Businessweek: Elmer Befuddled

A NOT-SO-NEUTRAL CORNER
By Ciro Scotti
See Bush Debate. See Him Squirm
Businessweek
http://www.businessweek.com/print/bwdaily/dnflash/oct2004/nf2004101_0937_db009.htm?chan=db&
He looked like a hapless teen called on the carpet as Kerry channeled Poppy and termed the Iraq invasion a "colossal error"

Watching George W. Bush on the hot seat is painful. When he gets that fawn-in-the-deerjacker's-light look, you feel for the guy.

Publicly at least, he's not a mean-spirited man. Near the end of Thursday's debate when he was asked if he had any reservations about John Kerry's character, he was gracious, momentarily generous, and generated the evening's only human moment. And not just because his opponent is a fellow Skull & Bones man (see BW Online, 10/1/04, "Republicrat vs. Democan"). That's usually the way Bush comes across -- a likable Joe, sincere in his beliefs, and comfortable in his own skin.

DEBATING POPPY.  Besides that, he's the President and has led the nation at a time of enormous peril and uncertainty (some of it, arguably, of his own making). Love him or detest him, he sits at the desk where the buck makes its last stop.

But in Coral Gables, Fla., last night, Bush looked -- at least for the first half of the debate -- like Elmer Befuddled, a commander-in-chief not in command.

Perhaps what was so unnerving was that Bush found himself in a foreign-policy debate with a seasoned politician who was espousing the same sort of measured, internationalist approach to a dangerous world that was the hallmark of his father's Presidency. Debating the security and future of the nation on live national television isn't easy -- but debating your Dad is downright scary....