Bush's Press Conference

The first half of that was embarrassing to watch...President Bush was clearly nervous and unsure of himself. Throughout the evening, he was much stronger as a speaker when giving his standard talking points. When ad libbing in response to questions, he looked lost and his answers meandered. However, when he got to that business about God giving freedom to humanity and the mission of the U.S. in the world, he convinced me that this was the real core of George Bush and how he sees the country.

However, I was generally disappointed with what I heard. He said a lot about why it is important to succeed in Iraq, and set a very high definition of success, but there was nothing about how he planned to succeed in Iraq. The only thing I really know is that we're going to hand over sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30 (though who knows which Iraqis we'll hand it over to).

Another thing that stood out was how removed Bush seemed from the operational level of his own government. We saw this in his discussion of September 11. We saw it more when he said Lakhdar Brahimi was working on who we handed Iraq over to, a rather important part of the key issue of his Presidency. There are probably other examples I can't think of right now. I was not convinced Bush really knows much about what's going on. I feel like decisions in this administration are made bureaucratically, and Bush simply approves courses of action. That's probably why it's so difficult to alter major plans and agendas, because there's no involved leadership at the top, even on key issues.

All in all, I want to believe in Bush, but I just don't. And I fear as a result.