Analysis: Bush's personality shapes his legacy

ANALYSIS

By BEN FELLER

Associated Press Writer

updated 5:43 p.m. ET Jan. 3, 2009

EDITOR'S NOTE: Ben Feller covers the White House for The Associated Press.

WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush will be judged on what he did. He will also be remembered for what he's like: a fast-moving, phrase-mangling Texan who stays upbeat even though his country is not.

For eight years, the nation has been led by a guy who relaxes by clearing brush in scorching heat and taking breakneck bike rides through the woods. He dishes out nicknames to world leaders, and even gave the German chancellor an impromptu, perhaps unwelcome, neck rub. He's annoyed when kept waiting and sticks relentlessly to routine. He stays optimistic in even the most dire circumstances, but readily tears up in public. He has little use for looking within himself, and only lately has done much looking back.

Bush's style and temperament are as much his legacy as his decisions. Policy shapes lives, but personality creates indelible memories — positive and negative.

Call it distinctly Bush.

Don't be late
Bush demands punctuality and disdains inefficiency. Every meeting better have a clear purpose. And it better not repeat what he already knows.

He is up early and in the Oval Office by 6:45 a.m. By 9:30 to 10 at night, it's lights out. He likes to be fresh and won't get cheated on his sleep.

In sessions with policy experts, Bush tends to ask questions that get right to the nub of a sticky issue. His top aides speak regretfully about how the country never got to see that side of him, even after all this time. They describe a man who is deeply inquisitive, not blithely incurious as much of the world thinks.

When Bush wants answers, guessing isn't advised.

"He can sniff it out a mile away if you don't have the goods," said White House communications director Kevin Sullivan.

Other people write Bush's speeches, but he'll kick out phrases that he thinks stray from a logical progression. It's about discipline.

How he sees the world
You can tell the issues that really get Bush going, because he talks about them differently, more passionately: education, AIDS relief, freedom. They happen to be ones that can be viewed more clearly through a moral lens. That's how he sees the world.

Charles Dharapak / AP President George W. Bush rides his mountain bike on the Laoshan Olympic Mountain Bike Course in Beijing, China.

Bush reads the Bible regularly. Another devotion: exercise. He makes time for a workout at least six days a week, wherever he is. And he goes at it hard, especially on his mountain bike on the weekends, when he pushes Secret Service agents to keep up with him. He is competitive and likes to stay in command.

Even eating is approached with sheer purpose.

Bush wants his lunch ready when he is, and wolfs it down. His tastes are clear: maybe a peanut butter and honey sandwich, a BLT, or a burger. Former White House executive chef Walter Scheib learned from Bush never to serve a grilled cheese sandwich unless it came with a side of French's yellow mustard.

The man from a land of cowboy boots orders proper dress in the White House. No jeans allowed in the West Wing. Coat and tie in the Oval Office.

"Orderliness in the process gave him confidence," said Peter Wehner, a former top Bush aide and now a senior fellow at the Ethics & Public Policy Center.

And if you're in Bush's presence, turn off your cell phone. Pity the person who gets the Bush stare when a Blackberry rings at the wrong time.

Then there are his stories. He repeats his favorites. Like the one about the cheery rug in the Oval Office. Or the spectacular rainbow that day in Romania.

Who's going to stop him?

'Miunderestimated'
"They misunderestimated the compassion of our country," Bush said of the Sept. 11 terrorists. "I talk to families who die," he said, meaning the loved ones of those who perish in war. "Childrens do learn when standards are high," he said in promoting his education plan.

Ivy League educated, Bush is good-natured about his verbal trip-ups. Yet he appears to have grown a bit more methodical in public, as if searching carefully for the right words.

His tangled moments have undoubtedly helped shape an unflattering public perception; there are entire books of his "Bushisms." Invariably, though, people who talk to him privately — historians, journalists, dissidents — come away with a very different impression of a meticulous thinker.

It is a paradox of his presidency.

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