Speaking the Truth

He's a bit from a posting by Thomas E. Ricks in his The Best Defense blog that nails both Bush and Obama. Both fell short on what they promised the American people. The posting title says it all "Bush and Obama: panic vs. dither":

George W. Bush came into office with many of his national security officials thinking that their adversary would be China. The overarching foreign policy task of his administration, some of them thought, would be to manage the rise of China and the decline of Russia. This was reinforced by the EP-3 knockdown incident with China just six weeks into his first term. But nine months into that term, Bush found out different, as Islamic extremism got his notice with acts in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania. He reacted, characteristically, with panic. Sometimes that manifested itself as a deer-in-the-headlights look, and at other times as pelvis-thrusting bluster.

I think Obama may be having his own 9/11 moment, finding out that things aren't gonna go like he planned during the campaign. He came into office, I think, believing that his tasks were to engage or contain Iran, manage the withdrawal from Iraq and change the war in Afghanistan. On Iran, I think, he has done pretty well-trends are certainly pointing toward a multilateral containment effort.

But Obama has done nothing much on Iraq except screw up a couple of appointments there and break a campaign promise to withdraw a brigade a month this year. And on Afghanistan, when told recently what it would take to implement the strategy he announced in March, he appeared to balk. So he reacted, characteristically, I think, by dithering.

...

Bottom line: For the first time, I am getting worried by Obama's handling of a foreign policy issue. But I'll take dither over panic any day.

Since Ricks focuses only on military matters, he didn't throw into the mix the complete incompetence of Bush during the Katrina emergency nor the blundering of Obama on health care and his inability to get free of the tarbaby of Wall Street lobbyists who run his financial policies for the benefit of the Wall Street banks and not for the people.

Ricks does point at an article by Rajiv Chandrasekaran in the Washington Post that gets at the root of Obama's weakness:

All the options Obama faces in Afghanistan are unpalatable. With Iraq, when presented with a set of troop-withdrawal timelines this year, the president took the middle way. He has shown similar instincts on health-care reform and the detention of terrorism suspects. With Afghanistan, however, that may be the most perilous path.

It is the incessant searching for a "middle way" that is undermining Obama. You can't be a decisive leader if you spend all your time trying to find a negotiating partner or fritter all your time on consensus building. You have to act. You will make mistakes.

It is funny. Obama claims that Lincoln is his exemplar. But Lincoln was dogged by generals who wouldn't fight. Obama doesn't have the problem of being surrounded by underlings unable to act. It is Obama who dithers. Lincoln wanted to act but was trapped by underlings who wouldn't be decisive. Obama thinks he wants to emulate Lincoln but he is the opposite from Lincoln as a leader.