In his most recent column Rich wonders whether the president is still commander-in-chief. It seems increasingly clear that he is not, and the problem goes far beyond Bush’s steadfast deference to the generals.
I still think that given the alternatives–in 2000, the disturbingly insincere and megalomaniac Al Gore; and in 2004, the sincerely pompous and foolish John Kerry–Bush was by far the better choice.
But in the end, in these horribly difficult times, America needed a leader of real greatness, and real vision–a philosopher who was also a man of action, a political infighter with a sense of history, a communicator who could articulate the counter-thesis–in short, someone like Lincoln or Churchill or Charles De Gaulle, who could impose his vision on an unwilling bureaucracy and give history the proof of his generation’s greatness.
Instead, the executive branch has visibly imposed its paralysis on Bush, and what our generation is showing history is, to use Rich’s word, our lassitude.
I’m with Richard Perle: Would that the president’s speeches were some indication of his policy. Alas, we no longer know what that policy is.