In the midst of the most drastic political collapse in a generation, President Bush has been summoning leading authors, historians, philosophers and theologians -- looking for an explanation for his predicament. "You don't get any feeling of somebody crouching down in the bunker," said Irwin M. Stelzer, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute who was part of one group of scholars who met with Bush. "This is either extraordinary self-confidence or out of touch with reality. I can't tell you which."
