At least he finally said something you can put in the bank. Finally, some truth. Still, nothing less than stunning was that a sitting president in, or rather a president sitting in, the midst of so much pain, anguish and looming disaster -- thousands dying in Iraq, 45 million at home with no health care, a generations-crushing deficit -- could utter such a disconnected inanity. It made Herbert Hoover look like a combustive activist.

To be fair, Bush is accustomed to not worrying because he’s never had to. He’s always had his own private welfare system, a coterie of political nannies to hold him and clean up after him, and his emotional abyss precludes empathy for others who were born silver-spoonless. Folks like Robert F. Kennedy possessed the same privileges, but were capable of growth. There was something there, there.

Nevertheless the What, me-worry? line this week was a refreshingly honest moment during what the press still charitably calls a “news” conference. Other than that one aside, we got the same old diversions and ducks and deceit, as expected. Yet Bush’s Me-worry? attitude is causing a lot of worry for his congressional minions. They’re reading some nasty electoral graffiti on the wall.

"There is a growing sense of frustration with the president and the White House, quite frankly," said a Republican member of Congress. "The term I hear most often is tin ear.”

And he’s not hearing it from just Democratic constituents. “In the most recent Washington Post poll, taken last month, 47 percent of Americans [other polls as low as 43 percent] approved of Bush's performance, tying the lowest marks he ever received in that survey, back in mid-2004 when Democrats were airing tens of millions of dollars in campaign attack ads,” observes the Seattle Times.

Bush has it all: the (literal) bully pulpit, the media dogs, a somnambulant opposition -- yet the nation’s majority are growing leery of him. Really leery.

Yes it’s history, but I tire not of pointing out that many more would have grown leery long before Bush’s 2000 Immaculate Ascension had they been awake. For instance, while researching a few foreign policy topics from two campaigns past I was struck anew by how aloof, incomplete and evasive Bush was as a candidate. Sure there were occasions such as presidential debates when he had to say something, though that something was often a fairy tale. My favorite: "If we are an arrogant nation, they will resent us. If we're a humble nation, but strong, they'll welcome us," he said in the second debate. And "I'm not so sure the role of the United States is to go around the world and say, ‘This is the way it's got to be.’” I’ll let that one pass. It’s too easy.

But given a choice, Bush dodged free-wheeling inquiry with unctuous devotion. For instance on October 30 of that election year the New York Times noted in an expansive analysis of the two candidates’ positions: “Mr. Gore is always eager to … analyze international events; he granted an hour-long interview for this article. Mr. Bush took four weeks to consider repeated invitations to be interviewed on his foreign policy views. In the end he declined.” The Times was reduced to relying on secondary sources.

Earlier in the year and in another paper’s “Where the Candidates Stand” article, the pack leaders were asked to elaborate on one of the greatest and lasting controversies in American history. The question was this: “Fifty-eight thousand Americans, 223,000 South Vietnamese and, by Hanoi's estimate, 660,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers were killed in Vietnam…. Do you believe that war served America's interests?” Bill Bradley, Al Gore and John McCain all gave rehearsed, but reasonably complete, answers. What issued forth from candidate George W. Bush? “No response” (Columbus Dispatch, February 27, 2000).

He didn’t care enough to ponder a million lives lost in Vietnam. Why should we expect him to care about mere thousands in Iraq? Or anything else?

We shouldn’t. Even George would say so, and did.