This Media Life

He Stoops to Conquer

He would, the AJC was told, speak for twelve minutes.

You could have missed his entrance into the impressive hall of the National Building Museum. Then he sat patiently, in some sense anonymously, on the dais through three other speeches. (He seemed, I noted, to have gained weight during his 100 days in office.) He was, with his pursed lips and slight frown and baby-blue tie, contained, subdued, almost expressionless (was he pleased to be here? Sour about it? Merely dutiful?).

He was the first on his feet to applaud the remarks of his friend (mi amigo) Vicente Fox, Mexico's president (a Mexican reporter at the dinner pointed out that Bush has seen Fox three times in his first 100 days, versus the usual twice-a-year visit between American and Mexican presidents); then he extended Fox a brotherly pat.

He began his own remarks with just a slight stumble (more endearing than comic), welcoming, among others, the "foreign dignities."

Then he spent a large part of his twelve minutes complimenting the other speakers, and, unhurried, sharing personal anecdotes about the people he knew at the dinner, getting in a not-too-forced joke or two. He was light and graceful. He was in his element. He was tipping his hat, paying respects, demonstrating some keen understanding of not-so-well-followed social rules.

He did not speak with a particular emphasis about Israel, which would have been the obvious way to handle the occasion. Instead, he spoke, however briefly, about tolerance around the world. It was a fine speech. Not necessarily memorable, but as smooth as the deftest after-dinner talk. And again, oddly, not about him -- he was just the cheerful tummler.

I wondered, actually, if this wasn't his civility speech -- not so much about civility but a how-to of the courtesies and rituals that can artfully mask so much antipathy and so many disputes.

Civility is the opposite of hostility, and certainly, if there was any of that at the dinner, it melted. The crowd came fondly to its feet. I had good feelings about the man for a moment, too.

"It is," observed an AJC official, not without some ruefulness, "a great talent for a politician -- to make people like you."

The temptation in considering Bush is to look to the Reagan model -- that kind of remarkable artifice and scripting. The problem is, with Bush II, it seems the opposite of that. Where Reagan seemed suffused with hyped-up sentiment and symbolism, Bush and company, in their low-key, conflict-averse unobtrusiveness, seem stripped of it.

Possibly this is pure strategy: Confuse the opposition, fuck with their heads, and, in an inversion of everything presidents are supposed to be about, make the target smaller.

Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel noted in the Times that in a survey of major news outlets, there were 41 percent fewer stories about Bush in the first two months of his administration than there were about Clinton in the same time period in his administration. (The other day, Mrs. Bush was in New York and staying, as all First Ladies in modern memory have, at the Carlyle, where, to the wonder of the staff, skilled at dealing with the paparazzi who attend all First Ladies, she was greeted by no photographers whatsoever.)

And yet nobody is saying, Where's George? Rather, we may be thinking, for no other reason than that it is so strange for someone to become president and then not embrace, or even seem to enjoy, the ego perquisites and self-promotion opportunities of the job, that this could be something like modesty and self-effacement, virtues (country-club virtues, you could say) that have not been seen in a long time. He does not, apparently, need or desire to call attention to himself. He is able and willing to pass largely unnoticed.

It's bizarre. And apparently smart.

E-mail: michael@burnrate.com