President Who Sees in Absolutes Awaits Voters' Definitive Answer
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 7, 2006; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/06/AR2006110601218.html?nav=hcmodulePENSACOLA, Fla., Nov. 6 -- These are trying times for President Bush. On the last day of the last campaign that will affect him directly, he came here as a favor to his brother on behalf of the Republican candidate for governor. Only the Republican candidate for governor skipped the event. Too busy, he said, to be with the president of the United States.
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To his critics, it sometimes seems as if Bush lives in his own world, oblivious or unwilling to accept the shifting reality around him. His is a world of absolutes. "I view this as a struggle of good versus evil," he said the other day about the war with terrorists. To Bush, that is strength, not weakness -- the certitude of conviction, the power of principle. He's "the decider" in a business afflicted by equivocation and thumb-sucking.
Few deciders have gone through such a period in which the decisions seemed so out of their hands. He told North Korea not to test nuclear weapons, but Pyongyang detonated a bomb anyway. He tells Iran to stop pursuing nuclear weapons, only to have Tehran thumb its nose. He orders generals to find a way to stabilize Iraq, but bombs and bullets claimed more U.S. lives in October than in any other month in two years.
Now the voters are the deciders, and it's a verdict Bush can no longer influence. They will decide whether to give him back a Congress that stands by him more often than not or to turn over at least one house to the opposition to force change. Bush insists he's not worried. But at least one person who saw him in private a few days ago interpreted his body language to mean that he did not think Tuesday will be a great day for him.
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At times, Bush appears confounded by the political problems confronting him. He is absolutely certain that, as he puts it, "they're coming after us," meaning terrorists, but does not understand why many others do not see it with the clarity he does. "I am in disbelief that people don't take these people seriously," he told National Review and other conservative outlets last month.