Bush Confident But Not One to Reflect on Self

By DEB RIECHMANN
Associated Press Writer

CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) - Ask George W. Bush to peer into his own psyche and he sighs and changes the subject.

He's not one to study his navel - not in Washington, a city teeming with over-analyzers, and never at his Texas ranch where he'd much rather talk about trees.

Back when he ran for president, he said he hoped his autobiography would counter the "psychobabble" being uttered about him.

Now, with his re-election race under way, Bush knows he'll get a new round of questions asking him to be introspective. He even jokes about what will be said about America's 43rd president, who is itching to run again.

Voters might muse that Bush has grown into his job. Or, they'll ponder anew how this underachieving son of a president ever made it into the White House, let alone guide a nation through wars abroad and mass murder on American soil.

Asked at his Texas ranch whether the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks had changed him, Bush flippantly replied, "Talk to my wife."

Pressed for an answer, Bush dodged the subject again. "I don't know," he said. "I don't spend a lot of time looking in the mirror - except when I comb my hair."

After a third inquiry, he offered a slight glimpse into his thoughts.

"I'll give you a hint," he said. "I liked coming to the ranch before September the 11th. I like coming to the ranch after September the 11th."

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If the attacks didn't transform Bush's persona in fundamental ways, they did affect his habits.

Bush turned more deeply to his faith. He intensified his exercise regime to burn off stress. His words became weighted with the worries of war, and the certainty of his cause.

The hijacked airliners that sliced through the Twin Towers also dissected - and defined - the Bush presidency. Since then, every presidential action, poll and speech can be tagged "before" or "after."

Bush stepped into a world of "good versus evil," as he put it, where "either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists," and carried that moral certitude into the war against Iraq and more aspects of his presidency.

But today, as Bush winds down his third year in office, the issues before him are blurred.

Military successes in Afghanistan and Iraq have been followed by deadly attacks against Americans. Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein have eluded capture.

On the domestic front, a limp U.S. economy, which made his father a one-termer, is stirring from slumber, yet the country has lost 2.6 million jobs since Bush took office, putting him on track to have the worst jobs record of any president since Herbert Hoover.

After inheriting a budget with surpluses, deficits now are ballooning. And Bush's initiative to privatize parts of Social Security, his energy plan and measure to add a prescription drug benefit under Medicare remain stalled in Congress - even though both the House and Senate are run by fellow Republicans.

"How does a black-and-white guy work in a gray world?" asks Bruce Buchanan, a longtime Bush watcher at the University of Texas. "It definitely makes him uncomfortable. He does not like the murky questions.

"He often bristles at ones he doesn't like. He's very touchy about people challenging him - far more defensive and touchy than you would expect a seasoned politician to be. That's part of what the White House has to manage."

Bush's supporters think the president's matter-of-fact style plays well with voters.

"They don't have to guess where he is," says Joe M. Allbaugh, Bush's campaign manager in 2000. "They don't have to read a lot of mumbo jumbo to try to interpret what the president means.

"There's an old John Anderson song 'You've got to stand for something or you'll fall for anything.' That's the president to a T."

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On a typical day, Bush strides into the Oval Office around 6:50 a.m. and flips open the "threat matrix" that apprises him of national security problems. He stays until about 7 p.m. with breaks for exercise and lunch, sometimes just a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich.

More often than not, Bush stays above the minutia of policy-making, but he does sink into the details at times, sometimes rewriting speeches that won't roll off his lips. A staffer recalls how Bush rewrote more than half of one speech, then "berated everybody up and down the chain of command," asking whether anybody had actually read the draft before giving it to him.

After work, he tucks a dark blue briefing book under his arm and heads to the living quarters to relax with the first lady, a witty, girlish, yet sometimes feisty woman the president affectionately calls "Bushie." He usually conks out around 10 p.m.

A self-described "homebody," the president prefers day trips to overnighters.

"I like my own bedroom," says Bush.

His favorite trip is to his ranch in Crawford, Texas, a 1,590-acre spread - nearly 90 times the size of the 18-acre White House compound - where he has spent roughly one-fifth of his presidency. He and members of his staff spend hours clearing trails and wielding chain saws to cut down cedar trees that Bush says hog water.

"I will work from about 7 a.m. until 10 a.m., and then will come out and we'll cut cedar or fool around, you know, repair something," he says. "We'll eat lunch about 12:30 p.m., and generally make phone calls then or answer mail or do whatever and then get back out about 4 p.m. and fish. I love to fish."

He can walk in meadows of wildflowers, and explore rock formations, creeks, canyons and waterfalls. "Can you envision me sitting here, on the rock, writing some poetry?" he asked, joking about his distaste for rumination. Ash, walnut, sycamore, oak, pecan and other kinds of trees make the ranch Bush's personal arboretum.

"I've become a guy who really likes trees," he says. There's a sniper stand covered in camouflage netting, and a treehouse. "Built that," he says, "for the grandkids that don't exist."

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Consistent with his no-frills style, here's a bare-bones biography of the man who wants another four years in the Oval Office:

Born on July 6, 1946 in New Haven, Conn.

Age: 57. Height: 5 feet 9 3/4 inches. Weight: 194. Resting heart rate: 45 beats per minute.

Smokes the occasional cigar. Takes chrondroitin/glucosamine for joint ailments, vitamins and an aspirin daily. When not nursing a strain, runs three miles three times a week, water-jogs, lifts free weights.

Grew up in Midland and Houston, Texas. So-so student at Yale where he earned a degree in history, and Harvard where he received a master's in business administration. Served in the Texas Air National Guard, but never went to Vietnam.

Worked in the oil and gas business in Midland in the 1970s and 1980s; made little money. Ran for Congress and lost. After a three-month courtship, married Laura Welch, a librarian, in 1977. Became the father of twins, Barbara and Jenna, in 1981. At age 40, after pleas from his wife and a rekindling of his faith, stopped drinking - cold-turkey - his favored four Bs - beer, bourbon and B&B, a liqueur.

Sold his company when the oil business bottomed out in the 1980s. Moved to Washington to work on his father's 1988 presidential campaign.

Returned to Texas. Joined with investors to buy the Texas Rangers baseball franchise. Sold the team for a pretty penny and used his new financial independence as a springboard to run for governor. Served as Texas governor from 1994 to 2000. Inaugurated president on Jan. 21, 2001.

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Bumping along scenic roads in his white pickup, a butterfly fluttering along outside his window, is a stark contrast to speeding down freeways in his presidential motorcade with motorcycle escort cops whizzing by.

Still, even on vacation days, Bush - a restless man who oddly has the job of calming the public's growing impatience with the war in Iraq - rarely sits still.

One day, he popped out of bed at 7:20 a.m. and took a four-mile hike with his wife. He named a rise on his ranch "Balkan Hill" after national security adviser Condoleezza Rice gave him a quick history lesson of the Balkans in the middle of another four-miler.

Like his father, Bush plays "speed golf," finishing 18 holes in two hours 15 minutes. He thinks e-mail is nifty because he says he can "wipe out a whole list of things to do and get on to the next subject."

After a four-stop day in Mississippi and Kentucky the first Saturday in November, Bush finished the day one hour 15 minutes ahead of schedule. His Asia trip in October: six nations, six days.

"I've never known him to sit still," said Allbaugh, who with political director Karl Rove and former White House counselor Karen Hughes formed the "Iron Triangle" of Texas advisers who helped Bush get to the White House. "He likes to stay busy. He likes to exercise, which is a way for him to recharge his batteries and clear his mind."

When Bush does wind down, he'll play gin rummy or watch replays of Texas Rangers games on Air Force One. He naps, likes to track the weather and reads for pleasure books such as "The Da Vinci Code," a mystery, and "King Leopold's Ghost," the history of a turn-of-the century Belgium monarch who meddled in Africa. He also walks dogs Barney and Spot and calls his mother and father every couple of weeks, although he insists the Bushes aren't "pick-up-the-phone chitchat people."

Quieter moments are reserved for prayer.

"I pray in bed. I pray in the Oval Office. I pray a lot," Bush said in a recent televised interview. "Faith is an integral part of my life."

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Bush has come a long way since the Texas gubernatorial race when then-Texas Gov. Ann Richards dismissively called the president "shrub."

But if his swagger lacked gravitas during his first run for the presidency, Bush's confidence today borders on cockiness.

Top players on the international stage worry that Bush is a reckless cowboy with little regard for their concerns, a leader who snubbed the United Nations and invaded Iraq without greater international cooperation.

"We will show purpose without arrogance," he said in his inaugural address.

But this summer he taunted the Saddam loyalists who continue to kill U.S. troops in Iraq with the one-liner "Bring them on!"

That's just Bush being Bush, says Ron Kaufman, a family friend and former political director for the president's father.

Bush's direct style is an asset, Kaufman says, recalling how Ronald Reagan was more popular than his policies.

"You may not agree with him," Kaufman said. "But what you see is what you get."