Fred Barns lists what he considers the outstanding characteristics of President Bush, which will help explain him to those who "misunderestimate" him.
- Activist
- ...it means he has a lengthy agenda and is impatient about enacting it. And it's an agenda–Social Security reform, altering the balance on the Supreme Court, tax reform, reversing cultural trends, a crusade for democracy around the globe--for change.
- OUTSIDER
- Bush is an alien inside the Beltway. His election was the equivalent of getting a green card to work in Washington....What separates him from the Washington crowd? More than anything else, it's religion. Bush is the first president who's a product of the modern evangelical movement, which means his Christian faith is personal, intense, and all-encompassing. It's not a part-time, Sunday-only thing.
- PRESS-BASHER
- He views most reporters as political opponents eager to pepper him with gotcha questions.
- SURPRISER
- Bush likes to defy the conventional wisdom. He often does it without even trying.
- VISIONARY
- ...in speech after speech, Bush has laid out a vision of democratizing the Middle East, then the world.
Perhaps the hardest thing for any cynic to comprehend is a person who is not a cynic. A cynic, it has been said, knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Those who assume Bush values only his own political career will continue to "misunderestimate" him.
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