Once Again, the Bush Thing

By Hugh Sidey

Call it the George Bush thing, since it is yet unnamed by Political Chronicler Theodore H. White. It is not the garden variety syndrome that even a political science professor could identify. The thing normally cannot be seen or heard. It is not easily documentable with dates and places and simple sentences. It is a shadow that has followed Bush throughout his national prominence. It showed up again in the New Hampshire campaign, and in the squalid Nashua argument over who should or should not debate. That helped trigger some of the electoral doubts that engulfed Bush in the primary.

It is now one of those ridiculous but important minidramas in the bizarre world of campaigning that may never be accurately sorted out, because so many people were involved and so much of the story hinges on perceptions and feelings jammed into a few minutes. The same sort of thing happened when John Kennedy, the new Democratic nominee in 1960, offered Lyndon Johnson the vice-presidential slot, and L.B.J. astonished everyone by accepting. NO one is yet certain how it all evolved.

Some scornful critics are suggesting that the Nashua incident portrayed Bush as the fragile, blue-blooded, rich Ivy Leaguer they always thought he was. The Ivy League takes a lot of bad raps. Strong men do emerge from those schools. Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy went to Harvard and Gerald Ford to Yale.

The more thoughtful students of George Bush have always been concerned about a degree of sensitivity or reticence or perhaps propriety that seemed to suggest timidity. At crucial tunes in Bush's career that quality appeared and raised doubts about his fiber. This problem has grown disproportionately large in the house of magnifying mirrors that we now call the presidential selection process.

Examining such a subtle trait in a person like Bush with a record of established achievement is a journey into psychohistory, which is hazardous and which politicians hate. Yet those considerations can be terribly important hi public perception and finally in public judgment of a leader.

Back in 1970, when Bush was running unsuccessfully a second time for the U.S. Senate from Texas, he looked to President Richard Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew for help -- but nervously. Nixon was growing testy over attacks charging that he had not liquidated the

Viet Nam War. Agnew was Nixon's rude political and press hatchet man. Both spoke in Texas for Bush. Afterward, Bush had some second thoughts and canceled film clips of the Nixon visit in his efforts to walk a narrow line between the White House and his ambitions beyond. Ever so slightly those first impressions formed that Bush was too cautious.

In 1974 Bush was Republican national chairman as Watergate rose against Nixon, and Bush rekindled concerns about his propensity for hyperdeliberation. Why did he not distance the G.O.P. from Nixon? If he could not do that, then why did he not quit? His answer was like those of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and White House Chief of Staff General Alexander Haig. Bush stayed to preserve some order as the House of Nixon collapsed. Nixon's guilt had not been proved in court, nor had he been impeached. Bush tiptoed once more: mannered, thoughtful, searching for a civilized route through anarchy. But his quiet political diplomacy seemed to many to be excessively restrained at a tune when the national interest demanded a loud and angry shout.

The question about Bush is now with us again. Why did he not instantly take charge of that New Hampshire squabble and either exit with firm grace or invite his rivals in with commanding confidence and humor? (After all, Ronald Reagan had enough presence to grab the mike.) Was it good manners, plain politeness, or was he momentarily anesthetized by the fear that the intrusion of others would dilute his thin lead over Reagan? In the end, it may be yet another lesson to all practitioners that in the era of superprogrammed politics, the natural man needs to be let out now and then.

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