FOUR YEARS ago, George Bush won the presidency despite himself.

He won because his campaign brain trust--Lee Atwater, James Baker, Roger Ailes And Robert Teeter--discovered the political might of Willie Horton, the pledge of allegiance and the American flag. Armed with nothing mightier than symbols or slogans, Bush's campaign handlers played the electorate like Atwater used to play blues guitar.

But Atwater died last year at the age of 40 from a brain tumor. Ailes has retired from politics. Baker is busy running the State Department. Of the Big Four behind Bush's 1988 campaign, Teeter is the only one who is involved in Bush's re-election effort.

And it's a re-election effort that's going badly and only getting worse. Why? The answer, surprisingly, can be found in the Bible.

GEORGE MAY BE the most famous Bush in today's world, but in a world-historical sense he runs a distance second.

Number one, of course, is the bush that burned in the Sinai desert some 3500 years ago, an event that was recorded in the Bible and has been ever since the subject of an inordinate amount of religious interpretation.

But the burning bush has been largely ignored as a subject of political interpretation, especially in contemporary American politics. That's a sin, because the Biblical bush can provide great insight into the presidential Bush, and specifically into his re-election campaign this year.

We all know the story. Moses is out doing the shepherd thing near Mt. Sinai when he happens upon a bush that is burning but not being consumed by fire. His interest aroused, Moses approaches the shrub. God then announces his presence to the prophet.

In the ensuing conversation, God commands Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt and into the Promised Land. The shepherd, however, isn't too keen on the job. He's not sure that he could convince even the Israelites, let alone Pharaoh, that he has truly been sent by the Lord to deliver Israel from the house of bondage. What should he tell the people, Moses asks, when they question him and ask him the name of God?

God's famous reply: "I am who I am." That, God says, is his name for all eternity. That's what Moses should tell the Israelites.

Moses finally agrees to do God's bidding and ultimately leads the Israelites out of Egypt. The Israelites settle in the Land of Israel, build a couple of temples and are expelled from Israel after the Romans sack the second one in 70 A.D. Nearly 2000 years later, Zionists return to the Land and begin building houses in the West Bank, which really pisses off George Bush, 42nd president of the United States.

But that's not the point of the story.

THE POINT IS that the presidential Bush could never utter the same worlds that came forth from the burning bush: "I am who I am."

That's because, politically, George Bush is nothing. Once an advocate of Planned Parenthood and a critic of "voodoo economics," he's now an anti-choice basher and a supply side disciple. He's a champion of political expedience and ambition--and not much else.

While the shallowness of Bush's political views has been recognized by political pundits for years, the "vision thing" has a potential for hurting Bush in '92 like never before.