While flipping channels this weekend, I heard a pundit discussing George W. Bush’s recent dismal polling numbers, and the difficulty Bush faces in improving those numbers. At the end, he said that about the only thing that could help Bush’s popularity right now would be another terrorist attack.

The pundit didn’t mean to suggest that Bush would actually welcome a new attack. He just wanted to show how tough Bush’s position is right now.

You’d have to search for a while to find someone with a lower opinion of Bush than my own, and even I think the notion that Bush wants a terrorist attack is outrageous. And yet I don’t think we can put that thought completely out of mind, either.

This New York Times editorial says George W. Bush is Iran’s best friend:

At the rate that President Bush is going, Iran will be a global superpower before too long. For all of the axis-of-evil rhetoric that has come out of the White House, the reality is that the Bush administration has done more to empower Iran than its most ambitious ayatollah could have dared to imagine.

In Iraq, Bush has empowered Iranian-aligned Shiite fundamentalists. In India last week, Bush unilaterally abandoned the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and handed Iran a great argument to use when their own nuclear ambitions come before the United Nations.

The Iraq war has given al Qaeda a great recruiting tool and a practical training ground for trying out new terror tactics.

The Dubai ports deal will provide considerable inside knowledge about U.S. port operations and security to a government whose royal family has had friendly relations with the Bush family and with Osama bin Laden.

At what point does incompetence cease to adequately explain this administration’s behavior? Is there some point at which even the most skeptical observer has to acknowledge that there is some malign will at work here?

In some ways, the terrorists have done more than anyone to advance George W. Bush’s fortunes. Whether through ineptitude or malice, his presidency has been helpful to them, too. Their fatal embrace has benefitted both Bush and the terrorists. It’s been very bad for the rest of us.

For several weeks now, I’ve had just one final chapter yet to read in The Once and Future King, T.H. White’s novel about the legendary King Arthur.

I keep putting off reading that last chapter. I don’t want to let go of this book.

The novel brings together four shorter books. The Sword in the Stone, originally published in 1938, tells of Arthur’s childhood and his education by the wizard Merlyn. The Queen of Air and Darkness, first published (with a different title) in 1939, tells of Arthur’s early years as king. The Ill-Made Knight, published in 1940, tells of Lancelot and Guenever. The Candle in the Wind recounts the end of Camelot. It was not published separately.

The early parts of the novel are full of mythical creatures, magic and humor. Merlyn turns the young Arthur into various kinds of animals, so he can live among them and learn from them. As the story progresses, it grows more serious and more rooted in reality. By the end, we are left only with truth and consequences.

One legend says that Arthur did not die, but only sleeps under a hill in Avalon. He will return in England’s hour of greatest need. The legend is poetic and poignant and beautiful. That may be why three books about King Arthur were popular in the early years of World War II.

The legend is also, of course, utterly wrong. White’s Merlyn understands this. Early in the young king’s career, Merlyn refuses Arthur’s entreaties to tell him what to do. Arthur was educated so that he could think for himself. When the king finally does start thinking for himself, Merlyn’s relief and elation is electrifying.

In any era, people don’t solve their problems by waiting patiently for a hero to appear. Real heroes do not rise out of an enchanted mist. They are mortal people who step forward in a time of trouble to do what is needed. That kind of heroism is within the reach of anyone, yet it is so exceedingly rare that those who exhibit it become the stuff of legend.