In ominous news for George W. Bush, Newsday’s associate editor, James Toedtman confessed to students in a recent talk the following staggering insight: “My personal opinion is that [President Bush] is smarter than he is letting on. I don’t know about his curiosity, but he’s a smart guy. Smart enough to develop a very, very slick strategy … smart enough to know when and how and with whom to pick a fight.” According to the St Augustine Times, the question is one of tone, Toedtman said. “The Democrats are really at sea. They’ve lost the President. They’ve lost the presidency. They don’t seem to have the strength, the power or the force of the veto. They don’t even know what to do in response to the Bush tax cut proposal. They are all over the place.” There’s a real danger, in other words, that at least some of the leading journalists in the country may soon begin to believe that Bush is actually not a moron or a lost preppy or a cretin, robbbing Bush of one of his most potent weapons so far. This is easily the most serious threat yet to his political success. Well, I guess there’s always Frank Rich and Molly Ivins to fall back on.

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