Martin Kettle in the Guardian on understanding Bush:
We need, though, to be careful not to be transfixed by the polarisation and to see beyond and around it. I yield to no one in my belief that it will be for the good of America and of the world - not to mention the Labour government - if John Kerry defeats Bush in November. I also think that it may happen ....The most obvious reason for taking Bush more seriously is a simple one: he may be president of the US for the next four years. But we also need to ask ourselves why that may happen, if it does. If it is so blindingly obvious to the rest of the world that Bush is dumb, dangerous and the rest of it, how is it that millions of intelligent and perfectly decent people in the US see it so differently? Is it simply that they don't get it? Or that they have been brainwashed? Or that they are neither intelligent nor decent after all?
These hardly stand up as satisfactory explanations ....