Bush is in big trouble now, as more and more of the national audience sees what he's made of, and what his radical agenda's all about. To some extent, of course, it is the sick US economy, and his apparent inability to deal with it, that's worsening his PR problem---just as it did with George Herbert Walker. Despite their very different personal styles---Sr. being pure Greenwich, Jr. being all Texas---both men are alike in finding it impossible to put a mask of "caring" on their sense of privilege, which has been bred into both of them, and cannot be concealed, whatever moves the propagandists try to make.

But it's not only his team's cluelessness about the economy that has Americans spooked about this president. First of all, there is the growing obviousness of his deep streak of partisan vindictiveness, which so baldly contradicts his pose as a "uniter-not-divider" that not even his supporters can pretend to buy it any longer. That pose was dealt a major blow by the defection of Jim Jeffords, and it has only grown less credible as Bush has gone on alienating other moderates in his party, as well as the "Blue Dog" Democrats, who were once expected to give Bush a big congressional advantage, but who now vote angrily against him, so clear is his contempt for them. Bush is not just partisan, but super-partisan ---comfortable only with the rightmost sector of his party, which pushes an agenda most Americans deplore---on arms control, gun control, the environment, health care coverage, and so on. Americans are also largely discontented with Bush/Cheney's radically unilateralist stance on foreign policy. Only the true believers of the radical right believe that the United States should turn itself into the world's largest and most powerful rogue nation. Bush's slipping poll results (he's now reportedly right back where he was just prior to the election) are partly a response to such high-handed treatment of the entire world beyond our borders.

And speaking of the world, Bush also may be slipping in the polls in part because of his manifest uninterest in appearing as "the president of all the people." In other words, his very long vacation has offended many US citizens not just because it tells them that he doesn't like to work too hard, but also because he seems intent on using it, at every opportunity,to jeer the populations on both coasts. This is an astonishing mistake for someone as politically astute as Bush has often shown himself to be. It probably results from overweening arrogance. Whatever its cause, it cannot do him or his party any good, because the greater part of the US population is located on the coasts; and there are surely many people in the heartland who are likewise not too happy that their president so obviously has respect for only some Americans---i.e., the ones that live where he lives. (I can say with absolute conviction that I myself would be deeply offended if the president were snide about the people in between the coasts.)

Finally, though, I'd argue that this president's most serious problem is the one that gets the least attention in the media: his having stolen the election. The astonishing success of the DYSLEXICON, despite its having gotten few reviews and very little TV coverage, has much to do with the widespread---and wholly justified---conviction that this president was not elected but installed, through an immense slo-motion coup, effected by the Bush campaign, the Bush machine in Florida, the Supreme Court and our compliant---and, therefore, amnesiac---mainstream media. For months, most of the people, Greens and Democrats alike, who voted against Bush have been quiescent, not because they've been contented, certainly, but because they've been demoralized---so shocked that they have been unable even to watch the TV news, much less mount some kind of protest. Bush's recent slippage in the polls, therefore, may well reflect the gradual coming-to of that American majority which voted not for George Bush but against him---a majority that will not stand for him, when and if it finally comes to consciousness again.

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Mark Crispin Miller, the lauded author of The Bush Dyslexicon paid Potpourri a visit, and graciously offered us an update on his thoughts about the Presidency. If you haven't bought his book yet, do it now! You'll thank yourself. And we thank Mr. Miller for his brilliant efforts on behalf of language and liberals in America.