An Imminent Threat (to the Constitution)

Wolffe writes that "Bush thinks the new war vindicates his early vision of the region's struggle: of good versus evil, civilization versus terrorism, freedom versus Islamic fascism. He still believes that when it comes to war and terror, leaders need to decide whose side they are on.

"But after Iraq, many of those leaders find it hard to rush to Bush's side, and he has struggled to win them back. Over the past three years, since the invasion, his options have narrowed; circumstances have taught him to speak the language of diplomacy more fluently. Yet he still trusts his gut to tell him what's right, and he still expects others to follow his lead.

"For Bush, diplomacy is not the art of a negotiated compromise. It's a smoother way to get where he wants to go."

Here's the scene on the flight to the St. Petersburg summit: "Bush may deplore the loss of life, but he also sees the crisis as an extraordinary opportunity. 'I view this as the forces of instability probing weakness. I think they're testing resolve in many ways,' he tells Newsweek. . . . 'Sometimes, in order to get others to act with us,' he says, 'there has to be conditions on the ground that make the case better than I can make it.' It hasn't always turned out that way: in Iraq, conditions on the ground have long conspired against Bush and driven allies away."

But days later, when Bush is happily ensconced on Air Force One on his way home, nothing has really been resolved.

Wolffe writes: "[A]s the crisis in Lebanon deepens, Bush's allies and critics question the depth of his commitment to diplomacy. Is he really embracing the United Nations or using the slow diplomatic process to buy more time for Israeli forces to destroy Hizbullah?"

Odds and Ends

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Here's Bush on his own charm: "I guess one of the things I've learned from my family, both Father and Mother -- in many ways, it's interesting, it's from Mother -- is the ability to get people to relax, to try to put people at ease."

There was plenty of reason to assume that the Russians had bugged pretty much everything, and Wolffe writes: "The only totally secure place is the president's armored, soundproofed limo, which the White House has airlifted to Russia. Whenever Bush's advisers want to strategize about Putin, they're forced to sit in the car, parked in the driveway."

And while there's nothing in this story that sheds any light on how the big decisions were made, here's one image of Bush not as the Decider, but as the (impatient) Deliverer: "Bush has a full day ahead . . . but first his aides have a long list of subjects to cover with him. In a prebriefing session they try to cram him with talking points on a vast array of issues. Bush, who hates to get bogged down in the weeds, has heard enough. 'How long do you want this list to be?' he snaps."

How Revealing?

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Wolffe writes in his piece that in his interviews, Bush was "unusually relaxed, revealing a president by turns playful and pensive, stubborn and accommodating, as he grappled with the biggest foreign crisis of his second term."

But Greg Sargent blogs for the liberal American Prospect: "Despite all this access, there's no evidence at all that Bush was asked a single tough question during the 'four freewheeling interviews' granted to Newsweek. It's also unclear from the piece whether Bush even made a single meaningful decision at all during his 'handling' of this crisis, though this seems to be lost on the article's writer and editors. The point is, access like this rarely grants readers much in the way of genuine insight or understanding, and this piece is no exception."

Me, I'd like to see the interview transcripts. Did Bush duck the tough questions? Did he answer like a man who was in fact making decisions, or was being informed of them?