This week the president begins yet another hopeless effort to boost support for the war in Iraq. At this point his efforts are all but dead on arrival. The President will no doubt give more of the same tired speeches. Gone are the days of the president’s post 9/11 glory, gone is the tenacity of the 2004 campaign, in its place we are left with dishwatery platitudes that have no effect on popular opinion whatsoever. For months, Bush had the opportunity to set the record straight on Iraq, Bush could have reminded the population and the world the Iraq did indeed have WMDs, Bush could have highlighted the success of Iraq’s political rebirth or the dawn of representative government in the former tyrannical regime, or the fact that countless Iraqis have been saved from Saddam’s torture chambers, but instead, Bush has resorted to simply saying: “we will stay the course” and assorted meaningless phrases which reinforce the democratic position that the president is out of touch and aloof. At this point the president simply has gone too long without refuting the lies of his opponents, as such, these lies are now accepted as truths.

The tale of George W. Bush and Bill Clinton is a tale of two vastly different presidential managing styles. Whereas both men are personable and approachable, Clinton was a master politician in the mold of Lincoln, FDR or Reagan. To some, such a characterization is tantamount to blasphemy, but we must separate an understanding and mastery of politics from one’s political views. Men like Lincoln, FDR and Reagan belong to a distinct class of American presidents who not only rose to greatness because of their skill in confronting difficult situations, they also were great because they had the ability to manipulate the political system for their own advantage. Clinton, shares that master political skill and in spite of his mediocrity as a president, he compensated with a shrewd political style, exploiting the political ineptness of his rivals. George W. Bush, however, has no such skill, while personably likeable, and genuinely honest, such skills will avail him little in Washington. Thus Bush is more akin to a Herbert Hoover or Ulysses S. Grant, men of great personal ability, but out of their league in the game of Washington’s power politics.

Bush’s political naiveté is evident by the fact that he has fallen so far so fast since his re-election victory in 2004. Whereas Clinton was overly obsessed with polls, Bush seems oblivious to public opinion, not realizing that without public support, his ability to govern is greatly hampered. The president may very well go down in history as one of our worst presidents and not because of his ideas, indeed, on many issues the president has been right, including: social security, the war of terror, Iraq, taxes. The president, however, is a failure as a communicator.

From the onset he has had great difficulty in communicating his ideas, as such his political rivals have exploited that weakness and now it is the democrats who set the political agenda in Washington, forcing Bush to take the defensive, more often than not. The President allows the left to disparage and mischaracterize the war effort, tax relief and so humiliated the president with regard to social security reform. History shows that some of our nation’s most revered leaders were those who not only had great ideas, but had the ability to communicate those ideas with the American public, men like Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Kennedy and Reagan. Indeed, even when these leaders had poor ideas, their political skill carried the day. With Bush’s track record he could develop a cure for cancer single handedly and still loose public support.
http://nytimes.com/2006/03/13/politics/13prexy.html?hp&ex=1142312400&en=cf665679e8bfe526&ei=5094&partner=homepage