> However, I'm curious what would lead one to expect any other response from a politician.

I will give some examples of US presidents
who actually did some things.
This will take me into some very
contentious history: My goal isn't to
take sides in the history but just to
illustrate that some presidents actually
try to do things. For some of the
items in history, you may believe that the
presidents did well or poorly;
that difference does not concern me
here but only that they did do somethings
along with, secondarily, to observe that
we can differ on the quality of the results.
If we do differ on the quality of the results,
then we have to accept that presidents
who do things can risk failure;
one way to avoid both failure and success is not to do
anything.

As far as I can tell, no one knows what was in the
minds of W and Cheney at the start of Gulf War II --
not even still in the minds of W and Cheney.

But Gulf War II was a big effort and not just some
"placating sound bites", platitudes, cliches,
fantasy nonsense. I thought that the effort was
foolish, but it wasn't small.

So, for Gulf War II, were W and Cheney just
pushing out "placating sound bites"? No,
I don't think so. Basically I wish all they
had done was push out "placating sound bites".
Instead, I have to believe that they believed
that what they were doing was prudent, maybe
even necessary, to "protect and defend" the
US. And they had a point: At the time of
Gulf War II, doing nothing seemed to risk
a significant WMD attack on the US; I didn't
really believe there was much risk, but, right,
it was a small chance of a big loss and, thus,
difficult to evaluate.

Of
course, as we know now, what they did in
Gulf War II cost the US a lot in blood and
treasure. I'm sure there were some brilliant
military operations, some grand heroism,
and some astounding successes; there were
also some major screw ups.

Maybe long term, history will record that
the US dumping Saddam in Gulf War II
and putting in place a democracy, fragile,
a long way from perfect, was a grand turning
point in the Mideast, US and world security,
taming of radical Islam, and progress for world peace.
Hopefully. And I can believe that such
was some of what W and Cheney had in mind.
I doubt we achieved such success, but maybe.

So, Gulf War II was an example of political
leaders actually doing something, that they
believed in, that was risky, and that they
could get blamed for. I'd say they were
high on courage, sense of responsibility,
and patriotism but too low on simple,
basic, pragmatic smarts.

Else? For Saddam, I'd have put in place
one heck of an intelligence operation
so I knew what the heck he was/was not
doing. I'd turn as an intelligence
asset everyone of importance in the place short of
his cook and maybe also his cook. Then
I'd "Make him a offer he couldn't refuse:
'Behave or you and your family, children,
and grandchildren will all perish.'"

Or, for a small example, in Iraq US
General "Mad Dog" Mattis told some
Sheiks: "I come in peace. I didn't bring
artillery. But I plead with you, with
tears in my eyes, if you f&&k with me,
I'll kill all of you.".

I know; I know; international relations
are not supposed to do that. So, adjust
the message a little. But, net, I'd
have left the thug in power and saved US
blood and treasure. If the Iraqi people
didn't like their thug, then that was their
problem; the role of US policy was mostly
just to make sure he was not our problem.

Ike? He pushed the interstate highway system.

Reagan? The Soviets were terrified of Star
Wars (I doubt that they should have been),
and Reagan used it, along with Poland, etc.,
to help break up the
USSR.

LBJ? He was just determined, beyond belief,
to 'fight for freedom' in Viet Nam. He
allocated huge US blood and treasure. My
view is that the US is fully happy with Viet
Nam now (my Brother laser printer was made in
Viet Nam and is better than my old HP laser
printer), and my view is that the US could
have had essentially the same result
in 1947, 1956, ..., by doing essentially
nothing. Yes, Ho Chi Minh liked to appear
on parade reviewing stands in Moscow and
Peking -- nothing's perfect -- but actually
that meant next to nothing.

Net, lots of US presidents actually try to
do big things; mostly I don't like the
results; but they don't all just mouth
platitudes.