FOUR YEARS ago, when I covered the last U.S. presidential election campaign, it was hard to be impressed with George W. Bush. He seemed a callow sort, propelled effortlessly towards the presidency by a combination of heredity and money, swagger and bonhomie.

It didn’t matter that he couldn’t name the President of Chechnya. It was more troubling that he could not really say why he wanted to be American president at all.