In, But Not of, Washington

I've long thought that the source of George W. Bush's appeal to his supporters, and of his ability to drive his opponents to apoplexy, rests in his peculiar upbringing and patrimony. Born into privilege and educated at the best schools, he was raised in West Texas and speaks with a twang. Rather than marrying one of his social peers, he fell in love with a public school librarian and, after years of drinking, simply quit cold turkey. Baptized Episcopalian, he stepped down socially to Methodism and became an evangelical.

Yet he retains the privileges into which he was born, of course, and his station has given him the liberty to ignore both his own peers and the legions of hangers-on such people always attract -- in any era, on any continent. This is the source of much of the hatred directed at him, especially by other early baby boomers. He can match, if not beat, most of them in pedigree, education, and accomplishment, but he doesn't play their game, at least not by their rules. Many see him as a traitor to his class in much the same way the see Condoleezza Rice as a traitor to hers. They don't behave the way the established rules demand of them, and their erstwhile peers want to make them pay for it.

Weaker personalities would succumb to the threat of social ostracism that such hostility can and often does lead to. That Bush isn't interested in that status -- because he already has it and they can't rob him of it -- allows him to be, as Fred Barnes calls him in a superb WSJ op-ed, an insurgent. By all accounts, this is no feigned pose, no strategy for political gain; it's who he really is, and his genuineness was grasped by voters who stuck with him even if they disagreed with some of his policies.

As Barnes says: By Washington standards, Mr. Bush is a misfit. He's different. He barely socializes at all and on weekends and holidays makes a beeline for Camp David or his ranch in Crawford, Texas. He'd rather invite Christian musician Michael W. Smith and his wife to the White House for dinner than eat out. If Mr. Bush really wanted to soothe establishment types, he'd invite them to state dinners at the White House, after which their names would be in the paper. But he's held fewer state dinners than any president in memory.

Mr. Bush is also a seriously religious man in a largely secular town. This has brought him no end of criticism. He also refuses to hide his loathing of the press, probably the most dominant force in Washington. In short, Mr. Bush hasn't tried to fit in.

Yesterday's New York Sun ran an editorial making much the same point, but in a different context. They compared Bush to former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky, especially in the President's unwillingness to follow the same old failed plans for Middle East peace:

Messrs. Sharansky and Bush both reject the idea that political stability can be bought at the expense of democracy. Mr. Sharansky was an early opponent of the Oslo Accords that brought Yasser Arafat to power. In 1993, when other Israeli leaders argued that an autocratic Arafat could clamp down on terrorist groups, Mr. Sharansky wrote that Arafat's dictatorship would only foment more hatred of Israel among the Palestinian Arabs, while only a Palestinian democracy could establish an enduring peace. "Natan focused on the degree of political freedom in Palestinian society," says Mr. Dermer, and found the peace process moving in the wrong direction.

In the same way, Mr. Bush has distinguished himself from his predecessor by refusing to meet with Arafat. The president turns out also to see political freedom as a necessary part of the Middle East peace process. "I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror," he said in June 2002. "I call upon them to build a practicing democracy, based on tolerance and liberty. If the Palestinian people actively pursue these goals, America and the world will actively support their efforts."

Insurgents meet resistance; dissidents are sometimes exiled. So the Beltway establishment, coupled with the international set (the U.N., France, Germany) -- the chattering classes the world over -- are horrified that a man of such independence has taken the White House -- again. As Fred Barnes points out, not everyone within Mr. Bush's party is thrilled, either. Some Senators would happily deal with a Democratic president who played by the rules. But the rules are being rewritten, at least for a while, and the old insiders have met their match in this Connecticut/Texas hybrid. What this means for conservatism will be the subject of another blog.

Update: Via RCP, John Podhoretz writes on W's ability to drive the elite mad. I should also mention the front-page brow furrowing of Adam Nagourney & Janet Elder (didn't their mothers warn them their faces will freeze like that?) in today's NYT: "Americans Show Clear Concerns on Bush Agenda." That's factually true -- those two are Americans, after all.