Illiterate presidents

The other day I learned why President George Bush doesn't seem to consider public opinion. He intentionally ignores it.\nI found this out on Page 259 of Bob Woodward's book "Bush at War." Woodward quotes Bush saying, "I don't read the editorial pages. I don't -- the hyperventilation that tends to take place over these cables … is background noise."\nWe're background noise? Excuse me, but last time I checked we elect the president so that he can serve us. In theory, he is there to make decisions that America wouldn't be able to agree upon by themselves. In the simplest terms, he is there to choose a side in a debate. As a world representative of the people of the United States of America, he cannot completely disregard opposing opinions.\nBy not reading the editorials, Bush remains largely ignorant of the wishes of America. If he were to read a different opinion page every day from now until the end of his presidency (according to the Newspaper Association of America, Bush could read a different daily paper every day for 4.02 years without reading the same paper twice), he would begin to understand how America thinks.\nI say this because the opinion pages are chock full of messages to our head of state. Columnists constantly rant or thank the president, cartoonists send their visual advice and last but not least, the letters section provides those without a weekly published voice a chance to express their views. For the most part, the opinion pages are the public's only communications conduits to the top.\nInstead, Bush distills America's opinions through White House reports. He received a memo that 70 percent of the people polled by The New York Times on March 20 approved of the way he is handling the Iraqi situation.\nUnfortunately, our opinions rarely stop at the "yes" or "no" level. Bush doesn't hear what else we have to say. In addition, not every situation is included in phone surveys. How does Bush know our answers to unasked questions? For example, there were no questions about Korea in the Times' poll.\nPoll results cannot answer what America thinks about Korea. But the op-ed section can. If Bush glanced at the editorials, he would have noticed a dozen cartoons depicting a weasel-like Bush facing down a rather chubby Saddam Hussein with little old North Korean President Kim Jong Il prancing about behind G.W. with a nuclear bomb in his back pocket. The message is clear -- pay attention to North Korea.\nSo far, he hasn't heeded our cries. He hasn't heard them. We read in the Washington Post on April 6 that the North Korean party newspaper, Rodong Shinmun, printed, "North Korea threatens to make Seoul a 'Sea of Fire'" and claimed America will spark a nuclear holocaust that consumes the entire peninsula.\nNo matter how much of this is propaganda, it concerns many Americans that the Bush administration gives Korea token treatment. Does Bush know we're worried? I sincerely doubt it.\nEspecially with this war going on, it would help Bush to read the paper. He would read about a 31-mile long human chain for peace in Berlin a week ago. He would read the catchy slogan "close the bases of death" on posters in Cyprus. He would learn about 100,000 protesters outside the U.S. Embassy in Indonesia.\nBush chose a side. Fine. But his cold shoulder to public opinion has isolated America. His hard-line stance gave The Onion its name for the war, "Operation Piss Everybody Off." America is strong, but if anything gets us it will be our own arrogance.\nToo bad Bush won't read this column.