[Mb-civic] The test of leadership

[michael at intrafi.com]

This story was sent to you by: michael butler

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The test of leadership 
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October 27, 2004

No president running for re-election would want George W. Bush's week. The grim news that some 50 unarmed Iraqi soldiers were ambushed and shot to death as they headed home on leave kept the fierceness of combat in Iraq on this nation's front pages. Iraq's interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi blamed the killing of the soldiers on "major negligence" on the part of the U.S.-led military coalition. Reports about explosives that disappeared in Iraq some 18 months ago raised questions about whether U.S. military planners had carelessly let those deadly materials slip away.

The events open the Bush administration's prosecution of the war in Iraq to more scrutiny and second-guessing. This week, the president is suffering consequences of difficult decisions.

As both stories from Iraq played out Monday, though, Bush told cheering throngs of loyalists: "On good days and bad days, whether the polls are up or the polls are down, I am determined to win the war on terror, and I will always support the men and women in uniform." Translation: Bad things happen in every war zone--and as much as that discourages people, my country will not cut and run. Let history judge us.

And that is one of the lines of demarcation in this presidential election. What Bush's critics see as an unwillingness to critically assess his own performance, his supporters see as a welcome sense of confidence and purpose.

Well before Sept. 11, 2001, Bush signaled his unambiguous resolve on matters of national security: "Armies and missiles are not stopped by stiff notes of condemnation," he said in a 1999 policy address at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California. "They are held in check by strength and purpose and the promise of swift punishment."

No, Bush does not construct foreign policy around stiff notes of condemnation. He has a clarity of purpose that served this country well after Sept. 11 and in Afghanistan and, with time, can do the same in Iraq. Which may be why, despite the bad news from Iraq, he remains essentially tied in his re-election campaign against Sen. John Kerry.

The Gallup Organization reported Tuesday that in weekend polling, Bush led Kerry by 19 points on leadership; 57 percent of Americans said the phrase "is a strong and decisive leader" applies more to Bush, with only 38 percent saying it applies more to Kerry.

That's important: 49 percent of likely voters said "leadership skills and vision" will be a bigger influence on their presidential votes than "where the candidates stand on issues" (39 percent). Gallup's analysis says that finding is the flip of how voters weighed those attributes in 2000: "This year's tilt toward leadership over issues benefits Bush, given his strong position on the leadership issue."

What's not clear is whether Bush's advantage on leadership stems from voters' perceptions of his vision--which, frankly, many Americans dislike--or from Kerry's reluctance to chart a similarly clear course on Iraq in particular and, more broadly, on national security. Six days short of this year's presidential election, one question still looms large: How would President Kerry resolve Iraq and protect America?

There is no shortage of words from the Kerry campaign to answer that question. Kerry has said he would make Iraq "the world's problem." He would urge Arab and Muslim states, as well as NATO, to become more involved.

For the most part, though, his Iraq policies vary little from Bush's. On national security, he has effectively criticized the Bush administration's failings--not enough inspection of cargo ships, for example--but he seems more wedded to corralling terrorists than to squeezing state sponsors of terror. Big difference in long-term ambition.

What voters may feel is missing from Kerry's pitch--we won't pretend to be mind-readers--is conviction. Bush often tells campaign crowds: "You can't win a war when you don't believe you're fighting one." The line always pulls a cheer, possibly because while Kerry says the U.S. can't abandon the Iraqi people, he calls Iraq a diversion. He telegraphs less zeal to finish the job than to begin withdrawing troops.

Bush senses the vulnerability, which no doubt is why he has started accusing Kerry of skirting the bold promotion of liberty that a less conflicted Democrat, President John F. Kennedy, articulated for America in his 1960 inaugural address. "Sen. Kerry has turned his back on `Pay any price and bear any burden,'" Bush said Monday, "and he has replaced those commitments with `wait and see' and `cut and run.'"

The problem, then, for Democrats who loathe Bush's policies is that Kerry hasn't articulated a vision much different. Saying he'll do a better, or "smarter," job isn't a vision.

In an article titled "Who will make us safer?" this week's Time magazine crystallizes what that would mean for Kerry: "Kerry may yet win as a result of the collapse of Bush's vision. But if he does, the scale of the challenges facing the new commander in chief will demand that he find one of his own."

That Kerry sticks largely to critiques of Bush, and hasn't expressed that vision, is a crucial wartime issue for America's voters to weigh.


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