Ambisinistral:

Not meaning to appear to pile-on, but your comment about Dubya’s pedestrian nature is, I think, a function of the nature of current politics. It is reflected in recent choices for the Supreme Court.

Think about Churchill:

This was a man who drank heavily, spoke bluntly, who polished his words for speeches that lasted from minutes to hours. Cartoons of him from his days in Parliament show that he spoke all the time.

He was, in the ultimate sense, “larger than life.” And that would have doomed him in modern American politics. Because he had opinions, he would have left a paper trail. Because he had actually done things, he had a record.

Think of how his background, from helping to oppress minorities (see Sudan, Mahdi, Omdurman) to helping mastermind Gallipoli, would have disqualified him from higher office today. Even before drinking, smoking, and dismissing Gandhi as a “half-naked fakir” would’ve destroyed him.

We WANT non-entities, because then we can project ourselves onto them, and they have no feet of clay to be vulnerable to. John Kerry, for better or worse, is someone who’s the next best thing to having no record: a record for all seasons and all reasons.

Here is someone who thought about this ahead of time—going to Vietnam to serve in a war, knowing full well he didn’t support that war; throwing away somebody else’s medals while making the point that he had served honorably and with distinction.

Not to say Dubya’s pedestrian nature is any better—but that seems to be what we want—no personality.