How Bush Rates

By Michael Beschloss; Doris Kearns Goodwin; David Kennedy; David McCullough; John Keegan; Edward Luttwak

Michael Beschloss AUTHOR OF REACHING FOR GLORY: THE SECRET LYNDON JOHNSON TAPES, 1964-1965

A President must make sure that if he is getting the U.S. into a war, it is for a purpose that is worth it. Second, he must make sure that he tells the American people at the outset how costly this might be. In both cases I think Bush has done amazingly well. He told us that it could take years, that people will get impatient, that there may be setbacks, that it will not be easy and that it could cost a lot of blood and treasure.

Something he has done very well is use his voice. One of the biggest weapons in the American arsenal during World War II was Roosevelt's extraordinary bond with the American people. He talked to them over the radio. And they very much believed what he said. In Bush's case, his rhetoric obviously is very different from Roosevelt's, but there is that same kind of bond. When Bush talks you feel he is talking from his gut; you don't hear the sound of pollsters and consultants hovering in the background.

Another part of this story is that we Americans love it when there's a President whom many people disdained, who some people thought lacked any great qualities of leadership, and then suddenly the moment comes and he meets it and surprises us. It goes to the most basic American ideal, which is that to be a great President you don't have to be a bookish scholar, and you don't have to embody everything you might find in a civics book, but rather that the most important attributes are instinct and judgment, principles and values.

Doris Kearns Goodwin AUTHOR OF NO ORDINARY TIME, FRANKLIN AND ELEANOR ROOSEVELT: THE HOME FRONT IN WORLD WAR II

Crisis provides the opportunity for larger deeds, an opportunity to walk on a different stage. But that doesn't mean that Presidents will always make use of that opportunity. I think most Presidents would have taken action after Sept. 11. The question then becomes how it would have been orchestrated and how would it have been communicated to the American public.

George Bush has around him a strong group of foreign policy advisers. They had worked together in the past, they had experience, they knew this part of the world, they knew these problems. That put him in a better position than a rookie President with rookie advisers. But it also showed a strength, that he was willing to put people who had a stronger reputation and more experience into his Administration than he himself had. That action shows a certain self-confidence on the part of a leader. That's what Lincoln did in spades when he put into his Cabinet all the rivals who thought they should have been President instead of him.

David Kennedy PROFESSOR OF AMERICAN HISTORY AT STANFORD UNIVERSITY

The one great example of a successful war President in the 20th century is F.D.R. In addition to his political genius, he very clearly and consistently communicated to the American people what was at stake and why it was important for the U.S. to take part in this struggle. He created and sustained a solid backing of public opinion.

In a sense Bush has had the gift of a crisis that automatically creates a consensus in public opinion about the necessity, the morality and the justice of what we are doing. I give him very high marks for his remarks to Congress on Sept. 20. It was a very effective speech: measured, concrete and moving. It did all the work that a speech like that has to do.

I think he's on his way to achieving some kind of victory. But the definition of victory in this case is of course quite difficult. If there was one element in that speech that made me nervous, it was the promise of "complete victory" over terrorism. That may in the end be more than can be delivered at an acceptable cost. We may have to live with both the fear of terrorism and terrorism itself into the indefinite future.

I think it is incumbent upon any President in a crisis like this to conduct himself with the maximum degree of candor possible. We hold our leaders responsible, and if they don't level with us, we lose faith. I think George W. Bush's father, for example, was a bit disingenuous about justifying the Gulf War action to the American people. He talked about defending Kuwait. But not much was said about oil. It would have been more forthright just to make it clear that our way of life couldn't continue without oil.

David McCullough AUTHOR OF JOHN ADAMS AND TRUMAN

I think he has done extremely well. I admire the control he's shown in the handling of the crisis. He has been clear and decisive but also restrained. One senses almost the air of chess moves on the part of the Administration.

Truman said, "We can never tell what's in store for us." How in the world could George W. Bush have ever known that he would have to face the worst day in our history or that we would see in him the kind of vitality and crispness--of prose and decision--that he's demonstrated?

He has risen to the occasion about as well as any public servant ever has. He's not afraid to express very fundamental, heartfelt, almost inexplicable devotions, devotion to his country, devotion to God, devotion to old verities.

John Keegan MILITARY HISTORIAN, AUTHOR OF 20 BOOKS ON WORLD WARS I AND II

He's clearly doing very well at the moment, but that has a great deal to do with the surge of American patriotism. Any President who proclaimed American values and expressed the determination to punish enemies of the U.S. would enjoy that level of support.

Having said that, I think his management of the response to the crisis is admirable. I don't see that it could have been done better actually. But as long as the idea of Islamic punishment of the West for being Western is alive and there are people who are willing to sacrifice their lives in order to achieve that, we are in a state of continuing danger.

In many ways the enemy in World War II was far, far more difficult. We were up against an enormously strong, productive, centralized, industrialized state, which had terrific resources at its disposal. It could perform offensively very aggressively, but could also, when the balance tilted, defend itself with tremendous resilience.

But in other ways al-Qaeda is more difficult because it has nothing solid and concrete to hit at. When we were fighting Hitler's Germany, the closer you got to Berlin the more certainly you were going to destroy Nazism. But because al-Qaeda is amorphous and we don't know quite where it is based, how big it is, how much money it's got and who its personnel are, in a way it's more difficult than defeating Nazi Germany. If fighting Hitler was like trying to destroy a powerful bacterium, fighting al-Qaeda is like trying to destroy a stealthy virus.

Edward Luttwak SENIOR FELLOW AT THE CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

Assessments of a President's conduct in the crucible of war cannot usefully be made until many years have passed, say 30 at a minimum, or more safely 50 or even 100. Until the longer-term consequences become clear, we cannot know if his decisions were right or wrong strategically. Until then we can only make operational assessments. And here matters are a good deal more straightforward.

War unfolds in the realm of the difficult. War is an activity conducted in an impeding medium. Wars disturb equilibriums in completely unpredictable ways. Unexpected consequences are the routine. In this context, it is very easy for a President to make effective action impossible. All he has to do is to give orders that set one constraint too many.

One such constraint is "no U.S. casualties." In Kosovo this meant that our pilots had to fly more safely than the passengers of some Third World airlines do. This was achieved by flying at an altitude that in effect precluded effective bombing of mobile targets. Meanwhile, small groups of Serbs with armored vehicles terrorized ethnic Albanian villages at will.

You can thus measure Bush as a wartime President by one simple criterion. He basically told the Secretary of Defense, Please fight and please win. He set no constraints. And by these lights, I rate George Bush very highly. Whether it is because of the simplicity, the stark nature of Sept. 11 or because of Texan pugnacity, I know not which, but he has acted right.