orld. The new shape of the GOP race adds to the pressure. Sen. John McCain, a well-traveled war hero and defense expert, has emerged as Bush's chief rival. And while the governor is at ease discussing education or crime, he hasn't traveled widely or focused until recently on the larger world. Misnaming nationalities and mangling geography, Bush has drifted perilously close to the Dan Quayle Twilight Zone the butt of jokes on late-night TV and in newspaper cartoons. In the sunny garden of the mansion late last week, Bush was both relaxed and a bit defensive about the attacks on his intellect and credentials. Being a successful leader on the world stage, he said, was about "good instincts and good judgment." Similar doubts, he said, had been raised about other governors. "I'm confident the American people will end up trusting my judgment, just like they trusted the judgment of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton all of them governors." Still, he conceded, it was important to show that he had "firm views about how to keep the peace," and that "I'll have a foreign-policy team that's the best that's ever been assembled." In foreign policy, as in everything else, they are likely to be drawn from the faculty of GWU. Bush began building his own personal briefing machine long before he claims to have decided to run for president. It began with a gathering in April 1998 at the Palo Alto, Calif., home of former secretary of State George Shultz, who assembled fellows from Stanford's Hoover Institution. A few months later at his parent's summer home in Maine, Bush met Condoleezza Rice, who had served on his father's national-security staff. "We spent three days asking each other a lot of questions about the world," Rice said. "I didn't just assume he had his father's views." By last December, Bush had tentatively hired a staffer to administer GWU, a young investment banker named Joshua Bolten. Bush told him that he had already selected his ...
