December 3, 2003 - Increasingly the President is living inside a protective bubble. Like the turtle encased in his protective shell he takes it with him wherever he goes. It went with him to London and to Baghdad International Airport . It goes with him to Crawford and to Camp David and on his fundraising excursions. To some degree a concern for any President's physical security justifies the erection of a security bubble around the President. We need only to look back to the successful, if fortuitously non-fatal, assault on President Reagan to justify security precautions. But President Bush's bubble goes far beyond protecting him from physical threats.

As we saw in London and again at the airport at Baghdad the bubble around Mister Bush is intended as well to protect him from contamination by unscripted interactions with any discordant influences, foreign or domestic. With differing opinions kept at bay, the President and his handlers are undisturbed by inconvenient facts and dissenting opinions. They are free to construct any view of the world that suits their ideological predispositions without restraint and uninfluenced by the reality that surrounds the bubble. When the President speaks only to pre-selected audiences at fundraisers and military bases he is exposed only to those whose ideas are either in congruence with his own or stifled by military discipline.

Life inside the bubble is protected from dangerous men and dangerous ideas, but the bubble also circumscribes the President's ability to reach through the wall to convince and persuade the people of the wisdom of his policies. When the bubble wall becomes opaque and encompasses all of the Administration that he leads it may protect against criticism of concealed policies and actions but it also prevents the electorate from reaching a reasoned judgment. When the process of government is concealed the inevitable result is a government under suspicion, its motives questioned and its sincerity in doubt.

Whether is has been the development of an energy policy; the refinement of a Medicare bill; or an examination of the faulty intelligence upon which decisions of war or peace were made the process followed by the Bush Administration and the Republican Congressional majority have reached decisions have been shrouded in secrecy and held closely behind the opaque bubble wall. The Administration has adopted a fortress mentality and while the enemy has been walled out, those who reside in the fortress are imprisoned within it. We should remember that the turtle only moves ahead after sticking his neck out.