think I ‘d enjoy shooting the breeze with him for an evening. It’s entirely possible that, like Churchill, the president is so focused on the ongoing war – he has a lot of information that we do not – that he sees everything else as completely irrelevant for the time being. It’s even possible that he is correct.