ambi–”If you like Bush that’s fine by me. I’m just stating that his inability to exploit the bully pulpit of the Presidency is very much a liabilty to me. The importance of this war has transcended my personal politics. I don’t care if a Democrat, a Republican, or whatever is the one that can get it done with the least amount of blood and heartache to all. I just want it handled as best as possible.”

I think Bush is handicapped by three things in his ability to use the bully pulpit. First, he doesn’t have the natural charisma and oratorical skills of Ronald Reagan. Never underestimate the power of packaging to sell your product. Secondly, everytime he opens his mouth, the MSM puts such a negative, and sometimes downright vicious, spin on what he is saying that his bully pulpit winds up doing more harm to the situation than any good. Finally, the American psyche has become such that we are demanding omniscience and perfection out of our presidents. The bar has been set so high that failure is inevitable.

Bush has had some incredibly difficult decisions to make since 9/11. Decisions that would have paralyzed a lot of lesser men. I’m not sure even Reagan would have invaded Iraq, yet if that country does turn into a democratic force in the ME, it more than any bombs, or a Homeland Security office, or an intelligence czar, will be the thing that historians will look back on and say: the invasion of Iraq was the moment when the civilized world began to turn the tide against the rise of Islmofascism. As Leiberman said so eloquently, future generations will look on what we are trying to do in Iraq now and say, “this was our finest hour.” And without Bush, a democratic Iraq would never have been a thing even of the imagination, let alone a possible reality. Bush has done that–no one else (well, Blair, too) And he did it even though in the end it may end up costing him a second term.

And the fact that he must have known that he risked his second term on it, and yet he did it anyway, tells me all I need to know about the man. Bush has guts to do what he believes is right, and that’s what we need in a president in a post 9/11 world. All the rest is window dressing.

And in that vein I told my husband–who fought in Viet Nam, and for a full year, and during the Tet offensive, too–what John Moore said about Kerry having the habit of firing his weapon indescriminately, and my husband said that was a classic sign of a junior officer being scared out of his mind.