Incidentally, I notice a sense-and-sensibility split among my reader

responses. GWB’s defenders tend to say: “His sincerity came through.” His

detractors say: “He didn’t make sense.”

This goes to one’s personal preferences. Sincerity is fine, but I want a

politician to be right. I want my President to hold his beliefs

sincerely, but I also want those beliefs to be true, sensible, Republican

and conservative. Sincerity by itself bakes no cakes for me. After all,

Hitler was perfectly sincere in his desire to exterminate the Jews — has

anyone ever suggested otherwise? Lenin was utterly sincere in his belief

that a society of perfect justice and equality could be founded by

slaughtering the bourgeoisie — does anyone think he wasn’t? I’m all for

sincerity, but it’s not sufficient.

I will allow, though, that in the feminized, sentimental culture that

surrounds us, sincerity — even incoherent sincerity — probably does count

for far more than I’d like it to.