The Presidency

By Hugh Sidey

As he considers the state of the nation this week, consider the state of George Bush after a year of power: he has floated $268 billion in new debt, helped create 2.5 million new jobs, fed and flattered and shaken hands with 25,000 guests in the White House and gone wild over Wallyball.

Wallyball? A designer sport that resembles volleyball on a squash court, it brought to 23 the number of sports the President has indulged in since his Inauguration. Though Bush can still throw a ringer every sixth pitch on his South Lawn pit, his enthusiasm for horseshoes has been nudged aside by this new winter passion.

Bush shattered records with an 80% public approval rating but won a measly 63% of his first year's legislative initiatives -- a 35-year low for an elected President. He dropped in on 87 U.S. cities, traveled 135,000 miles, won a miniwar in Panama and held three world-moving summits (on Malta with Gorbachev, in Brussels with NATO leaders, in Paris on economics). Records, records -- not for the Guinness book but for the White House.

Bush transferred his Yale first-baseman's mitt out of the lower drawer of his walnut desk to his private quarters. He picked up two new grandchildren (for a total of twelve) and added six puppies by First Dog Millie. The President proudly stuck in his pencil jar a small U.S. flag given to him by an Army ranger wounded in the fighting to oust Noriega.

The President keeps two bronze figures of Theodore Roosevelt around him in the Oval Office, along with one picture and one bronze of George Washington. He had the last note from departing Ronald Reagan ("Don't let the turkeys get you down") cast in plastic and placed on his picture-collection table behind his desk, and recently added a black-and-white photograph of Barbara in her wedding gown 45 years ago.

He has a new Wedgwood-blue rug with the eagle in the center for his office floor, blue drapes for the tall windows and covering for six chairs in the same color.

The President held 33 full-blown press conferences and 15 informal ones, gave 54 interviews and delivered 320 speeches. In pouring an estimated 3 million words of explanation, encouragement and (usually) good humor on the heads of approving Americans, he made no major errors in fact. Or so insist his White House handlers, who conveniently forget a few trick turns like obscuring his secret overtures to China.

According to Washington's Center for Media and Public Affairs, Bush suffered more jokes by nighttime TV comedians (143) than even Dan Quayle (135). He watched inflation climb to an eight-year high (4.6%), visited 16 foreign countries (counting Belgium twice), cut down his consumption of pork rinds and upped his intake of popcorn by a couple of barrels (unofficial estimate).

Except for the graying of Bush's temples, presidential barber Milton Pitts finds no change in the upper thatch. White House photo hounds claim Bush may have dropped a few ounces from his shoulders to his tummy, but Dr. Burton Lee III says he hung a steady 197 lbs. through all twelve months.

Bush's tailoring concern, Arthur Adler, declares that the President remains a perfect two-button 43 long. To start his second year, he chose a light gray beaded-pinstripe suit and a medium gray sharkskin windowpane-patterned suit with touches of red and blue. He veered from solid-color shirts to what he calls in jest his "elitist" styles with striped fronts, white collars.

Bush did not add a major new brow wrinkle or chin, but by virtually all accounts of close-up observers, he appeared more presidential after his year on the job. The reasons may be a slightly deeper voice from such prolonged verbalizing and quicker responses to questions by a few milliseconds. For once, a President's image has changed more by how he speaks than how he looks. And there is every likelihood that before Bush finishes his State of the Union day, he will caution the country with his most often used words: "Stay tuned."