Nick Jimenez

Now we're seeing real George W.

It seems a long time ago, longer than the seven years it has been, since George W. Bush, running for governor against incumbent Ann Richards, appeared before the Caller-Times Editorial Board.
   As far as I was concerned at the time, he had two claims to fame: he was the son of a president and he was the most visible owner of the Texas Rangers. And that's the identity he carried into the campaign, to a large extent even after he defeated Richards in an upset.
   In an age when professional "message" designers, image creators and political spinmeisters run elections, it's hard to tell what a candidate's identity really is. Campaigns talk a lot about character, and their operatives design "photo-ops" and press events to show the candidate's strengths. In reality, we usually don't have a clue.
   We have become so inured to candidates being packaged that cynicism easily follows. We may wish for leadership, but we'll settle for honesty and decency. If the officeholder doesn't run off with the cash register, and at least tries hard, we figure we came out OK on the deal.
   And perhaps candidates get so deadened by being told who they are by campaign handlers that they forget who they really are. Or, in some cases, they may never know.
   Into his presidential campaign, candidate Bush was called the "uniter," and "the compassionate conservative." As the campaign fortunes of the Bush-Cheney ticket soared and dipped, the campaign machine turned out new identities for the head of the ticket.
   The long count in Florida seemed to give Bush a new label, the "invisible" candidate, as he disappeared behind a raft of lawyers and spinners. Even when he entered the White House, there were other identities, those pinned on him by critics and opponents and those draped on him by his own aides. He was "the Supreme Court" president and "the Electoral College" president.
   Then, as his first decisions and initiatives came out of the White House, another picture of Bush emerged. He became a "cozy friend of oil and gas," a "pal of the NRA" and the "go-it-alone" president.
   All or none of these identities prevailed on the morning of Sept. 11. Whether you accepted or rejected these labels for Bush depended on your political leanings. I suspect for Americans who don't spend all their time watching political shows and listening to talk radio, Bush was an unfinished picture.
   Since Sept. 11, the spinners, consultants, image-makers have been banished to the sidelines. We saw that on the morning that Bush was on the phone with New York City Mayor Rudolph Guiliani and New York Gov. George Pataki, and we saw that in the press conference afterwards. Bush had become a real person, and a real leader had emerged.
   In his meeting with the firefighters and rescue workers amid the wreckage of the World Trade Center, Bush shed any aura of image-creating. There was not need for it. I felt that this was the real Bush when he put his arms around weary firefighters, taking strength from them and, in turn, giving them inspiration. His speech before Congress was not only his best speech, it was a great speech by any standard. All that talk about Bush mangling words disappeared. Bush sounded true to himself in speaking at the National Cathedral on the Day of Remembrance.
   There's been talk of Bush being "transformed." But was that Bush always there, or has he risen to the occasion? It doesn't matter. The point is that he has, in this hour of national crisis, exhibited and practiced leadership of a rare kind.
   Particularly impressive is a trait of leadership that is seldom practiced, which is to educate your followers. That trait will be important in the months to come. He has urged Americans to be patient because this is a different kind of war. And he has made the protection of innocent Americans of Middle Eastern descent and adherents of Islam as much a campaign as the pursuit of the guilty.
   We don't need campaign consultants, media gurus, or image designers to tell us who George W. Bush is anymore. We know who he is. He's the president.
  
   Nick Jimenez can be reached by phone at 886-3787 or by e-mail at jimenezn@caller.com.
  
  
  

 
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