Here goes Peggy Noonan, White House veteran and savvy observer, being smart again.
If this White House is all George Bush, nothing changes or shifts, nothing hits refresh unless he does. He is a tough and stubborn man, a brave one too, and he leads with his heart. These are virtues, or can be. The presidency can break you--we've seen it break presidents--and he does not intend to be broken. But one senses he fears to bend because if he bends, he breaks....Posted by Alan at April 20, 2006 06:58 AMSometimes Mr. Bush acts as if he doesn't know you don't have to look for trouble, it will find you. When you are the American president, it knows your address by heart.
I know that on some level he knows this. The president has taken, those around him say, great comfort in biographies of previous presidents. All presidents do this. They all take comfort in the fact that former presidents now seen as great were, in their time, derided, misunderstood, underestimated. No one took the measure of their greatness until later. This is all very moving, but: Message to all biography-reading presidents, past present and future: Just because they call you a jackass doesn't mean you're Lincoln.