Monday, December 05, 2005

WYSIWYG

From Wretchard in the comments of this post regarding the Kyoto conference in Montreal:


Many of President Bush's policies are not particularly brilliant. Many of them are obvious responses that any ordinary person could come up with. The real mystery is not 'why is President Bush so clever' but rather why are apparently clever and well educated people, like the 'Win Without War' and the 'Kytoto Protcol' people so dumb? When you observe President Bush you see what you expect: a normal man muddling along. But when you see the other set you are confronted the almost an unaccountable spectacle of dumbing down.

Many have accused me of idealizing President Bush, and while it is true that since 9/11, I admire him quite a bit, I hardly idealize him. On the contrary, what I find compelling about him are his obviously ordinary human qualities. He strikes me as a very REAL person--not a slick "persona" created by an ad agency; or a "celebrity" onto whom we project our own fantasies.

Bush does not pretending to be intellectually superior and can easily make fun of himself. Nor does it seem to matter much to him that everyone doesn't totally adore him. He tackles hard problems head on (which most politicians lack the courage to do) and perseveres in trying to fix them. He indeed "muddles along", misspeaks, and even screws up from time to time; but he presses on and actually gets things done.

That is what matters most to me.

He has achieved far more in the 5 years of his presidency (which still has 3 years to go) than either his father or Bill Clinton did in 12 years.

I'm sure that drives the Bush Haters crazy.

UPDATE: And this story just makes my day -- and proves my point!

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