February 10, 2004, 8:48 a.m.
The expectations game, an opponent we can take, the size of our loaf, &c.

Just a quick commentary on the Bush Meet the Press interview, as I know you've had a lot of it (commentary, that is).

So much depends on what you expect. If you think Bush is a drooling idiot, you thought he did rather well. (And if you think Bush is a drooling idiot — you ought to check for drool on your own chin.) If you know Bush to be highly capable, you thought he did rather poorly — you wanted to jump in and answer for him.

Listening to people react to the Bush interview — and I'm talking about "ordinary" folk, not pundits — you realize that the expectations game is practically everything. I talked with one woman who seemed to think that Bush would have no defense of himself: and she was amazed and pleased that he did. The president shot up in her estimation.

I scorn this as the soft bigotry of low expectations — where have I heard this phrase? — but I'm glad for this particular sale the president made.

I think Bush is somewhat handicapped when he tries to be "nice" — when he tries to be diplomatic and inoffensive. He's far better — more fluent — when he lets 'er rip (which is a rare sight in public). I wish he had the Russert interview to do over again — but he'll have plenty of opportunities, in the months before Election Day. Plenty.

And he should do more and more interviews — practice makes perfect, and he has a wonderful case to make. He needs to stress that this is a changed world and that rogue dictators will not be given the benefit of the doubt. If we're going to err, we're going to err on the side of action. And if a Saddam actually has no WMD — why, he'd better make that clear, when asked.

This is commonsense thinking that I suspect most people would endorse.

And speaking of what to expect: Conservatives are mighty disgruntled with GWB, and they have several good reasons. But we should pause to consider that this is merely the kingdom of man. If we ever see an abler and more understanding president — a president whose instincts are better — I will be shocked out of my gourd, and giddily grateful.

Phil Gramm ain't gonna be president, y'all — but this other Texan is about as good.

You can make the case that Republicans were a little cocky, when it looked like "Dr. Dean" would be the Democratic nominee. But I'm not sure we're not a little too nervous about John Kerry now. Look, he's not 10 feet tall (I mean, he may be literally, but I'm being figurative here). The Democrats weren't going to field nobody. This is a pretty evenly divided country. It's going to be a helluva race, regardless. The Democrats were never going to give us a pass — we will have to work for a second term.

But an extremely liberal legislator from Massachusetts? Who served as lieutenant governor under Dukakis? We could do worse. We could do a lot worse. If you have to run against someone — and you do; this is a democracy, and the country is split — you could do worse than have as your opponent the more liberal of Massachusetts's two senators.

Besides which, the Kerry personality is a dud.

No, I wouldn't bet against our guy, at the moment. The polls will see-saw. Kerry will almost certainly be ahead after his convention. But I think Bush will get it done, even without the help of those Buchanan-loving Palm Beach voters.

Along with others, I've written quite a bit about the Democrats' "diversion" argument — this notion that our effort in Iraq "diverted" attention and resources from the fight against al Qaeda. A senior administration official put it nicely to me, for a magazine piece on Wesley Clark: How would we apply the 82nd Airborne against al Qaeda? Where does General Clark suggest we put the First Infantry, as we take on al Qaeda? The battle against Osama's boys is fought largely in the shadows, and we are succeeding. It should be emphasized that we have more special forces in Afghanistan than in Iraq.

I raise all this because Ralph Peters had a wonderful line, in his latest column: ". . . the War on Terror is global. It can't be confined to Afghanistan or to any other bad neighborhood. You can't put police tape around a failed civilization."

It would be nice if finishing off al Qaeda were just a matter of lining up our army against theirs, on some field somewhere. But that is merely fantasy. Grown-ups realize this. It would be nice if the president's political opponents did, too.

But then, they probably do — which makes their squawkings worse.

John Derbyshire, among others, has written eloquently about the hideous testimony coming out of North Korea: that entire families are being gassed to death, Mengele-style. We should be comforted to read that the Wiesenthal Center is demanding a U.N. investigation of this, and that authorities in Jerusalem are on the case, too. "Never again" truly means something to some people, although to others it's just a slogan to mouth, never mind the reality before us.

I must record, however, what Robert Conquest told me a few years ago (in a discussion we had about Cuba). The great scholar of Communism said that many people have simply never believed human testimony. Reports of famine and other horrors in the Soviet Union were dismissed — or denounced — as "rumors in Riga." That was the sneering phrase: "rumors in Riga." The wretches stumbling into Hong Kong, having made it out of Mao's China? Warlords, bandits!

And the Cubans certainly couldn't be believed: They had the bad taste to go to Miami and vote Republican.

Speaking of Cuba: A reader sent me the following, after I commented on the floating Buick that tried to make it to Florida, but fell short:

"CNN World covered the attempted escape, and I found it disturbing that they would do this story as a sort of fluff piece at the end of a news hour. You know what I'm talking about — the kind of piece with cute kids or cuddly animals. Something with a delightful 'human interest' twist. There is nothing cute or funny about people risking their lives to escape to freedom. There is nothing cute or funny about returning them.

"Disgustedly yours . . ."

Yes, disgust is my specialty, I hear you.

The New York Sun reports that al Qaeda purchased "suitcase bombs" from Ukraine, back in those innocent days of 1998. It also reports that "a seven-pound block of cyanide salt turned up late last month in a coalition raid of a Baghdad hideout 'linked' to an al Qaeda poisons expert," according to U.S. officials. "The cyanide block is not a chemical weapon, but it can be used to produce cyanide gasses or dropped in a water supply, an application tried and tested by al Qaeda."

Sort of hard to shrug off, isn't it? But let no one tell you that Saddam's Iraq had anything to do with al Qaeda.

Al Gore continues to prove himself one of the most reckless rhetoricians in American politics. Of Bush, he said, "He betrayed this country!" When we talk like that — and some of us do — we're branded as McCarthyites, and worse. (Hang on, is there worse?) Gore also faulted his successor as vice president, Dick Cheney, for "operating in secret": "No wonder the people are now seeing such terrible consequences from the decisions of the Bush-Cheney group. . . . We need openness. We need sunshine. We need more honesty."

Yeah, yeah: Does he think we've forgotten all of his Asian fundraising and coffee-klatching?

Oh, yes, I forgot: We have!

To continue a long-running theme of this column: Good thing Wes Clark's not arrogant! He may be too modest to get anywhere in politics. He said, "I've forgotten more about national security than George Bush will ever know." Also, "I'm the toughest person in the race."

If you believed those things . . . would you say them?

And get a load of the amazing Al Sharpton: To Baptist churchgoers in Virginia, he said, "The person you vote for may lose. The person you vote for may drop out. But I'm not going to drop out. I'm going to go all the way because we cannot be disrespected or marginalized." Whaddayou mean "we," Kemosabe?

Naturally, Sharpton equates himself with Black America, and equates his political failure with abuse of black Americans generally. If, say, Jimmy Carter has a Messiah Complex, does Al Sharpton have a Black Messiah Complex?

Sometimes, when you cover political life — or are even interested in it — you believe that nothing ever changes. The same stories, the same points, the same themes, crop up over and over.

Since I was a pup, I've been hearing that Republicans, and conservatives, never protect their own. "We don't retrieve our wounded," has been the cry, or sigh.

I thought of this when reading of the fate of Manuel Miranda, on Senator Frist's staff. (No, not Miguel Estrada, Manuel Miranda — Estrada, as a Supreme Court justice, would have to deal with some Miranda cases, but . . . who's on first?)

Before La Raza knocks at my door, let me just finish my point: The Republicans sacrificed this fellow abominably. I love Orrin Hatch, always have, always will, and I have almost always bought his argument that you have to get along with Democrats in order to accomplish anything we want. "If I can't get a whole loaf, I'll take a half a loaf," or even less, he has told me. Fine: That's legislative life, and democratic life, and long may it wave.

But do we really get anything for it, this accommodation? Even a crumb? I am starting to lose heart, a bit.

Headline from the New York Sun: "City Schoolbooks Badly Outdated on Sex Education." Um, have there been some recent changes in this area? I mean, in the last many millennia?

LEAD SENTENCE OF THE WEEK (from a New York Post story on the Grammys): "Booty-blessed belter Beyoncé . . ."

I have much more to say, but nothing — nothing — not even Keats — can follow that.

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