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By Michael Kramer

In the late 1960s, at a point when he was furious with those who had thwarted his White House ambitions, Nelson Rockefeller told a group of conservative Republicans, "I'm a hawk on foreign policy, I'm a conservative on the economy, and I'm a dove on social matters. You've got two-thirds of me. What more do you want?" Their answer, of course, was "everything," which Rocky wouldn't, or couldn't, deliver.

A decade later, another moderate Republican seeking the presidency applauded Rockefeller's stance. "Two-thirds should be more than enough to gain the nomination," George Bush said in 1979. But as it wasn't for Rockefeller, so it wasn't for Bush. Unlike Rocky, though, Bush finally got the message. To join Ronald Reagan's 1980 ticket, the man who had supported Planned Parenthood and a host of liberal domestic positions anathema to the right reinvented himself as a "reformed" pro-lifer and social-policy conservative.

Not to worry, Bush's cronies told those appalled by their man's conversion, George doesn't really believe any of it. He's still the same centrist Republican who attracted us in the first place. When he gets to the top, you'll see the true Bush emerge. Just wait.

Well, they're still waiting -- and it has become clear that the term "true Bush" is an oxymoron. The only thing really real about the President is his desire for office, which is why, as he himself said, he will do anything to be re-elected. And so John Frohnmayer, the head of the National Endowment for the Arts, had to go. Bush knew what he was getting when he selected Frohnmayer in 1989, and the President's friends heralded the appointment as proof that Bush's heart was in the right place. But then, on Feb. 20, Pat Buchanan signaled his intent to trash the NEA for "subsidizing filthy and blasphemous art," and Frohnmayer was gone the next day. "We had to wipe away at least one of Pat's points in advance," concedes a Bush aide. "Dumping John was craven, but it was just politics."

Bad politics -- on two counts. First, as just about anyone capable of thinking more than a single chess move ahead could have predicted, Buchanan began his air assault anyway. The first TV spot hit last week in Georgia. "The Bush Administration," it says, "has invested our tax dollars in pornographic and blasphemous art too shocking to show." Second, Bush forthrightly supported Frohnmayer in March 1990: ". . . the Federal Government," said the President, "((shouldn't get)) into telling every artist what he or she can paint." Bush stood up -- and standing up is everything. Ronald Reagan understood that principle of leadership (and political survival) better than anyone else. The polls routinely described an electorate disaffected from a wide range of Reagan's policies. But his support held because he was seen to have the courage of his convictions. Bush's problem is that he is increasingly seen to have neither.

A more serious example of weakness was evident during the President's State of the Union address. By most accounts, Bush believes the best economic policy is to leave matters alone. But he sees that course as politically untenable, and so larded his speech with a series of halfhearted palliatives that most voters have greeted with a yawn. Better again for him to have told the truth as he saw it -- better for the economy, perhaps; better for his electoral prospects, certainly.

Another test is due shortly. In a few weeks the Senate will affirm the House's decision to revoke the Federal Government's ban on fetal-tissue research. Unlike the freedom to paint what one chooses, this issue has severe consequences for millions of Americans afflicted with diseases like Parkinson's and juvenile diabetes. Because the tissue required to aid these sufferers comes from aborted fetuses, the Bush Administration has prevented federal support of the necessary research. For the conservatives who control U.S. health policy, the legal status of abortion is immaterial. "Yes, abortion is still legal," acknowledges James Mason, the Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services who oversees the ban. "But we represent the view that says it is immoral, and we're not going to support anything that makes abortion more likely." What Mason fears most is success. "If diseases are actually cured," he says, "the demand for aborted fetuses will be incredible, and a woman who might otherwise not have an abortion will have her decision tipped in favor of having one simply to help the sick."

Shortly before he died last year, Lee Atwater, the former G.O.P. national chairman, told me that "Bush had to get into bed with the pro-lifers to get the '88 nomination. But that was the politics of then. Do I think staying in bed with them on something that holds medical promise for millions could actually threaten his re-election in '92? You bet."

Some months ago, two White House aides predicted that Bush would "do the right thing" and let Congress's revocation stand. Today those same men are certain that Bush will ignore Atwater's advice and veto the legislation, thus proving anew that the man who got the right's message long ago has been virtually imprisoned by it ever since -- and so may lose in November because of it.