o one enjoys the dumbing down of George W. Bush more than George W. Bush. Everywhere he looks, foes and friends, comedians, and sober historians cite his butchery of English and his blank stares on current affairs as if he would be the first president who would fully utilize the Americans With Disabilities Act.
In a routine about Bush's governance of Texas, comedian Jay Leno said, ''They executed a guy with an IQ of 63. Can you believe it? Bush turning his back on one of his own!''
Nicholas Lemann wrote in The New Yorker that Bush would ''come to the presidency with a lighter resume than anybody has had in least a hundred years.''
''Seinfeld'' producer Larry David, a supporter of Bush's rival, Al Gore, said Bush is ''making it possible for a lot of idiots like myself to actually consider running for office.''
Pro-Bush columnist Michael Kelly wrote that the need for Bush is so bad that ''the country can afford a 40-watt president.''
Bush the person may not like this, but Bush the politician is eating this up.
Even though he has practiced all year for the presidential debates, he is still joking that he still loses his mock battles with Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire. Appearing on ''Oprah,'' Bush played up his awe of being at Phillips Academy in Andover and ''how brilliant all the other kids were.''
Fox TV's Paula Zahn and MSNBC's Brian Williams have asked Bush what he thinks of critics who label him ''dumb'' and ''lightweight.'' Bush has responded:
''Let them. You know, if that's what they want to say, they can say it. But guess what? I was underestimated in 1994 and became governor of the second biggest state in the union.''
He has said, ''I take great comfort in the fact that they said the same thing about President Ronald Reagan.''
That is the thing to remember before the debates between Bush, the Republican presidential nominee, and Gore, the Democratic nominee.
Bush has already turned lightweight into heft. The first debate is here in Kennedyland, and presidential biographer Richard Reeves favorably compares Bush's position to John F. Kennedy's advantage against Richard Nixon in 1960.
''They're almost totally similar,'' Reeves told CNN. ''Kennedy, we forget now, was seen as a kind of likeable lightweight against the vice president of the United States who seemed to know everything about everything. I think that there are real parallels, except that, in this case, Bush is Kennedy and to a certain extent, all he has to do is show up and not faint and people will say he did fairly well.''
That happened in 1994 when Bush ran for governor against popular incumbent Ann Richards. Richards sat too high on her horse, flinging barbs that irritated even the tart tongues of Texas. She likened Bush to a ''jerk,'' and used other diminutives to paint Bush in Lilliputian terms. ''If his name wasn't Bush,'' Richards said, ''He wouldn't amount to anything.''
In their only debate, Richards pounded on Bush, saying he sat on the boards of five companies that lost $371 million. Bush stayed on a shallow but consistent theme that was resonating throughout the nation.
Whatever Richards said, Bush responded with a mantra of ''welfare, education, and juvenile justice.''
Bush waited until Richards wore out Texans with her attacks. At one point during the debate, a questioner from the audience said to Richards, ''I personally feel that we've heard enough about it in the campaign.'' So had Texans, who elected Bush.
Gore and Paul Begala, the political strategist who is Gore's coach on debating Bush, both swear that they are not underestimating Bush. That is hard to believe when Begala has recently written that Bush has ''all the intellectual curiosity of a slug'' who is ''worse than dumb, he is lazy. He does not read; he does not ponder, he does not study, and this is much worse.''
Bill Daley, Gore's campaign chairman, said, ''Bush has got to hit some pretty dramatic doubles, triples, and home runs. Singles won't do it for him.''
That cockily assumes all Bush can hit is singles. With such piling on, the nation will be pleasantly shocked if Bush can even stagger from the batter's box.
The scene is set. Gore has to worry about being seen as too bright. All Bush has to do is bring his 40 watts. Digging at Gore's aura of intellect, Bush said, ''We need less planners and thinkers.'' Bush is hoping Gore will turn off voters with too much brain. If so, the dim bulb that blinded Ann Richards could be on his way to becoming a nite lite in the Oval Office.
Derrick Z. Jackson's e-mail address is jackson@globe.com.
