Consider how the old man would have handled the stand-off over the American spy plane's emergency landing on China's Hainan Island. He would have conferred with fellow world leaders in London, Paris, Moscow and Tokyo. We'd have gotten leaked accounts of late-night meetings, of the continuous vigil in the White House situation room. It would have been the stuff of grand diplomacy, with the president as the nation's Chief Diplomat. Of course, George W. played it just the opposite.
Foreign policy is, after all, their job.
He knows, because he learned it from his father, that the key to winning re-election is to focus on matters at home. Like cutting taxes. When that big tax cut bill gets passed and signed in the Rose Garden in August, don't expect to see any Cabinet members or staff folk sharing in the applause. George W. Bush may be a Harvard MBA, but he learned politics in the college of his father's hard knocks. Before the big tax cut signing ceremony, the White House ballyhoo boys will be working overtime.