A Crisis of Confidence

Bush's way forward may be sensible. But his face showed fear—and that's no way to rally a war-weary nation.

I first interviewed the guy in 1987 and began covering his political rise in 1993, and I have never seen him, in public or private, look less convincing, less sure of himself, less cocky. With his knitted brow and stricken features, he looked, well, scared. Not surprising since what he was doing in the White House library was announcing the escalation of an unpopular war.

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What the voters saw on TV just now was a man struggling to come to grips with his own unwillingness to face facts. It's still a struggle. His acknowledgement of mistakes was oblique and not as brave as it sounded at first blush. Mistakes were made, and he said. "The responsibility rests with me," he said. What he meant to convey was that others had made the mistakes, but that he was stepped up to take the hit. Hoo-aw! He said that he had "consulted" congressional leaders of both parties before he came to a decision on sending more than 20,000 additional troops. He didn't really consult with members of Congress, and certainly not with Democrats, unless you consider Sen. Joe Lieberman a Democrat.

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The president's chances of success, such as they are, now rest with the reasonableness and details of his plan. Will it work? His says that his generals "report" that it will. Do the American people believe that it will? I'm not sure that they are really listening, but if they were watching, they can't have been reassured by the man they saw in the basement of the White House.


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