Sorry to Burst Your Bubble...

"Bush's World-The Isolated President: Can He Change?"

What a goofy article! Evan Thomas and Richard Wolffe get the credit for this one.

Newsweek has decided that "Bush may be the most isolated president in modern history, at least since the late-stage Richard Nixon. It's not that he is a socially awkward loner or a paranoid. He can charm and joke like the frat president he was. Still, beneath a hail-fellow manner, Bush has a defensive edge, a don't-tread-on-me prickliness."

How lame!

It's page after page of psychobabble, amateur analysis, and unnamed sources.

In typical Newsweek style, its sources are shadowy figures. As usual, there is a reason for the mysteriousness. Thomas and Wolffe chalk up the need to keep their sources anonymous as matters of concern for the well being of the sources. They live in fear, terrorized by a vengeful president.

Thomas and Wolffe freely generalize, "A White House aide, who like virtually all White House officials (in this story and in general) refused to be identified for fear of antagonizing the president..."

ALL WHITE HOUSE OFFICIALS IN GENERAL REFUSE TO BE IDENTIFIED FOR FEAR OF ANTAGONIZING THE PRESIDENT.

That's quite a statement.

First, using a word like "all" is not a good idea. It has the ring of "But Mom...everybody is going. Please, can I go, too?"

Second, have "all" the officials really confided in Thomas and Wolffe, and confessed to them that they are afraid of Bush?

That seems possible if they only speak to two or three officials. Otherwise, I don't buy it.

The article compares Bush's style with other presidents. Not surprisingly, Bush is depicted negatively in comparison with the heroes of the past.

The piece ends with a nasty swipe at the President not being the type of person to do the right thing.

True mandates for hard choices come from reaching out and compromising. Bush's father understood that. Breaking his own "read my lips" promise at the 1988 Republican convention, he raised taxes in 1991 as part of a fiscal-reform package that was essential to the 1990s economic boom. The tax hike probably cost the senior Bush a second term in 1992. But it was the right thing to do. It's very unlikely the son would do the same.

I don't find this article's historical references intriguing. It's filled with bizarre conjecture, sort of in the style of Bob Woodward.

I don't think it offers anything significant to the reader other than yet more proof that Newsweek is deeply invested in the anti-Bush agenda.

The irony is that Thomas and Wolffe may really be the ones living in a very insular world.

Can they change?

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UPDATE: President Bush responds. Bubble is a figment of Newsweek's imaginative reporters. (Emphasis on "imaginative.")