SOME GUYS GET ALL THE BREAKS

We seldom mention luck.

But in the end, important moments are written by luck just as they are by skill or wisdom, often more so.

By this measure, George W. Bush is off to a rousing start, never mind what you hear.

He was, as we know, born lucky, and he’s stayed lucky. Long ago he was lucky that he wasn’t stricken with the patriotic fervor to test his fighter plane in the dangerous skies over Hanoi -- and lucky with connections so he didn’t have to. He’s lucky with money, lucky with his easy good looks. He’s lucky he didn’t get busted for anything worse than drunken driving back in those extended frat-boy days.

We don’t talk seriously about luck in matters of national affairs because luck cannot be analyzed, explained or predicted. We cannot even argue about it, because luck is wholly capricious, often unfair, sometimes final.This year, Bush has been supremely lucky with his enemies as well as his friends.

Because Fidel Castro bequeathed America a bloc of exiles clustered in Florida who still vote the Cold War ... because Ralph Nader enticed progressives to believe Al Gore was as bad as Bush ... because Pat Buchanan rode a butterfly’s wing ... because black precincts didn’t have the same ballot technology as white precincts ... because the court of last resort chose to look to its right instead of dig deeper ... .

Pull one joker from that improbable hand, and Bush’s straight flush would have lost to a pair of twos.

We do not study luck in our universities. We don’t ask about it on our job applications. We don’t pray for it. Mostly, we don’t give luck much credit. It makes us uncomfortable. It asks us to acknowledge the arbitrary.

We hold to the myth of merit: that toil and devotion bring just rewards -- although, on the side, we gobble up lottery tickets in the dear hope that luck will give us a shortcut. Noses to grindstones, we cross our fingers, but always behind our backs.

Now we are told that our democracy has been shaken, that we are a divided nation. We hear that it will require untold skill and wisdom for this president to keep his footing.

Maybe not. Could be Bush will be lucky again. Events of the last weeks have created a moment tailored to the man.

What divides mainstream America is not a crisis of direction, no summons to visionary leadership. How to get prescription drugs to the elderly barely defines a fork in the road, and surely not a turning point.

Bush will begin his presidency with the good luck to be judged on his simple -- but, as luck would have it, not simple-minded--pledge to bring America closer together.

Had he won cleanly, that might have been an impossible task. All variety of hot-tempered political constituencies were pawing the ground: anti-abortionists, environmentalists, the school prayer folks, union organizers, anti-union organizers, gays, ethnic minorities, fundamentalists, gun haters and gun lovers. And right from the start, Bush would have been beset by regulatory challenges to test any free-marketeer: clogged airlines, costly health insurance, mega-mergers, food safety.

But it is George W. Bush’s good luck to find himself, at least at the outset, facing a nation divided in a fashion far easier to heal. Instead of a thousand quarrels, right now we are absorbed by one: Our sensibilities have been bruised.

And what will it take to mend that?

Not much, you might guess. The vast system of federal patronage and a swollen treasury surplus are powerful sedatives for high blood pressure. Serving up the federal pie, Bush needs only to be less mean than the everyday meanness of Washington, half as gracious as the gracious among us, and many will breathe relief.

Expectations -- yes, those again -- are so low for this president-in-doubt that Bush can shuffle above them with nothing more than his Cinderella slippers and someone to remind him not to be a sore winner.

True, he cannot overreach. But who ever accused him of that?

Even if you grant critics what they say about his shallow ballasting and his aversion to long hours at the desk, Bush’s immediate task requires grace in managing a nation’s vanities, not precision in managing its policies. Wouldn’t you know, his knack runs in that direction.

Remember, this guy wasn’t a running back at Phillips Academy, but head cheerleader. He played to the bleachers no matter the score.

How hard will it be to appear more reasonable than Tom DeLay? More open-minded than Henry Hyde? Bigger-hearted than Jesse Helms?

In Arabic there is a saying: Throw a lucky man into the sea, and he comes up with a fish in his mouth. As he prepares to move to Washington, Lucky George Bush carries a full creel.

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THE FINAL SCORE

BUSH: Electoral Vote - 271; Popular Vote - 49,820,518; 48%

GORE: Electoral Vote - 267; Popular Vote - 50,158,094; 48%

Difference: Electoral Vote - 4; Popular Vote - 337,576

Note: 270 required to win