Not Your Sweetie

Ron Suskind:

A very funny scene early in Richard Ben Cramer’s book about the 1988 Presidential campaign, “What It Takes,” shows Bush blowing his stack when he sees his father’s White House chief of staff, Craig Fuller, sitting in what he regards as a family seat at a baseball game, and, without a second’s thought, loudly complaining about Fuller’s presumptuousness. That kind of assurance shows a deep sense of comfort with being in the superior position, but not necessarily a deep sense of self-confidence.

And, in trying to figure out his position on an issue, Bush, like a lot of other politicians, doesn’t so much analyze as look for a hook—a phrase or a way of framing the issue that feels instinctively right to him. In his case, instinct usually takes him to a position where he is in charge and everyone else has to adjust.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/