I've said before that President Bush leads, and that's what a President is supposed to do. Vice someone in a leadership position who lives by the poll - effectively looking for where the herd is heading, jumping in front, and saying "Follow Me!"
That's not leadership. Leadership is having a vision, and convincing people to follow you. President Bush has a vision. He's been mixed (and lately bad) on the getting people to follow part.
But give him credit for sticking to his guns, even as he takes his lumps, though I wish he was a little less loyal to close advisors and more flexible in his adaptation.
Jules Crittenden has a pretty good round up on the subject here.
Now, I await the follow-through. Will the *deeds* match the words? We've had plenty of 'leaders' who talk the talk. The question is - will President Bush walk the walk as he has in the past, but not as much lately - and, more importantly, will he be able to make the Iraqi government walk the walk.
Did, as some suggest, the President declare war on Syria and Iran last night? No. The question is - will he *make* war on them in the context of the parameters laid out last night? Will the SOF and Predators prowl in and over Syria and Iran? Will things happen on the border, or inside their borders, in those places where overt and covert support for the mooji's is provided?
If that happens, we'll have some sense of walking the walk. That's just one example. If Maliki gets Sadr to disarm his militia - or turns loose the Coalition on Sadr's Mahdi Army, we'll have some sense.
He may have boxed the Congress for the moment - but this shift in strategy, operations, and tactics is going to have to show something, and soon, in months, for him to keep them boxed.
And the long pole in the tent is... the Iraqis. Can they, will they step up? And if they do - will we support them?
That will be leadership. Unfortunately, President Bush isn't dealing from a position of strength. Now we'll see what his metal is made of. But it won't matter if he's a girder of fine steel, if the footings are balsa.
I'll do my little bit - to include, at the extreme, becoming temporarily unemployed... the money for the surge is coming out of the budget that's been funding the work we've been doing - work that was pretty much guaranteed a month ago has evaporated as the surge sucks the money into different pots and those projects are deferred to next year. This is going to be a lean year for some of us. Hey, there's a war on. S'okay, I'm not worried. Winning is more important than my current job. I'll just engineer a recall... and figure out some way to finesse the physical!
Update: AP/IPSOS Poll shows Americans "overwhelmingly" oppose the surge. I can certainly believe that a majority of Americans believe that, anyway. I know around here, the sense amongst the Auld Soldiers is "Right Plan, Too Late."
Fully 70 percent of Americans oppose sending more troops, and a like number don't think such an increase would help stabilize the situation there. The telephone survey of 1,002 adults was conducted Monday through Wednesday night, when the president made his speech calling for an increase in troops. News had already surfaced before the polling period that Bush wanted to boost U.S. forces in Iraq.
This is where leadership comes in. Of course, if the surge shows results, 6 months from now 55% of the people polled will say "Good idea!"
Show us what you've got Mr. President. The troops will do their bit.
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