Time columnist Joe Klein, in last week's issue of the newsmagazine, is finally saying in the "mainstream" media what people on the lefter-leaning Air America radio station have been saying all along: there's something wrong with the Bush administration.

His column centers around The Permanent Campaign, a phrase coined by Jimmy Carter pollster Patrick H. Caddell to describe how the president should act as though he is constantly trying to be re-elected by constantly appealing to voters and what voters want. "Dick Morris even asked voters where Bill Clinton should go on vacation," writes Klein.

Writing a paper for President Carter in 1976, Caddell observed that "too many good people have been defeated because they tried to substitute substance for style." Klein's thesis is that the Bush administration has perhaps gone too far, substituting style for substance. It was supposed to be Bush's straight-talking, shoot-from-the-hip Texas attitude that endeared him to "average" voters. At the same time, though, Bush infuriated intellectuals who saw him for what he was: a very dim bulb being manipulated by others, a man who went to Yale and Harvard Business School not because he earned it, but because his father was a former Massachusetts senator, CIA director, and -- oh, yeah -- President of the United States. The secret to Bill Clinton's popularity was that he really was the son of middle-class parents. His step-father -- Clinton's biological father was killed in a car accident before Clinton was born -- was a car salesman. The family lived in Hope, Ark., not Kennebunkport, Maine. (Let it be known that whenever the right criticizes Ted Kennedy for being a "liberal elite," they must watch as their noses grow six sizes, for Bush is a scion of the "conservative elite.") Clinton became a Rhodes scholar and attended Yale Law School because he was extremely intelligent, not because his father got him in.

But beyond Bush's obvious stupidity, there is another side to the Bush administration: it is more P.R. than anything else. "Indeed, his Administration represents the final, squalid perfection of the Permanent Campaign: a White House where almost every move is tactical, a matter of momentary politics, even decisions that involve life and death and war," writes Klein. The Bush administration uses style -- in the form of vague generalities about "evil killers" and empty pleas that involve the word "freedom" -- to conceal the fact that it has no substance. Or, it uses style to conceal the fact that a particular program might be detrimental to the country. Take the Orwellian names given to Bush legislation: the "Healthy Forests" initiative would make forests "healthy" by allowing lumber companies to cut down more trees; the "Clear Skies" initiative would make skies clearer ... by increasing the acceptable levels of pollution that industries could produce. The "No Child Left Behind" act has left lots of children, mostly poor children from cash-strapped school districts, behind (including the schools of Hamilton, Oh., where Bush made a big show of signing the bill into law).

And whenever someone criticizes the administration, the Bush team is there to destroy that person. Klein refers to this as the White House Iraq Group, which "was created to market the war and smear the President's opponents." The phrase "market the war" is chilling: it suggests that the public had to be persuaded that the war with Iraq was a good idea. The Bush administration tried to suggest to the American people that war was a good idea by using a variety of techniques: first, Saddam was a killer (but so were dozens of other world dictators, including the rulers of Saudi Arabia); then, he violated U.N. resolution 1441 (but ninety U.N. resolutions are currently being violated); then, he wouldn't let weapons inspectors in (but Bush pulled them out before they had completed their job and then blamed Saddam for not letting them finish inspecting); then, Saddam was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons (but Saddam abandoned his nuclear program after the Persian Gulf War); then, Saddam was developing weapons of mass destruction (but we have found none).

Yesterday, Veteran's Day, Bush showed that he was a "uniter, not a divider" by attacking the people who disagreed with him, suggesting that people who believed that the administration manipulated intelligence were trying to "rewrite history." But evidence shows that the Bush administration -- to use a John Kerry phrase -- "cherry-picked" intelligence that supported its case for war, regardless of the veracity of such intelligence. After the war began, the Bush administration, through a concerted campaign of media manipulation and smearing, tried to convince the United States that the war was somehow justifiable. "But worse, far worse, was the tendency of the White House -- particularly Karl Rove's message apparatus -- to see the war as part of the Permanent Campaign, as a political opportunity at first, and then, as the news turned bad, merely another issue to be massaged," says Klein.

Bush's massage strategy: personally attack critics, even Republicans, if they disagree with the administration. And if you can't come up with a good way to personally attack them, then make stuff up. Send talking points to Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Rush. ("Cindy Sheehan is a puppet of George Soros," for example.) Divide the country with social issues, and proclaim the whole time that you're a divider, not a uniter. Destroy anyone who gets in your way. But don't make it look like you're destroying. Promise that, as long as middle America votes for you, you'll keep the gays away.

Under the presidency of George W. Bush, this country has reached a new low. Lower than the scandals of Rutherford B. Hayes, Warren G. Harding, and Richard Nixon, combined. The American people are an audience trying to be sold a product, as though the Iraq War were Diet Cherry Coca-Cola. We're demographics to be won by an administration whose thought process is "shoot first, ask questions later." This war was not thought out. Bush's asinine landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln, in which he declared that "major combat operations are over," marked the beginning of "major combat operations." Invading the country took three months; for the last two years, we have attempted to retain control of a country that was not ours to take. The media spin machine has been in overdrive, attempting to conceal the fact that the invasion of Iraq was the first step in a neo-conservative effort to control whatever part of the world it liked. (Why not? After all, the suits declaring war would never actually have to fight, nor would their children. It's like a game of Battleship.)

We have a president who is running the country by style, not substance, as though appearing to know what you're doing is the same thing as actually knowing what you're doing. But this emphasis on style is not, as was the case of Jimmy Carter, designed to make voters like the president more. Bush's emphasis on style is designed to conceal the fact that the country is being operated by a neo-conservative intelligensia led by Dick Cheney, and anyone who thinks so is unpatriotic, treasonous, and deserves to be killed by terrorists. The emphasis on style is designed to sell to the American people policies which are, in fact, detrimental to most of the American people. This administration has done an unfathomable amount of damage to the country, at home and abroad. It has destabilized the world, putting otherwise peaceful nations (Jordan, anyone?) at risk.

Has all of this been undertaken for money? Raw power? The worst part of all this is that there is no clear motivation on the part of the administration. They appear to be reactionary, resulting in an absurd, uncoordinated policy of spin and lies with no logical end. Maybe they thrive on disorder and chaos. Maybe they like knowing that they have the power to kill recent high school graduates from middle America. Whatever their motivation, they are destroying this country, and no one seems to be noticing. They're too blinded by the sequins and neon lights of the Permanent Campaign.