David Brooks is a chump

David Brooks looks into George Bush's soul and finds a farsighted man of deep convictions:

A leader's first job is to project authority, and George Bush certainly does that. In a 90-minute interview with a few columnists in the Oval Office on Tuesday, Bush swallowed up the room, crouching forward to energetically make a point or spreading his arms wide to illustrate the scope of his ideas -- always projecting confidence and intensity.

He opened the session by declaring, ''Let me just first tell you that I've never been more convinced that the decisions I made are the right decisions,'' and he grew more self-assured from there.

I interview politicians for a living, and every time I brush against Bush I'm reminded that this guy is different. There's none of that hunger for approval that is common to the breed. This is the most inner-directed man on the globe.

The other striking feature of his conversation is that he possesses an unusual perception of time. Washington, and modern life in general, encourages people to think in the short term. But Bush, who stands aloof, thinks in long durations.

''I got into politics initially because I wanted to help change a culture,'' he says, referring to his campaign against the instant gratifications of the 1960's counterculture. And he sees his efforts today as a series of long, gradual cultural transformations.

Like many executives, he believes that the higher you go, the further into the future you should see, and so his conversation is filled with speculations about the long-term effects of deep social trends -- the current religious awakening or the politics of volunteer armies.

All of which prepares him to think about the war on terror as a generations-long struggle. He asked us to think about what the world could look like 50 years from now, with Islamic radicals either controlling the world's oil supply or not.

''I firmly believe that some day American presidents will be looking back at this period in time, saying, 'Thank goodness they saw the vision,' '' he said. Sitting between busts of Lincoln and Churchill, he continued, ''My hope is to leave behind something -- foundations and institutions that will enable future presidents to be able to more likely make the tough decisions that they're going to have to make.''

Why can't I help thinking that Brooks has been completely snowed? Bush takes the long view and campaigns against a culture of instant gratification? Isn't his refusal to recognize the problem of global warming a prime example of the desire for instant gratification winning out over the long view? Same with the tax cuts. Same with his desire to win elections at all costs, even if it means using 9/11 and the threat of terrorism to divide the country and demonize his enemies.

He desires to lay the groundwork that will enable future presidents to make tough decisions? Well, I guess that's true in the sense that his policies have so screwed things up - in foreign affairs, in the budget, in the war on terror, in our political culture - that his successors will be left with a menu of terribly unappealing options to chose from on all of these issues.

This is a man who thinks in terms of the two-year election cycle, and no further; or rather, who pays Karl Rove to think in terms of the two-year election cycle and no further. Why does he wax long-term on Iraq? Because the short-term is too horrible to contemplate! His policies in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East are so clearly a disaster that he has no choice, rhetorically, to try to get columnists like David Brooks to cast their gaze fifty years ahead rather than worry about events as they unfold. David Brooks is a chump.