Bush made this decision by being the "war president". But he didn't even communicate his approach towards the wars directly to the American people. He just kept quiet for 18 months, while his numbers went down the rathole, and I had to listen to Veterans in the grocery store bash him, when I saw those same folks with Bush/Cheney 04 stickers just a few years earlier.
It all started downhill right after the re-election, when he said he was going to use some of his political capital...on Social Security reform that had ZERO chance of passing the Senate? Then he had his AG appoint Fitzgerald as a spec prosecutor in the ridiculous "Plame affair". More self-inflicted wounds.
He passed bankruptcy reform--but let Tom Delay block a key amendment which would have exempted those provably caused by medical bills--a HUGE blunder that left an issue open to the Dems for this very debate now.
He refused to pursue drilling in ANWR with a 90% post-9/11 approval rating! Oil from ANWR would be flowing next year if he had put his capital behind a major issue like that. And it could have opened up huge offshore drilling momentum--again taking away a big issue for the Dems as oil prices exploded.
And he did not propose ANYTHING to reform health care. NADA. Well, speaking of "Nada", he did try to push illegal amnesty, but let's please not raise my blood pressure and further...
Indeed he did. ...so I suspect he and his RINO comrades will be thrilled about the next item on the Obama agenda.