The 'Stricken' President: When Down Is Up

If you accept the judgment of the polls, George Bush is a stricken President. Leave aside his now permanent sub-50 percent status in popular approval. Take his calling card, conduct of the "war on terror" and Iraq. His status on the approval charts now shows him wallowing without mast or rudder in the mid-30s. Honesty? Here Bush is bidding to join Nixon in the sub-basement of popular esteem, somewhere around the 40 percent mark.

But hold! The measure of a stricken President is surely an inability to push through the legislation he desires. Remember Bill Clinton. By midsummer in his maiden year of White House occupancy he was truly stricken. He had to send a Mayday call for lifeboats, which duly arrived under the captaincy of Republican David Gergen, with Dickie Morris soon to follow. By July 1993, as the receptacle of liberal hopes, the Clinton presidency was over.

Look now at Bush. Stricken he may be in the popular polls, but his political agenda flourishes.

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