The Charisma Notes
(first in a soon to be abandoned series)

I'm proceeding from the assumption that George Bush Jr. wants to be a charismatic leader....that is pretty big assumption and who knows? the idea may not cut it with him. However charismatic leadership is the acknowledged gold standard in politics...it trumps money organization even ruthlessness-all of which Bush has in abundance.
So it may be that simple greed (and there is a lot of raw greed in Bush's persona quit frankly) for a tighter hold over people animates his quest to become a heroic nigh worshipped leader.
Max Weber (yuh, I know, him again) notes that charismatic leaders like to embody certain sturdy national myths, if these myths are heroic, violent and self justifying so much the better. President Bush and his team have been flailing around a bit since seizing office in the search for a big ticket mythology to forcibly appropriate.
They've trotted out, "The cowboy".....alas Bush is far too urban, horse averse, and shrimpy to pull this off. Nonetheless they still refer to his home in Crawford Texas as "The Ranch" and pictures of the President looking forlorn and haggard in a Stetson hat regularly circulate. Ultimately the whole cowpoke image is fatally undermined by Bush's dislike of horseback riding...this is in stark contrast to Reagan who'd a started World War Three in the saddle at Santa Barbara if he could've gotten away with it.
The charisma machine has noodled around with Bush as a kind of muscular christian pietist. This confers several benefits, it aligns him with a powerful voting block, his cockamammie tale of redemption from drink through Jesus invokes potent christian themes, plus resisting sin, even the most minuscule temptation is considered a sign of omnipotence by contemporary Xian divines.
However lets face it, there is something insufferable and egotistical about the average roaring Xian proselyte.
Alas for Bush, the nation's most recognizable Jesus apologist is the hapless and spineless Ned Flanders from "The Simpsons".
Moreover the President's muscular Christianity doesn't really play well to a religiously diverse electorate. The only people who "get it" are the very one's who'd vote for Bush if he was a Zulu who was squishy on the biblical injunction against cannibalism.
But after many unsuccessful myth-grafts, last week, Karl Rove managed to dream up a very successful iconography for the President to inhabit. Oh it was a dandy myth, forceful, reinforced by Hollywood (the only reflection of the American zeitgeist with staying power) and best of all photogenic and relevant.
They gave us...George Bush the FIGHTER JOCK!
Yup, Top Gun with the Right Stuff...his gratuitous flight to the carrier Abraham Lincoln was sodden with all that military symbolism.
And oh the coverage was LAVISH in it's veneration, you'd a thought he'd walked on water to hear Imus and Mike Barnicle tell about it.
Well the war is going well (As of 12:37pm EST) so presenting oneself as a casual comfortable fighter pilot familiar with aerial single combat is a no brainer.
Using the carrier and it's crew as a live backdrop also insulates the President from the accusation of raw photo opportunism...no doubt if anyone dares to question his use of a Aircraft Carrier as a political prop they whole crew's honor will be dragged into the discussion in a half-a-second.
Such is the state of debate with the la Famiglia Arbusto...
So as tactics it's a home run.
But give it time, Bush in his flight suit looks heroic now, but may also stir memories of his bumpy Viet Nam era service as an Air National Guardsman. What looks heroic today can look weird and needy in six months time.
However credit where credit is due, Karl Rove has given his boy an thick gooey mythic veneer, let's see if he can maintain it.
And did anyone else see that picture of Condi Rice in the naval flight helmet? She was grinning like a mongoloid and looked like she'd just ditched the tour group.