THE WHITE DOUG WILLIAMS:

An Offensive Charge (DAVID SHRIBMAN, January 12, 2007, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

[M]r. Bush's speech Wednesday night outlining a new surge in Iraq -- raising the stakes in the Gulf region rather than lessening the American commitment there, after a disappointing performance and disheartening public support -- broke new ground in the annals of the presidency, at least for the last three-quarters of a century. Then again, the only rule that explains Mr. Bush is that he does not live by other presidents' rules.

Other presidents have done little in the final quarter, allowing of course for the wrinkle that single-term presidents don't know that their fourth year is the final quarter. But the last four two-term presidents (and for argument's sake I am including Franklin Roosevelt, who didn't know he'd be going into overtime with third and fourth terms) have spent their final quarters responding to events rather than initiating them.

Not so for Mr. Bush. He's responding, of course, to the deteriorating condition in Iraq. But he is initiating a new offensive there, an offensive that will have its first front on Capitol Hill, where newly emboldened congressional Democrats already are scheming to thwart him. This new offensive -- first in Washington, then in Iraq -- is in keeping with his offense-minded presidency, which is peculiarly well suited to the sports metaphors that we columnists try so hard to avoid.

Mr. Bush has broken rules before. As a minority president who won his election in the Supreme Court, Mr. Bush might have been expected to tread lightly, seeking conciliation rather than confrontation with the Democrats who believed the election had been stolen from them. But he did not accede to the Jeffersonian notion that big changes should not be forced by small majorities. He moved ahead with tax cuts, new initiatives that challenged traditional distinctions between church and state, and a muscular foreign policy that eschewed the diplomatic niceties and pro forma consultations that guided established diplomatic practice as much in the Clinton years as in the Nixon era.

"Any initiative he takes despite the lessons of history is altogether in keeping with his character throughout his presidency," an emeritus presidential historian at the University of North Carolina, William Leuchtenburg, says. "He is a man who is not at all guided by the knowledge of the past."

Mr. Bush really ought to QB for Al Davis.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 12, 2007 11:18 AM