US: As he takes to the road in an attempt to salvage his presidency, President Bush is letting down his guard, writes Peter Baker in Washington
President George W Bush was taking questions from an audience the other day when he was asked about the immigration debate raging in Washington.
"It's obviously topic du jour," he said. The audience laughed at the famously Francophobic Texan's faux accent.
"Pretty fancy, huh?" Bush asked, mocking himself. "Topic du jour?" The audience laughed again. "I don't want to ruin the image," he added conspiratorially.
As he takes to the road to salvage his presidency, Bush is letting down his guard and playing up his anti-intellectual, regular-guy image. Where he spent last year in rehearsed forums with select supporters, these days he is more frequently throwing aside the script and opening himself to questions from audiences that are not prescreened.
These sessions have put a sometimes playful, sometimes awkward side back on display after years of trying to keep it under control to appear more presidential.
Call it the "let-Bush-be-Bush" strategy. The result is a looser president, less serious at times, even at times when humour might seem out of place.
Aides used to dread such settings, worried about gaffes or the way Bush might come across in spontaneous exchanges. But with his poll numbers somewhere south of the border, they concluded that he handles back and forth better than he once did - and that they have little left to lose.
"It shows the range of his personality, the humour," said White House counsellor Dan Bartlett. He said the White House had worked to put Bush out in public more, noting that he has had news conferences twice as often in his second term as in his first. "In a couple different ways, we've expanded his exposure," Bartlett said.
In the past couple of weeks, the president has answered expansively, sometimes ranging beyond the talking points. He does not brutalise the English language as much and he banters with audiences in a way he doesn't when delivering a conventional speech.
"My name is José Feliciano," a questioner introduced himself in Cleveland last month. "No!" Bush answered sceptically.
"Yes, it is," the man insisted.
"It's like the time I called a guy and said, 'Hey, this is George Bush calling'," the president recalled. "He said, 'Come on, quit kidding me, man'."
To many critics, such forums still feel contrived and the fraternity boy towel-snapping humour unbecoming. Nor does the new format mean Bush always answers questions as directly as inquisitors might like.
When an Egyptian asked him at a Washington forum last week, sponsored by Freedom House, a group promoting liberty around the world, if he would support Gamal Mubarak if he succeeded his father, Hosni Mubarak, as president of Egypt, Bush replied: "That's a question I don't answer question."
The press can serve as a foil. While talking about Iraq, Bush stumbled over how many UN Security Council resolutions condemned Saddam Hussein. "I think 16," Bush said, then turned towards the media area and spotted Bloomberg's Richard Keil. "Is that right, Stretch? Sixteen?" Keil, hunched over his laptop, looked up in surprise. Bush played it for the crowd.
"I'm asking a member of the press corps," he explained. "I like to reverse roles sometimes. Really checking to see if they're paying attention, you know. Halfway through, they kind of start dozing off."
Politicians get the same treatment. At a Freedom House event Bush launched into a favourite joke about being friends with the Japanese prime minister even though their fathers fought on opposite sides six decades ago.
"I see Stevens nodding," he said, glancing at republican senator Ted Stevens, who is 82. "He was there, weren't you?" The audience laughed. "Well, I wasn't," Bush added, prompting more laughter.
It goes over well, of course, but there are moments when audiences are left wondering just what he's talking about. At Freedom House, Bush called on a member of the audience, then before the man could ask a question, launched into his plans to leave for a summit in Mexico.
"No Speedo suit here," Bush declared, "thankfully." The questioner, unsure if Bush was done, waited patiently. "Ready?" the man finally asked.
"Yes," Bush said. "Sorry to interrupt you. Just testing your concentration."
If the image of the president in spandex proved distracting, the relaxed approach left some reassessing their view of him.
The Freedom House audience consisted of many Democrats, yet the buzz afterward was strikingly positive. "They were surprised that they were impressed," said Thomas Melia, Freedom House's deputy executive director.
"It shows he's thinking on his feet, not just reading from a text."
While thinking on his feet, Bush often plays the country bumpkin. When Melia got up last week, the president cut him off before his question. "You're going to ask me if I read the book," Bush said. "I gave the president a copy of our annual report . . . before he took the stage," Melia explained. The president gave his instant review: "Little print, no pictures."
Melia did not miss a beat and compared it to another book Bush likes to cite. "It's the bible of freedom," he said. When the crowd laughed, Bush protested: "I'm the funny guy."
- (Los Angeles Times-Washington Post service)