HOW SHE SEES IT Despite bad news from Iraq, Bush's poll numbers rising

By MARSHA MERCER
MEDIA GENERAL NEWS SERVICE
WASHINGTON -- The news from Iraq keeps getting worse. April has been the bloodiest month for Americans since the war began. At home, gas prices are going through the roof. Inflation and interest rates are poised for lift-off.
You might expect a president facing such a scenario during his re-election campaign would be tense, edgy and out of sorts, if not desperate.
But that would be wrong.
Oddly, despite all the bad news, President Bush seems to be on the ascent. His poll numbers are up and, perhaps more tellingly, he projects an air of almost studied calm and confidence.
Bush benefits from a gathering sense that the economy is improving and, strange as it sounds, from the terrible carnage in Iraq. Americans tend to back the commander in chief in wartime. He also is getting more TV coverage than his Democratic rival John Kerry, according to the Washington Post, which hired a firm to review cable newscasts.
Bush and Co. have turned Bob Woodward's potentially damaging book about the run-up to war in Iraq into a campaign plus. Bush aides recommend reading "Plan of Attack" because they say it shows that Bush was deliberate in the planning.
Europeans joke about Bush, the reckless cowboy. Last week, though, the president deftly planted a seed in the minds of the nation's newspaper publishers and editors that he's the incarnation of a classic western hero -- Gary Cooper in "High Noon."
During a mostly somber speech to a joint session of the Newspaper Association of America and the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Bush gave a laundry list of his priorities, foreign and domestic.
He also recalled a conversation with Japan's Prime Minister Koizumi -- "he's a great guy, by the way" -- whose favorite movie is "High Noon."
"One time, he walked up to me and said, "You like Cooper," the president said, affecting an accent.
"I said, 'I'm like Cooper?' He said, 'yes.' I finally figured out what he meant."
Courageous sheriff
What president wouldn't want to be likened to the courageous sheriff who faces down his villainous enemies? (Bill Clinton reportedly watched the movie 20 times, but that's a subject for another day.) Bush is staking his presidency on his showdown with bad guys.
He may be light on details of an exit strategy from Iraq, but he's heavy on heart-warming patriotism.
The long-term solution for terrorists? Freedom, he says.
"See, free societies don't promote terror. Free societies are peaceful societies," he said.
For the 45 minutes he spent with 1,500 newspaper executives, Bush leaned on the lectern, a picture of relaxation. He jokingly greeted the head table of executives who were seated on two levels onstage as "members of the Politburo." He kidded that he would duck questions "just like my mother told me to do."
The president, who used to be so wary about verbal missteps that he carefully stuck to his prepared texts, spoke from an outline and without the use of a teleprompter.
Bush may have been kindly disposed to the print media that day. The executives stood at their lunch tables and toasted him. Bush said he hoped they'd make that a habit.
And yet, his low-key demeanor and monotone delivery hardly comported with his words, which were dire.
On the war on terror: "The thing that's interesting and different about this -- well, it's not interesting, it's frightening -- about this war is America is a battlefield in the war on terror. That's what's changed. We're now a target."
On the terrorists Bush used to dismiss as cave-dwellers: "These guys are tough. And they're sophisticated. And they're smart. And we just have to be tougher and smarter and more sophisticated in our approach to finding them."
He strongly warned Iran against developing nuclear weapons.
The somber tone left no doubt that the administration believes terrorists will try to influence the election with another attack. Ordinary people think so too. An Associated Press poll found two-thirds of Americans think it's very likely or somewhat likely that terrorists will strike this country again before the election.
"I can understand why they think they're going to get hit again. They saw what happened in Madrid. This is a hard country to defend," Bush said.
And, he said, "Our intelligence is good. It's just never perfect is the problem."
He sounded disconcertingly casual as he laid out the chilling facts. The terrorists "attack all the time," he said. "They'd like to attack us again."
X Marsha Mercer is Washington bureau chief for Media General News Service. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.