The Presidency

By Hugh Sidey

There was a moment in the great ovation to U.S. desert forces when the cameras in the House chamber caught the face of Senator Ted Kennedy, as enraptured as everyone else by the applause that would not cease. But in the din came a tiny echo from more than two years ago at the Democratic Convention, when Kennedy fevered his audience with his litany of Bush's ditherings, following each charge with the taunt "Where was George?"

Last week George was there, the Commander in Chief who organized and launched one of this century's most awesome military exercises. Whether it will finally work is not the question here. His power in some ways has never been greater. The rolling applause for the men and women who serve in the Persian Gulf was a confirmation of sorts, even a little alarming in its hoarse embrace. Most Americans marched with Bush, and from the beginning of the crisis there was no doubt just where he was.

The aura of war followed Bush all last week, visibly enhancing his stature. More than 3,500 people jammed the Washington Hilton for the national prayer breakfast that Bush attended. The speakers engaged in a kind of nervous one- upmanship in tribute to God and the G.I. At the Washington Press Club Foundation's big dinner, which Bush did not attend, almost no one dared rib the President. One of the few good laughs of the night came from humorist Dave Barry who, professing evenhandedness after some gibes aimed at White House chief of staff John Sununu, said, "I would now level an equally cheap shot at a high-ranking, influential Democrat -- if there were any." Speaker of the House Tom Foley laughed a little too hard. And on Friday when Bush visited three military bases in the South that had units in the gulf battle, there was an emotional intensity that topped anything Bush had ever encountered in this country.

How could the man Kennedy taunted be so resolute? And let's not forget those who derided him as a wimp, a lapdog, every divorced woman's first husband, a terminal preppy. His painful politeness and unwavering loyalty to Ronald Reagan through mountainous deficits and Iran-contra bumbling raised the question of his backbone. He waffled on issues like abortion and taxes, and even his supporters wondered in dark moments about his inner stuff. What this may suggest is one more flaw in our system of political assessment. In our dizzy campaigns we analyze a candidate too much from a few one-liners lofted by adversaries or twits. In the debate over terribly complex domestic issues, we frequently heap scorn on even marginally open minds that waver a bit.

History shows that the demands of war often reveal special qualities in Presidents not easily detected in the babble of a political campaign. For 5 1/ 2 months Bush went down a straight road to battle. There have been no black moods for Bush as there were for John F. Kennedy in the Cuban missile crisis when he believed there was a likelihood of a nuclear exchange. Nor has Bush wandered through the darkened White House as Lyndon Johnson used to do, as much confused by his own experts as by his enemies in Vietnam. Richard Nixon sometimes sought solitude and brooded for hours over decisions on using $ American power. Bush sought out friends and Chinese food.

It may be that Bush went through all of the known tortures on the way to his decision. But they must have been entirely internal. There is as yet no enemy or friend who claims to have been witness when Bush was either uncertain or unclear. Some wimp.