Is * trying to prove he's not the bubble boy like his daddy had to

deal with the "wimp factor?"

Bush Sr. tanked because he was seen as a callous old curmudgeon on the economy.

trot him out a lot, make him appear reasonable, make him appear accessable, make him appear to address critics.

but don't let him actually give any ANSWERS. tautaulogies only. "i'm right because it was right because i'm right".

"The 'Wimp' Factor -- Goading to Shed Blood
September 27, 2001

Norman Soloman

Back in 1988, the father of our current president was bedeviled by what media outlets called "the wimp factor." After eight years as vice president, George Bush was making a run for the Oval Office. But quite a few journalists kept asking whether he was a tough enough man for the job. Newsweek even headlined the "wimp" epithet in a cover story about him.

That image problem faded in late December of 1989, when U.S. troops invaded Panama. The commander-in-chief drew blood -- proving to some journalists that he had the right stuff. A New York Times reporter, R.W. Apple, wrote that the assault on Panama was Bush's "presidential initiation rite" -- as though military intervention in a Third World nation was mandatory evidence of leadership mettle.

But even later, while still ensconced in the White House, the senior Bush remained notably stung by the epithet. He couldn't always keep the pain of it under wraps. "You're talking to the 'wimp,'" President Bush commented on June 16, 1991. "You're talking to the guy that had a cover of a national magazine, that I'll never forgive, put that label on me."

Yet by then, George Herbert Walker Bush had forgiven Newsweek sufficiently to provide it with an exclusive article under his byline -- titled "Why We Are in the Gulf" -- appearing in the magazine's November 26, 1990 issue. Less than two months afterward, the U.S. government fired missiles at Iraq and the Gulf War began. The president was no wimp..."

http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/5/2001/403