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None of them, however, were Harvard MBAs -- until Bush, the first President with a business school degree. This training has not always been to the President's advantage, particularly in Iraq, where some of our problems can be traced to his management style. Some in the military believed his plan for winning the peace in Iraq had a major flaw: The President committed too few American troops.The Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, warned Bush that this would be a big mistake, but the President ignored him. Instead, Bush said he would listen to the commanders on the ground. Meanwhile, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, publicly disputed Shinseki's prediction that we would need many more troops than planned, and the general was given the cold shoulder within the Administration. The message to others seemed to be, Don't bring unwelcome news to the White House. It's hardly a surprise that no theater commander stepped forward to request more soldiers.
While Bush denies imposing any kind of gag rule on those in his Administration, conformity is clearly valued in this White House. Being a team player is the highest compliment, and officials seldom stray from the approved message of the day in their public pronouncements.
But another reason for the reluctance to give Bush bad news is that he is an unabashed optimist, and this attitude seems to infect those around him. At this year's White House Correspondents Dinner, I confided in Bush that my niece was in the Army, stationed in Baghdad, and I was worried about the violence continuing in Iraq.
"I hope things get better there," I said. "For her, and all those troops."
"It will get better -- and soon," Bush said forcefully. "You'll see."
I felt upbeat about Iraq for the first time in months.
In this sense, Bush resembles Ronald Reagan perhaps more than his own father. It is often said that Bush is a "polarizing" President, and it's true that polls show people tend to love him or hate him. But, with the possible exception of George Washington, all Presidents have been polarizing, Reagan included.
On June 11, when Bush eulogized Reagan at the National Cathedral, he might have been talking about himself -- or at least the man he would like to be: "He believed people were basically good, and had the right to be free. He believed in the Golden Rule and the power of prayer. He believed America wasn't just a place in the world, but the hope of the world."
When talking about the challenges facing his Presidency, Bush phrases it another way: "Freedom is not America's gift to the world. Freedom is the Almighty's gift to every man and woman in this world." In making this claim, Bush has staked his Presidency on the following premise: If the rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence are truly "self-evident" and "unalienable," as Thomas Jefferson said they were, then the yearning for them is universal, and extends to Iraqis -- Kurds, Sunnis and Shia.
Some find this belief profound, others messianic. But Americans do not really disagree on the fundamental nature of George W. Bush, or on his vision. They just phrase it differently. A Democrat might say Bush is stubborn, a Republican that he sticks to his guns. And so on.
"There's an old litany that starts out, 'I am determined; you are pig-headed. I have friends; you have cronies ...' " says Presidential scholar Fred I. Greenstein of Princeton, who believes that Bush's polarizing effect stems more from genuine fault lines in the electorate than with Bush's nature.
By instinct, the President has a worldview that is staunchly conservative and predictable. He's against gay marriage, abortion and affirmative action. He's for deep tax cuts, more oil drilling, tougher standards in schools -- and the spread of democracy not only to Iraq, but throughout the Middle East.
This is not to say that Bush refuses to compromise. He quickly acceded to Democrats' demands that he strip vouchers for private school tuition out of his education reform bill. He also granted the request of Senate Democrats and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to make the case to the United Nations before the invasion of Iraq.
More than his critics acknowledge, Bush understands the complexities of politics. The man who took Yasser Arafat out of the Middle East peace equation is also the first American President to call for a Palestinian state. In his conversation with Reader's Digest editors, Bush coined the phrase "realistic idealism" to describe his approach to that volatile region of the world.
Thus does the nation's 43rd President consider himself a pragmatist -- even as many consider him a cowboy so stubborn in his idealism that he's made the world more dangerous? Even political observers who disagree with Bush's policies express grudging admiration for his willingness to use his political capital.
"I think leadership is in President Bush's chromosomes," says White House advisor Mark McKinnon. "I also believe watching and working with his father as President provided incalculable insight, experience and perspective. He was not surprised by the substantial physics of the office. He was used to its unusual rhythms. He knew the music and he could play the beat the day he walked into the Oval Office as President."
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