It sounds as though, after months of indecision, the president has finally resolved to be irresolute. It seems that his central strategic goal is to displease no one. Unless the speech turns out to be markedly different from what the Times leads us to expect--and let us hope it does--it will only reinforce the impression that he is a ditherer.


Last week Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post tried to rebut this stereotype. Here's how his story began:

President George W. Bush once boasted, "I'm not a textbook player, I'm a gut player." The new tenant of the Oval Office takes a strikingly different approach. President Obama is almost defiantly deliberative, methodical and measured, even when critics accuse him of dithering. When describing his executive style, he goes into Spock mode, saying, "You've got to make decisions based on information and not emotions."

Obama's handling of the Afghanistan conundrum has been a spectacle of deliberation unlike anything seen in the White House in recent memory. The strategic review began in September. Again and again, the war council convened in the Situation Room. The president mulled an array of unappealing options. Next week, finally, he will tell the American public the outcome of all this strategizing.

"He's establishing his decision-making process as being almost diametrically the opposite of the previous administration," says Lawrence Wilkerson, a retired Army colonel who served as Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's chief of staff. Wilkerson, who teaches national security decision-making at George Washington University, says the Bush-Cheney style was "cowboy-like, typical Texas, typical Wyoming, and extremely secretive."

This story appeared on page A1. That is, at the Washington Post, it is still front-page news that "the new tenant of the Oval Office," who has been there for nearly a quarter of a term," is different from his predecessor. But actually, there's a lesson here, for journalists and politicians alike. With Achenbach's comments about Bush in mind, read this excerpt from the former president's Jan. 10, 2007, speech announcing the surge in Iraq:

It is clear that we need to change our strategy in Iraq. So my national security team, military commanders and diplomats conducted a comprehensive review.

We consulted members of Congress from both parties, allies abroad, and distinguished outside experts.

We benefited from the thoughtful recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel led by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Congressman Lee Hamilton. In our discussions, we all agreed that there is no magic formula for success in Iraq. And one message came through loud and clear: Failure in Iraq would be a disaster for the United States.

It was a spectacle of deliberation unlike anything seen in the White House in recent memory. Or it would have been, if anyone remembered it. But no one does, because the stereotype of Bush as "cowboy-like" stuck. The stereotype of Obama as indecisive, detached and irresolute is sticking, too. Achenbach has made a manful effort to counter it, but let's look at another passage from his piece and see how well he did:

Stephen Wayne, who teaches about the presidency at Georgetown, said: "He's not an instinctive decision-maker as Bush was. He doesn't go with his gut, he thinks with his head, which I think is desirable." Referring to the Afghanistan decision, Wayne said, "I don't think he is an indecisive person, I just think this is a tough one."

The defense of Obama is that he's not indecisive, he just has trouble making tough decisions. When decisions are easy, bang, he makes them just like that! Imagine him sitting in a diner:

Waiter: Would you like eggs for breakfast?

Obama: Yes, I most certainly would!