Reply #1: It's interesting.

[cliss]

You would have thought that the Bush administration would have caught on to that fact a long time ago. Not so. I remember reading with escalating anger about how the Europeans viewed Bush (this was about 3 years ago). They detested his lone-sheriff, aggressive swaggering stance on politics. They despised his arrogance. They disliked his unabashed aggression, as he epitomized the ultimate about the Ugly American.

I thought, don't they get it? Apparently not.

A while back, I read an article about Cheney. They were asking him about Bush's perception as a "cowboy". His response: "it's not a bad thing at all, that he is perceived as a cowboy. Look at what he's been able to accomplish. He has been enormously successful with his style". He meant that The Bush's aggression had really paid off in the White House where he viciously rammed his agendas and succeeded without so much as a protest. He also walked away victorious from the midterm elections, and his brother's re-election in Florida.

It just goes to show: one man's loser is another man's winner. It just depends on where you are in this wide world.