Last week Bush careened from restrained but persistent evangelism before a convention of religious broadcasters to casual trash-talking with sailors in Jacksonville, Fla. “The terrorists brought this war to us — and now we’re takin’ it back to them,” he told the troops, leaning an elbow on the lectern, squinting crosswise at the camera, tossing a breathy Clint Eastwood chuckle. “We’re on their trail, we’re smokin’ them out, we’ve got ’em on the run.” One imagined the French Foreign Minister watching this lunch-hour martial spectacle and choking on his baguette.
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The American tradition of wartime leadership seems more subdued. The most memorable images are gaunt and painful: the haunted Lincoln; the dark circles under Franklin Roosevelt’s eyes; Kennedy standing alone, in shadows, during the Cuban missile crisis. This is a moment far more ambiguous than any of those; intellectual anguish is permissible. War may be the correct choice, but it can’t be an easy one. The world might have more confidence in the judgment of this President if he weren’t always bathed in the blinding glare of his own certainty.
Amen