Maureen Dowd buried the lead in her New York Times column last week. You had to slog through the jokes about Al Gore -- "so feminized and diversified and ecologically correct, he's practically lactating" -- to get to the really good stuff; i.e., her chat with George W. Bush at the Bush family home in Kennebunkport, where they were celebrating the old man's 75th birthday. Gov. Bush revealed himself to Dowd as, well, a late-nineties version of his father. He's not the world's smoothest off-the-cuff speaker, but he's exceedingly in touch with how he feels about how he's doing at playing his important role in the scheme of things:
"All I can tell you," George W. told Dowd, "is I was fairly anxious for the week leading up to this, but when I got up there in Cedar Rapids, it felt good. I think that's an interesting measurement.
"I'm telling you, people out there, they're looking for something -- dignity, integrity, optimism, big themes [the vision thing?]. I know what I believe in. I believe the big issues are going to be China and Russia. There will be moments when situations, incidents will flare up. It's important for the president to think globally. But in the long run, security in the world is going to be how do we deal with China and how do we deal with Russia. People think the Russian situation, or used to think, Russia was not an issue. It's a huge issue. But if the East Timorians decide to revolt, I'm sure I'll have a statement.
"I think what's important for you to know is that I feel I know what to do. I really do. I may not be able to tell you exactly the nuance of the East Timorian situation but I'll ask Condy Rice or I'll ask Paul Wolfowitz or I'll ask Dick Cheney. I'll ask the people who've had experience.
"I'm smart enough to know what I don't know and I have good judgment about who will either be telling me the truth or has got some agenda that is not a right agenda. And I'm tough enough to tell somebody to kiss off if they're trying to put one over on me or on the country."
THE SCRAPBOOK is reassured that Bush feels he knows what to do, especially those key presidential skills of issuing statements in response to crises and being tough enough to tell an adviser to kiss off. Just one question: If, say, Condy and Paul should ever disagree, who gets to break the tie?