His own man?

Ilana Mercer has an interesting analysis of President Bush’s leadership style. She says that he is not following or listening to anyone, including the neocons. He is his own man to an extreme degree, “the Decider” as he arrogantly calls himself. There is something to this, but it’s too simple. Yes, once Bush gets an idea, he adheres to it with mindless imperious stubbornness, but that doesn’t explain where the idea came from in the first place. As I’ve demonstrated, his conviction that democracy is the solution to terrorism and that all people desire and “deserve” democracy came from three principal sources: Natan Sharansky, Bernard Lewis, and Michael Gerson.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 13, 2007 11:41 AM | Send