Campaign 2000: Why Bush Doesn't Like Homework

For George W., never much of a student, leadership means hearing the options and deciding. Does it matter whether he can name the leader of Pakistan?

George W. Bush knows the question is coming. He is sitting in the back of a silver Ford Windstar minivan, his compact frame unfurled across the bench seat, his left arm slung across the backrest. He appears completely relaxed, but when the question arrives--the one about whether he has the intellectual wherewithal to be President and whether it bothers him that this issue keeps being raised in the campaign--his body tenses. He turns his face forward, his eyes narrow, and he gazes out the windshield at the long road ahead. "You know," Bush says, his voice tinny but measured, "I don't...

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