Attacks matured Bush and transformed his presidency

In a cramped nuclear shelter deep beneath the White House, President George Bush stared across a spare wooden table and told his national security team, "Get the troops ready."

Twelve hours after the terrorist strikes, moments after his nationally televised address, Bush was preparing for a war that would transform and define his presidency - with a historic mission, broad new presidential powers and a federal government overhauled to protect against terrorism.

"This is a time for self defense," he told his war council. "This is our time."

The times have also changed Bush personally.

Always religious, the president turned more deeply so. When audience members tell Bush he’s in their prayers, the president gets misty-eyed. He views the prayers as "the ultimate act of love", Bush told one associate.

A longtime health fanatic, Bush intensified his exercise regime to burn off stress. Unconsciously, he may have been trying to prove himself disciplined enough to meet the extraordinary challenges, associates say.

The president is said to be more fatalistic about his own safety. Reminded recently that assassination is a constant threat, Bush shrugged his shoulders and said, "It’s not my job to worry about it."

Associates say he has matured and is more sober-minded - though he is still playful, sometimes silly.

"War changes everyone involved," said Ron Kaufman, political director for Bush’s father, George Bush, president during the Gulf War. "It changes not your values, but what you value. People call it maturity, but it’s something deeper than that. You’re dealing with life and death every day."

Though he has always had swagger, Bush gained confidence in the past year. Critics call it arrogance; they point to his penchant for secrecy and a record of angering allies with unilateral foreign policies.

An effective delegator - critics call him lazy and out of touch - Bush began passing on even more chores after the attacks.

"He had to delegate issues that might have risen to him that now can be managed by others," White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card said. On example is education reform, which the White House domestic team is now handling.

Since the moment terrorists struck September 11 - and Card whispered in his ear, "America is under attack" -_ Bush has seen his presidency transformed.

"It has given the president a special mission, a special opportunity that comes to few presidents," said Stephen Hess, a presidential analyst who worked for Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. "You can compare him to poor Bill Clinton, who hungered for a legacy more than any other but never got an opportunity."

Unabashedly, White House officials point to America’s greatest wartime presidents - Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D Roosevelt - as well as the Vietnam-scarred presidency of Lyndon Johnson to put Bush’s mission in historical context.

"Every president has an agenda, but they are always subject to the whims of history," senior adviser Karl Rove said. "The times place demands on them; they give them war, recession and strife - or they give them quietude."

History’s gift to Bush was the opportunity to shed his image as an unprepared, narrowly elected president to a wartime leader with record-breaking popularity. For weeks after the attacks, he was politically untouchable.

American did not get excited even at the huge explosion in government deficits under Bush, compared with surpluses during the Clinton years.

"The era of ’big government is over’ is over," said Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist whose former boss, Clinton, coined the phrase.

Bush’s hoped-for Department of Homeland Security - with 170,000 employees - would lead to the largest government overhaul since President Harry Truman revamped national security agencies.

Some analysts say Bush is overseeing the largest expansion of presidential powers since FDR’s New Deal.

In addition to homeland security, he has proposed new "first strike" powers for the US military, refuses to seek a declaration of war from Congress and has dramatically increased law enforcement powers.

Bush has recalibrated his foreign policy since September 11.

A vocal opponent of "nation-building," he now promises to get the new Afghanistan government on its feet. Overthrowing Iraq’s Saddam Hussein moved to the front burner.

Never a big advocate of foreign aid, Bush has proposed major increases in programs intended to eliminate breeding grounds for terrorism.

In the time since September 11, Bush’s popularity slipped - though his sky-high poll numbers remain above where they were before the attacks.

The stalled economy, falling markets and rash of corporate abuses gave Democrats an opening for attack before November’s midterm elections.

Begala said voters retain doubts about Bush, even as they support him - an opinion privately shared among some White House aides and Republican party strategists.

"We were pulling for him then. And we’re pulling for him now," said Begala. "But even the way we’re pulling for him is a little patronising. We’ve all given Bush a pass because we want to believe he’s up to the job."

"It scares us to think he’s not," he said.