In the Elian Gonzalez case, the federal government and federal courts were involved in a matter involving federal immigration law. Did state authorities really have a 10th Amendment right to intervene in a case that looks to involve powers and responsibilities delegated to the federal government.
I'm not saying Bush made the right decision in these cases. I'm just saying that it's easy to attack him for not escalating the crises when you don't actually have to make decisions like that. It's easy to say "no compromises" if you're never in the position of having to make the decisions and live with the consequences.
If we wanted easy, then we’d all still be members of the Church of England drinking tea and talking about poppycock and all that rot, thanking her Majesty’s ancestor for the wisdom to set those idiot colonists straight. That would be easy. We still could and cite reparations as a right.
Being a leader means having the guts to lead. Sometimes that isn’t easy. Sometimes it’s a fight. If we go by your idea, lets just go home now and be done with it because there is no point in fighting anything. Lets just accept whatever we are told.