If It's Not About Shut-Ins, the President Is Otherwise Engaged (washingtonpost.com)

The Engaging Mr Bush

Bush, even when hidden from view and clearing endless brush, continues to work the phones and do his day job. Still, his aides feel compelled to remind the public of this. "The president immediately engaged on this issue," Powell told Tim Russert on Sunday regarding North Korea. "President Bush has been engaged from the very beginning."

The administration has found it useful to provide such reminders, at regular intervals, that the president is paying attention to the issues of the day.

International environmental concerns? "The president has already been very engaged in these issues and plans to be engaged," Paula Dobriansky, undersecretary of state for global affairs, said in August. The India-Pakistan standoff? "The president is fully engaged," White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said in June. The review of military resources? "The president has been engaged," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld attested last year. The China spy plane crisis? "He has been very engaged," said a senior Bush aide, briefing reporters.

This president, it would seem, has been engaged more often than Elizabeth Taylor.

The attestations of Bush's private engagement appear to be proffered in inverse proportion to Bush's public engagement in a subject. Administration officials have rarely, for example, found it necessary to stipulate that Bush has been engaged on Iraq or tax cuts.

Bush's engagement is most frequently noted on the Middle East, an area in which Bush's interest is routinely questioned. "The president is heavily engaged," Vice President Cheney said in August. "The president is deeply engaged," Powell said in March. "We have been engaged in the Middle East ever since I got sworn in," Bush himself said in August 2001, while playing golf.

The president's isolation on his ranch and at Camp David may explain his peculiar affinity for citizens he calls the "shut-ins." Probably no group has received more attention in presidential rhetoric this year. Since Jan. 14, when Bush first mentioned those elderly Americans who cannot leave their homes, Bush has urged listeners no fewer than 76 times to love, care for, help or otherwise entertain a shut-in. Even Bush's aides acknowledge they are surprised by his constant reference to shut-ins, and they wonder how many Americans actually know what the term means.

Is it possible that Bush, so often homebound himself, has come to see himself as a shut-in?