Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 2, 1991 TAG: 9103020307
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MAUREEN DOWD THE NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long
When Marlin Fitzwater, the White House spokesman, saw news accounts about President Bush taking solitary walks around the South grounds, grappling with the weight of war, he appreciated the paradox.
"Before the crisis, it was just the president walking his dog home," Fitzwater said. "After the crisis started, it became the president walking around the grounds in a contemplative, reflective, thought process."
War or no, great moment in history or no, this president has not suddenly sprouted a contemplative side or metamorphosed into a whole new leader. But certainly, the nation has seen a different aspect of Bush as he directed a lopsided war intended to teach Saddam Hussein a lesson in humility and the world a lesson about the wages of aggression.
For now, Bush has the confidence of a commander-in-chief who successfully gambled on an enormous political and military venture that, with less skill and less luck on the part of Bush and his generals, could have wrecked his presidency.
"By God, we've kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all," the president said Friday, in a spontanteous burst of pride, at the end of a speech to state legislators at the White House.
But it remains to be seen if Bush has brilliantly redefined himself, or if he has given himself too tough an act to follow, since he must now focus on domestic affairs, where he has floundered, and on the unyielding problems of the Middle East, where he has difficult new obligations.
The war provided a clarity and passion to Bush's leadership that had been missing. He seemed more focused, more constant in purpose, and less a chameleon of public opinion.
Call it Yankee rectitude, as did one exasperated American diplomat who thought it was possible to negotiate with Iraq and avoid war. Or call it moral leadership, as Bush did.
What was striking, whether one agreed that a war was the only way to punish Saddam, was that Bush appeared to be acting from strong, unequivocal beliefs.
The power of principle, the stark and vivid definition of purpose, allowed Bush to reverse the conventional wisdom, and turn a conflict that no one wanted at the outset into the most popular American war since the one he fought in himself.
The nation had become accustomed to a George Bush with flexible principles and a pragmatic approach.
It was only a year ago, when he was criticized for not taking a more active role when the Soviets put a stranglehold on their runaway republic, Lithuania, that Bush quoted Yogi Berra to explain his hesitancy: "I don't want to make the wrong mistake."
Four months ago, White House fumbles on domestic policy had plunged the administration and the Republican Party into chaos. Republicans were appalled by the president's indecisive and rudderless leadership on the budget, by the way he let himself be pushed by his advisers and outside groups.
With Bush's approval ratings dropping sharply, pundits talked about the disintegration of the Bush presidency.
Now the same pundits are talking about a second honeymoon for the president and a coronation for Bush in 1992.
In a New York Times/CBS News poll this week, Bush received an 87 percent approval rating that matched the highest level ever recorded - the resounding cheer given to Harry Truman after World War II ended in Europe.
After the war was won with astonishingly few casualties, and as the nation basked in the euphoria of feeling like No. 1 again, the president garnered 91 percent in a USA Today poll published Friday.
The president's advisers like to joke that they are going for 100 percent. Bush had spent so much time consciously holding himself apart in a serious demeanor, scaling back on his customary teasing of advisers, that he found it hard to suddenly unbend when the war ended.
"I haven't yet felt this wonderfully euphoric feeling that many of the American people felt," he said Friday. "I'm beginning to."
He said he needed "more time to sort out in my mind how I can say to the American people: `It's over, finally. The last T is crossed, the last I is dotted."'
But when Bush walked out to his helicopter Friday afternoon to leave for a weekend at Camp David, Md., with hundreds of executive branch staff members and their families trailing with American flags and hand-lettered signs reading "The Great Liberator" and "91 Percent," he lingered behind a moment to smile and wave, clearly savoring the moment.
Bush knows as well as anyone that popularity is ephemeral. And while his new surge is impressive in cutting across age, income, education, race and even party lines, it also raises some intriguing questions.
Will the president use his political capital to take a new, more forceful approach on domestic issues, or will he continue to amble along, cleaving to the status quo?
Will he learn the power of fixed principles in leadership, or will he continue to engage in waffling and expedient stances on issues like abortion, civil rights and taxes?
Having waged a vociferously "moral" war, will the president speak out more boldly on other human rights abuses abroad and social inequities at home, or will he return to the muted voice that kept him from articulating the national outrage about the pro-democracy demonstrators killed in Beijing and the Baltic republics?
Or, having finally learned how to convey passion and marshal public support for a cause in which he believes, will he continue to try to connect with voters on a gut level, or will he return to his phlegmatic "we know best, so trust us to do the right thing" approach?
by CNB