Jonathan Chait pops the president in the previous TNR.
Money quote:
The deep personalization of politics under Bill Clinton reflected a deliberate Republican strategy. Clinton had moved his party to the center, leaving it with few unpopular policies. Republican opponents of the administration had little choice but to turn voters' attention toward Bill and Hillary's unappealing personal qualities...Likewise, Republicans have shrewdly used Bush's personal popularity to compensate for the unpopularity of many of his policies on health care, the economy, and management of the Iraq war... the intense personal animosity many harbor against Bush didn't really blossom until the last couple of years, in response to the absurd cult of personality that grew up around him in the wake of September 11... If his followers did not revere him so slavishly, and if frank appraisals of his background and personal qualities had not been so marginalized, it would be much easier to accept with equanimity the fact that the leader of the free world is basically the Fredo Corleone of the Bush family.This analogy, though unfair, is not without it's charms. Karl Rove, for example, does stage-mange the clan with the precision and attention to detail of a Coppola, and it's likely George W's youth was as wild as any of Fredo's Vegas romps. But please. Does wimpy George Sr. remind anyone of Don Vito? And how likely is it that brother Neil, the family's real gangster, might have a bullet put in Georgie's head? Their mother is still alive.
