WASHINGTON — Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you for giving a prime-time televised news conference so all of America could see so clearly what is right and what is wrong with your approach to this job.
What is right, and what is terribly important and engaging, is the genuine idealism that informs George Bush’s basic policy decisions. He embodies and gives voice to the belief that goes back to the very founding of this nation — that America’s historic role is to demonstrate the blessings of freedom here at home, to be the bulwark of freedom in the world and to share the gift of freedom as widely as possible.
The war with Iraq may have been prompted by an exaggerated fear of Saddam Hussein’s threat to America and its allies. But the conviction that it must be pursued as long as necessary, despite what he acknowledged as the "tough, tough" cost in lives, rests on the belief that America’s sons and daughters are "performing a noble service for the cause of freedom and peace."
Some dismiss this rhetoric as a cliche. But when Bush spoke of his hope that Iraq could be transformed from an aggressive dictatorship, oppressing its own people and threatening its neighbors, into a model of democracy in the Middle East, he was speaking from his heart. And because that sentiment is so authentic and because it resonates so strongly with the idealistic self-image of the American people, it serves Bush politically by reinforcing his emotional bond with millions of his constituents.
Combined with his assertiveness in proclaiming that he will not be deflected from his chosen course by criticisms from others or evidence of public doubts about the wisdom of his policies, this idealism forms an image of resolute leadership.
All this is to the good. But by themselves, these qualities do not suffice for the presidency in times as troubled as these. The public also expects prudent judgment, candor and enough attention to the complexity of real-world choices to sustain confidence that the leader is up to the challenge.
And here Bush failed as completely as he succeeded in projecting those other attributes of leadership.
The failures came whenever he was asked substantive questions about pending or past decisions. My Washington Post colleague Mike Allen asked the question that no one in Congress, not even such leading foreign policy spokesmen as Sens. Dick Lugar and Joe Biden, have been able to get the White House to answer: Given the president’s insistence that civil authority will be transferred to Iraqis come June 30, who will actually take the helm?
It was obvious even before this latest outburst of fighting that the historic divisions among the three major religious/ethnic groups in the country remain and that the American-chosen Iraqi Governing Council lacks sufficient legitimacy to command broad public support. Who then will govern?
Bush’s answer was this: "We’ll find that out soon," when Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations special envoy to Iraq, finishes canvassing Iraqi factional leaders for ideas.
That answer is worse than unresponsive. It is deliberately misleading. The power and responsibility in Iraq do not lie with the United Nations. The Bush administration determined a year ago it would not cede military or civil authority in the liberated nation to the world body, but would exercise that power itself. It cannot now abdicate that responsibility for structuring the transition to the stable, democratic government that the idealist in Bush imagines.
Like other presidents ambitious to make their mark in history, Bush knows the value of announcing deadlines. When John Kennedy set the goal of putting a man on the moon "in this decade," it energized the whole space bureaucracy.
But Bush is prone to impatience. He pushed for large-scale and long-term tax cuts before he realized that the budget surpluses he counted on were about to vanish in a sea of red ink. In the No Child Left Behind Act, he set an important goal of measuring education progress in every classroom. But every few months, the administration has to waive another of its requirements, realizing belatedly that it could not be met.
In Iraq, Bush pressed for a showdown with Saddam, unwilling to let the revived inspection regime determine how much of a threat his supposed weapons cache really was. And now he is insisting on a June 30 deadline for handing over civil authority, though it is increasingly obvious that no broadly based governing structure exists.
Idealism is a wonderful and attractive trait in a leader. But visions unhinged from strategies and heedless of risks can lead to disasters, especially when impatience produces hasty decision-making. We have seen too much of that in the Bush presidency.
David Broder is a Washington Post columnist. Contact him by writing to
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