Without a Doubt

From Ron Suskind's in-depth portrait of George W. Bush, "Without a Doubt," in this weekend's New York Times Magazine:

Bruce Bartlett, a domestic policy adviser to Ronald Reagan and a treasury official for the first President Bush, told me recently that "if Bush wins, there will be a civil war in the Republican Party starting on Nov. 3." The nature of that conflict, as Bartlett sees it? Essentially, the same as the one raging across much of the world: a battle between modernists and fundamentalists, pragmatists and true believers, reason and religion.

''Just in the past few months,'' Bartlett said, ''I think a light has gone off for people who've spent time up close to Bush: that this instinct he's always talking about is this sort of weird, Messianic idea of what he thinks God has told him to do.'' Bartlett, a 53-year-old columnist and self-described libertarian Republican who has lately been a champion for traditional Republicans concerned about Bush's governance, went on to say: ''This is why George W. Bush is so clear-eyed about Al Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalist enemy. He believes you have to kill them all. They can't be persuaded, that they're extremists, driven by a dark vision. He understands them, because he's just like them. . . .

''This is why he dispenses with people who confront him with inconvenient facts,'' Bartlett went on to say. ''He truly believes he's on a mission from God. Absolute faith like that overwhelms a need for analysis. The whole thing about faith is to believe things for which there is no empirical evidence.'' Bartlett paused, then said, ''But you can't run the world on faith.''

Those inconvenient facts... Indeed, Bush is hitting up against those every time he turns around now. No WMD in Saddam's arsenal. Increased casualties in Iraq. Record budget deficit. Net job losses. A world of resentment in the global community.

Suskind's piece paints a picture of a man incapable of leadership. Of course, this is clear from merely examining the decisions made over the past four years; but Suskind provides an inside perspective on this reality.

A cluster of particularly vivid qualities was shaping George W. Bush's White House through the summer of 2001: a disdain for contemplation or deliberation, an embrace of decisiveness, a retreat from empiricism, a sometimes bullying impatience with doubters and even friendly questioners. Already Bush was saying, Have faith in me and my decisions, and you'll be rewarded. All through the White House, people were channeling the boss.

Suskind states, "Whether you can run the world on faith, it's clear you can run one hell of a campaign on it."

And it is a campaign that is running a neck and neck race with challenger John F. Kerry. Let's hope the American electorate will do what Bush's cadre of 'yes men' have not done: Say no to four more years.