A couple of points worth noting:
Bush doesn't do well in situations where he has to think before a live audience, especially where he has to answer questions. He stumbles in his speech, he loses focus and often is unable to produce any clarity of thought. Now he has gotten better in the last few months, but this will be a stressful situation, where he can't get angry and yell if someone asks him a question he doesn't like.
His handlers know this. They have to send a babysitter, and since his (the President's) thoughts on foreign policy really aren't his own at all, but rather represent the ideological agenda of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Pearl et. al., one of them has to be there to make sure the approved doctrine is presented thoughtfully and forcefully. It would be fun to watch this vaudeville act, if it wasn't indicative of something terribly wrong at the core of our Republic.
Now personally I think there is a worse problem.
I've been in the trenches of the mental health system for 18 of the last 25 years of my working life, and I've seen a lot of people on various kinds of drugs. Personally I think the President is on drugs, probably a low level cocktail of uppers and caffeine, something to give him a little euphoria and confidence, and some artificial clarity of thought. Problem is that still doesn't help where the real problem is competence, and the President is not really competent in a lot of ways. He can't speak with the natural authority of the expert on foreign policy, so even if he is bright and clever from his cocktail, he still needs the VP there to cover the gaps in his knowledge.
Not the best way to run a country.
