Washington – In the weeks that followed the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush warned White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card not to get infatuated with the administration’s soaring approval ratings.
There would be setbacks and defeats ahead, Bush said. He foresaw a day when all his political advisers would tell him to back off. But he would not waver, the president said. No matter the cost, he would complete the mission.
Of the virtues Americans look for in a president, the most under-appreciated may be constancy.
It is a unique mix of surety and conviction, and forbearance under pressure. It sees the big picture, takes the long view, and doesn’t suit our time of yackety-yack talk shows, 24-hour news cycles and instant Internet commentary.
Bush has nothing if not constancy.
Last week, the president spoke about the war in Iraq to an audience at George Washington University.
“There is no middle ground. The enemy will emerge from Iraq one of two ways: emboldened or defeated,” Bush said. “We will not lose our nerve.”
Americans and Iraqis are at a key juncture. In the coming weeks, we will have to endure more of the kind of bloody conflict that followed the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra.
“The terrorists attacked the Golden Mosque for a reason,” Bush said. “They know that they lack the military strength to challenge Iraqi and coalition forces directly, so their only hope is to try and provoke a civil war.”
But Americans should take heart, said Bush, in the way that Iraqi leaders and security forces responded to the violence and restored order.
“The Iraqi people made their choice. They looked into the abyss and did not like what they saw,” Bush said. The new Iraqi army and police “performed very, very well.”
“Out of this crisis, we’ve seen signs of a hopeful future,” said the president. He announced a goal: that by the end of 2006, more than half of Iraq’s territory will be policed, solely, by Iraqi forces.
Outside the White House grounds, it’s silly season here – no more so than on Capitol Hill, where the nation’s lawmakers are enjoying two- or three-day work weeks, piling up the national debt, and drooling at the prospect of debating election-year trifles like flag-burning and gay marriage.
To the president, the war is never far away. It is demanding, insistent and distracting. It is a reason, if not an excuse, for some of the blunders of his second term.
Toward the end of his speech at the university, Bush read excerpts from a letter written by Debbie Kinzer, an Army mom whose son, Scott, was killed in Iraq last year while securing polling sites for the elections. The president often gets such letters:
These words are straight from a shattered but healing mother’s heart. … My son made the decision to join the Army. He believed that what he was involved in would eventually change Iraq. … On his last visit home, … I asked him what I would ever do if something happened to him. … He smiled at me with – his blue eyes sparkled as he said, ‘Mom, I love my job. … If I should die I would die happy, does life get any better than this?’
Please do not … let his dying be in vain. … Don’t let my son have given his all for an unfinished job. … Please … complete the mission.
Sgt. Kinzer, 27, was engaged to be married, and just a few weeks from returning home, when he was killed by a rocket-propelled grenade in Ad Duluiyah, just east of Samarra, on Jan. 26, 2005.
“I make this promise to Debbie, and all the families of the fallen heroes. We will not let your loved ones’ dying be in vain,” Bush said.
“We will finish what we started in Iraq,” he said. “We will complete the mission.”
The president closed with a prayer. I repeat it here.
“May God bless the families of the fallen.
“May God bless our troops in the fight.”
John Aloysius Farrell’s column appears each Sunday in Perspective. Comment at the Washington and the West blog () or contact him at jfarrell@denverpost.com.
