IT'S CALLED "GREATNESS." IT JUST LOOKS LIKE THE OBLIVIOUSNESS OF A BLITHERING IDIOT.

In his latest column (available free here), David Brooks attempts to explain George W. Bush's serenity -- and gets it wrong, as usual.

Brooks attended Friday's press conference went to the White House on Friday and now marvels that,

far from being worn down by the past few years, Bush seems empowered. His self-confidence is the most remarkable feature of his presidency.

All this will be taken as evidence by many that Bush is delusional. He's living in a cocoon. He doesn’t see or can't face how badly the war is going and how awfully he has performed.

But Bush is not blind to the realities in Iraq. After all, he lives through the events we're not supposed to report on: the trips to Walter Reed, the hours and hours spent weeping with or being rebuffed by the families of the dead.

So why the unfurrowed Bush brow, according to Brooks? Well, one obvious reason: Bush thinks he's right; he thinks history will absolve him. But there's more:

... Bush clearly loves the presidency. Or to be more precise, he loves leadership. He's convinced leaders have the power to change societies. Even in a place as chaotic as Iraq, good leadership makes all the difference.

When Bush is asked about military strategy, he talks about the leadership qualities of his top generals. Before, it was Generals Abizaid and Casey. Now, it's Generals Petraeus and Odierno.

When Bush talks about world affairs more generally, he talks about national leaders. When he is asked to analyze Iraq, he talks about Maliki. With Russia, it's Putin. With Europe, it’s Merkel, Sarkozy, Brown and the rest.

He is confident in his ability to read other leaders: Who has courage? Who has a chip on his shoulder? And he is confident that in reading the individual character of leaders, he is reading the tablet that really matters. History is driven by the club of those in power. When far-sighted leaders change laws and institutions, they have the power to transform people.

Is that it? Does Bush's serenity derive from a well-formed philosophy about how the world works?

There isn't a simpler explanation for his focus on leaders -- namely that, for all the weeping families at Walter Reed he pretends to care about, he's utterly oblivious to ordinary people and doesn't give a rat's ass what happens to any of us? It isn't simply that he thinks powerful people's lives are the only ones that really matter?

*****

Brooks ends his column with a false dichotomy:

...Tolstoy believed great leaders are puffed-up popinjays. They think their public decisions shape history, but really it is the everyday experiences of millions of people which organically and chaotically shape the destiny of nations -- from the bottom up.

According to this view, societies are infinitely complex. They can’t be understood or directed by a group of politicians in the White House or the Green Zone. Societies move and breathe on their own, through the jostling of mentalities and habits. Politics is a thin crust on the surface of culture. Political leaders can only play a tiny role in transforming a people, especially when the integral fabric of society has dissolved.

If Bush's theory of history is correct, the right security plan can lead to safety, the right political compromises to stability. But if Tolstoy is right, then the future of Iraq is beyond the reach of global summits, political benchmarks and the understanding of any chief executive.

But a sensible person doesn't need to choose between these two worldviews. Obviously, sometimes history is made by ordinary people and sometimes it's made by leaders. Sometimes it's driven by both.

Bush's failings aren't the result of a misplaced trust in the power of leaders. Bush's failings are the result of a misplaced trust in the competence of leaders who are utter nincompoops and half-mad zealots -- i.e., himself and his inner circle.

Surely great men and women could have driven post-9/11 history in a positive direction. Greatly inept men and women, and greatly insane men and women (hello, Dick Cheney), couldn't possibly have done so.

*****

Brooks's column doesn't tell us much about Bush's psyche, but it's fairly revealing of the author's.

Brooks is clearly in awe of Bush's serenity -- and that tells you he's not on Tolstoy's side. He obviously thinks great men drive history, and Bush might be one of them.

And not just Bush -- Brooks gets misty-eyed at the thought of David Petraeus, too. In this column, Petraeus is the quintessence of honesty and integrity:

If Gen. David Petraeus comes back and says he needs more troops and more time, Bush will scrounge up the troops. If General Petraeus says he can get by with fewer, Bush will support that, too.

Bush said he will get General Petraeus’s views unfiltered by the Pentagon establishment.

Worm-like bureaucrats of the Pentagon establishment -- Bush and Petraeus crush you underfoot!

Also see Brooks's previous column (free here), which described small, petty squabblers in Congress and the White House engaging in an "endgame deadlock" on Iraq -- but not to worry, because a man on a white horse will soon ride to the rescue:

The next change in policy will not come from Congress or the White House.

It will come from General Petraeus in September. His recommendations -- on troop strength, political strategy and everything else -- will be the only coherent platform in town.

Brooks can't even conceive of the possibility that Petraeus will sugar-coat the truth and report just what he knows Bush wants him to report.

Great men would never do that.