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Yes, Bush's malaprops and mangled syntax have given the late-night comedians as much material as Bill Clinton's sex life once did. But what's most revealing--and what drives people into one corner or the other--is the words he doesn't stumble over. Dead or alive. Bring 'em on. And then there's the phrase that comes up so often in his public pronouncements, the one that some hear as a measure of confidence and others as one of smug disdain: "I expect." He expects the Congress to act, he expects the U.N. to show some backbone, he expects Arab nations to be his partners in making peace in the Middle East.
In scary and uncertain times, this kind of forcefulness is what some people want more than anything else. In Hialeah, Fla., a largely Hispanic city next to Miami, teacher Rose Ramirez, 57, declares, "It's about time we have a President that has the balls to do the right thing. People forget about 9/11." Bush's supporters increasingly worry about what they see happening in Iraq, but they stand behind him because he himself has not wavered. It's as though they support his certitude more than his policies, his self-assurance more than his programs. "I like that he's decisive, and I think that he has the country's best interests at heart," said one respondent to the TIME/CNN poll. "I may not agree with what he chooses to do; it's kind of like having a boss who has the best interests of the company in mind, but won't give you a raise."
Others feel just as strongly that this complex, global, interconnected era should make the country especially suspicious of anyone who believes he has a monopoly on the truth. In Chicago, Jay Schwartz plastered on his minivan a bumper sticker declaring the President a "Punk Ass Chump," and has ordered a second batch of 5,000 to give away at his vintage-clothing and memorabilia shop three blocks from Wrigley Field. The first was scooped up in a month. "I'm so frustrated at what he's done to our country and to the world, and I think the stickers just summarize it so well," Schwartz says. "It's a very gut-level response to feeling totally disenfranchised and upset with Bush, his Administration and his cocksure attitude."
IT'S THE POLICIES, NOT THE MAN
Bush's approach to leadership has invited Americans to take sides. That's because he has resolutely swung for the fences in both domestic and foreign policy. Despite coming into office with nothing like a mandate, he has governed as if he has one. As a result, Americans are divided over every big item on his ambitious agenda. Just as the country can't bring the war in Iraq to a tidy conclusion, it can't declare a truce over the fact that Bush took us there. For those who support him, the policy of pre-emptive engagement is the ultimate sign of his visionary grasp of what is needed to fight and win the war on terror. "Something had to be done," says Kathie Tenner's husband Bruce, who sounds a lot like Bush when he argues, "Over the long haul, if we can establish democracy in one nation over there, it's going to spread." Edward Wiederstein, a farmer in Audubon, Iowa, goes so far as to suggest that Bush's critics are "promoting the enemy, as far as I'm concerned. The more rhetoric they've stepped up, the more the attacks against our people over there have stepped up."