Ambling Into History
The Unlikely Odyssey of George W. Bush
by Frank Bruni
HarperCollins, 224 pp., $23.95

The Big Enchilada
Campaign Adventures with the Cockeyed Optimists from Texas Who Won the Biggest Prize in Politics
by Stuart Stevens
Free Press, 298 pp., $25

SOMETHING STRANGE has happened to books about George W. Bush begun before September 11: They have become more important and less conclusive; more interesting and less definitive; not about a man as he is but about a man as he was, a shadow of his present self.

Future historians, when they refer to "Bush I" and "Bush II," may not mean the father and the son. They may mean just the son--George W. Bush as he was before his war started, and George W. Bush as he is today. Bush I is the amiable man who ran two years ago in a peaceable country and seemed eager to narrow the scope of the government. Bush II is the war leader, grim and proactive, revving up the new warfare state.

Two books about Bush have appeared so far in his presidency: "The Big Enchilada" by Stuart Stevens and "Ambling Into History" by New York Times reporter Frank Bruni. The books' problem--and, oddly, their value--is that they describe a man who has vanished completely. They are thus a benchmark, a baseline from which to track changes, tools of value to armchair psychologists who will want to ask: How did Bush change? Why did he change? And can he change yet again?

Bush I--the Bush of these books--is an affable fellow, laid back and funny. He trips on his words but has a razor keen form of emotive intelligence. He loves his country, loves his ranch, and, even during the campaign, reveres the office he is fighting to occupy. At the same time, he has contempt for many political rituals and for some politicians--the source, Bruni thinks, of his numerous antics. At times, Bruni pictures him with a "thought balloon" over his head reading, "Do we really have to take all of this seriously?" He describes Bush as "rolling his eyes as he emerged from pro forma sessions" with standard political types. One type he found unappealing was his major political rival, whom he dismisses, in one quirky assessment: "The man dyes his hair. What does that tell you about him? He doesn't know who he is."

From Stevens, we learn that Bush's campaign team took it as a given that Gore would break the rules he agreed to and that much of their preparation for the candidates' debate consisted of training Bush to confront these diversions. Judd Gregg and Rob Portman, who played Gore in rehearsals, prided themselves on being duly obnoxious. In a late rehearsal for the third debate, Portman left his stool, walked over to Bush, and glared at him while he was speaking. As Stevens recounted, "Portman just stood there, staring, until finally the governor threw his arm around him, and kissed him on the head."

It is precisely this strange streak of feyness that endears Bush to both Bruni and Stevens, although it also forces Bruni to wonder about his ability to sustain any gravity. Not that Bush made extravagant claims for himself. "He told us more or less that he wasn't claiming to be the perfect president," Bruni notes, only "the best of the limited choices." About this, Bush seemed to have no doubts whatever. He knew he was better than Gore.

Yet there were visible from time to time the bones of Bush as he now is. He was not, it turns out, all that indifferent. As Stevens says:

"He hated delays, couldn't stand wasting time, and was always the one urging everybody to move faster, get it done, . . . let's go. He ran fast, worked fast, got up at dawn, and had a restless energy that seemed irrepressible. He liked to joke around and loved to laugh and tease anything or anyone even vaguely pretentious. But try showing up at 8:10 A.M. for an 8 A.M. meeting . . . or talk about something in vague generalities . . . you'd find out how laid back he was."

Stevens also noted his sense of proportion. "Bush was graced with the two qualities that help good pro quarterbacks--he could see a lot of the field at once, and he understood the natural rhythm of the season. He knew when to lay back and when to pour it on." He chose to pour it on in his acceptance speech before his convention and painstaking rehearsals for his debate with Gore, which he correctly fingered as the make or break moments.