Bush is polarizing figure of the year according to Time
■"Time again rates Bush as 'Person of the Year,'" by Sam Dolnick, Boston Globe, 20 December 2004, p. A6.
George W. Bush joins six other presidents who've been named "person of the year" two times (essentially every president since WWII who's been elected twice [Ike, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton), plus two presidents who assumed the presidency on the death of his predecessor and then won his own term [Truman, LBJ]). If Bush manages the trifecta, he'd join the only three-time awardee (and the only president to be elected more than twice): FDR.
Bush was clearly the polarizing figure of the year. Two others mentioned in the running were Michael Moore and Mel Gibson, and in many ways, both owe their stature to the polarizing political conditions raised by Bush. Moore, without Bush, is basically nothing, whereas Gibson's rise is very much tied to the same Christian/evangelical/red state base that Bush draws upon. So the trio is basically the polarizing Bush, and the blue state/red state combo of Moore and Gibson (so I guess Hollywood really does matter politically!).
Oh, and the fourth possibility Time entertained was Karl Rove, but he's even more derivative than either Moore or Gibson. I mean, why settle for the "brain" when you can have the whole guy?
But look over the last four years now and tell me 9/11 was a System Perturbation of the highest order: Guiliani is the pick in '01, then the FBI whistle-blower Colleen Rowley (Forgot her already? So has everyone else) in '02, then the U.S. soldier in '03, and then Bush reelected in '04 on the basis of standing up to terrorists and sharing our "social values." 9/11 doesn't just inform all this—it defines it.