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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: 10K a day who wrote (185294)	9/22/2001 7:02:00 AM
From: E. T.	Respond to of 769670

From today's NYT...by Frank Bruni... nytimes.com Not everyone who has observed Mr. Bush's ardor and commitment views them as indisputably positive developments. Although the current moratorium on presidential criticism in the nation's capital prohibits most on-the-record carping, there is off-the-record concern, expressed not only by Democrats but also by some Republicans. They fear that there is something headlong and immature in some of Mr. Bush's exhortations over the last few days. They wonder if he is making promises he cannot keep and threats he cannot back up. They note it is impossible to know how — and how much — Mr. Bush has really changed, because efforts by the White House to control what gets said about him, and who says it, have been unusually aggressive. Most of the people in a position to talk knowledgeably about Mr. Bush's emotions are not talking at all. Those who do talk have often sought the administration's permission, and they reel off the same adjectives, like focused and resolute, that White House spokesmen do. Moreover, there are indications that Mr. Bush's nonchalant, jocular demeanor remains the same. In public, his off-the-cuff language still veers toward the colloquial. In private, say several Republicans close to the administration, he still slaps backs and uses baseball terminology, at one point promising that the terrorists were not "going to steal home on me." He is not staying up all night, or even most of the night. He is taking time to play with his dogs and his cat. He is working out most days and arrived at a 6:30 p.m. speech rehearsal on Wednesday straight from a half-hour session on the treadmill. But administration officials said that the president was investing certain duties, like Thursday night's speech, with extraordinary care. Ms. Hughes said that Mr. Bush had not been willing to schedule the address definitively until he was certain that he and his aides had nailed the speech, and she said that the event was not set in stone until Wednesday. People who have visited the White House in recent days said there was a changed, charged atmosphere there. One of them, Mark McKinnon, a senior adviser to Mr. Bush's presidential campaign, said that the president obviously feels that the business at hand "is the country's destiny — and his destiny." Others who are close to the president said there was a discernible spiritual dimension to his thinking. A senior administration official recalled Mr. Bush's response on Thursday when one of the religious leaders said that Mr. Bush's leadership was part of God's plan. "I accept the responsibility," the president said. One of his close acquaintances said that Mr. Bush had essentially "begun a new life that is inextricably bound to Sept. 11 and all that it implies." One implication, which he said he was sure that the president understood, was that from this moment forward Mr. Bush would be the despised enemy of violent extremists, and it might affect the tightness of the security around him even after his presidency. For now, the acquaintance said, it was giving Mr. Bush the clearest, sharpest compass he had ever possessed. "There's no question of what Bush's legacy will or won't be," he said. "He either beats this back — or we lose."