I feel like David Brooks' picture of Bush -- now a man completely untethered from reality -- didn't attract quite enough notice when it came out last Sunday. I was struck, though, by this admission:
Bush said he will get Petraeus' views unfiltered by the Pentagon establishment. He feels no need to compromise to head off opposition from Capitol Hill and is confident that he can rebuild popular support. "I have the tools," he said.
So what Bush has been telling himself, apparently, is that public support is really malleable, and he still retains the bully pulpit power to rebuild it. He just hasn't decided to expend the effort yet. That's a rather unsettling admission, actually. Bush has managed to delude himself into believing the war isn't actually unpopular, but that he's just been focusing on other things besides the cultivation of public support. But so long as he believes the public is so weak-minded that their opposition is transient and their support can be summoned later on, he ned never face up to what it means to be undemocratically pursuing a loathed war above the opposition of the electorate.
