Sweet Dreams, W.: A little presidential pillow talk - George W. Bush's love for good night's sleep - Brief Article

National Review, Feb 19, 2001 by Steve Chapman

We don't know how posterity will remember President George W. Bush, but we do know he already has an eye on history. Shortly before taking office, he told a reporter that he hoped to make his mark on his very first day in the White House. "I'm trying to set the record," he confided, "as the president who got to bed earliest on Inauguration Day." Bush is a man of his word: After making the rounds of parties, he was back at the official residence at 11:40, more than an hour ahead of the written schedule.

This is what it's going to be like having a grownup in the White House. Bush, you see, shares something basic with millions of people of his generation, not to mention their parents: He cherishes a good night's sleep. He was once a hard-drinking party animal, but upon reaching middle age he discovered the attractions of an early bedtime. Bush now makes a strict routine of retiring by 9:30 and not rising before 6; he sometimes supplements his generous nightly ration with an afternoon nap. During the campaign, he braved ridicule from Maureen Dowd for taking his pillow on his travels to assure pleasant dreams. Country singer Larry Gatlin has told of going to the Governor's Mansion in Austin for dinner: "And at 8:30, 9 p.m., [Bush] said, 'It's time for y'all to go home. It's time for me to get in my pajamas.'"

His insatiable desire for slumber makes a stark contrast with Bill Clinton, whose strongest urges were of a different nature. Clinton was forever sitting up into the wee hours in long conversations with friends, advisers, White House guests, and anyone else unlucky enough to be available. He had a small child's attitude toward bedtime, treating it as a bitter punishment to be delayed as long as possible, heedless of the price to be paid on the morrow. (He kept that approach to the end: During his successor's inaugural address, weary from from a long night of pardoning well-connected Democratic felons, Clinton actually dozed off.) Aides told of getting calls from him in the middle of the night to get answers to any question that might occur to an insomniac president. Clinton was not the sort to be hindered by the thought-though in all fairness, he probably never had it-that those around him might prefer to be sleeping at that time rather than listening to him ruminate on how to improve the Earned Income Tax Credit.

Clinton's urge for ceaseless activity was contagious. Al Gore, who flaunted his disdain for rest along with his pecs, thought nothing of phoning William Daley at a very late hour to ask him to be his campaign manager. When a groggy Daley tried to escape by suggesting that they discuss the matter the next day over coffee, the indefatigable vice president replied that he would wait on the line while Daley made a pot, right then. To dramatize how hard he would work as president, Gore concluded his campaign with a nonstop, 30-hour spree-all the while insisting he was not tired and accusing his opponent of laziness. Appearing at a dawn rally in Tampa, he said, "Well it's almost 5:30 a.m., Texas time. And George Bush is still asleep, and I'm still speaking to people here in Florida." In the end, some voters may have been scared away by the possibility that if Gore were elected, he would insist on staying awake for four years.

Throughout the contest Bush affected a manly indifference to the vice president's display of stamina. W. might fudge on vouchers or a patient's bill of rights, but he would brook no compromise on bedtime. So insistent was he on not wearing himself out that The New Republic actually devoted an article to wondering if he was physically up to the job he sought.

The new president may not be philosophically inclined, but conservatives can take his devotion to sleep as a good omen. Respecting his body's own basic requirements suggests an appreciation of human limits that is the beginning of wisdom about governance. Besides, a president who is abed is a president who is probably dreaming of something other than new regulations, new laws, new taxes, and new "peacekeeping" operations. Bush can find inspiration in the example of Calvin Coolidge, who presided over good times while sacking out for eleven hours a day. Or William Howard Taft, who saved the GOP from the hyperactive Theodore Roosevelt, and whose talent for dozing off any time, anywhere, led his wife to call him "Sleeping Beauty."

When candidate Ronald Reagan was told that in the White House his national security adviser would arrive to brief him every morning at 7:30, Reagan cheerfully replied, "Well, he's going to have a hell of a long wait." All Reagan accomplished on his undemanding schedule was to restore economic vitality and bring down the Soviet empire. Lyndon Johnson, by contrast, napped in the afternoon only so that he could work late into the night overextending the U.S. government both at home and abroad.

A lust for sleep can come in handy to keep a man out of trouble with fetching White House interns. Marilyn Quayle once dismissed the idea that her husband might ever stray because, she said, Dan would always choose golf over sex. Laura Bush exhibits a similar tranquility, perhaps because she knows very well how her husband defines true bliss. Bush's attitude is also bound to pay political dividends by endearing him to millions of Americans whose idea of a rollicking Saturday night is eating takeout pizza, renting a movie, and sawing some logs on the couch. In the White House living quarters, this is an administration that acts like America.