[Black Cat]

In times like this, people look to the president for someone with strength and self-control. I don't know that tears and desk-pounding are the message that most of us want or need right now.

Compare the speeches of Churchill or Roosevelt in WW2 with those of Hitler. The allied leaders were in control all the time and both calmed the people of their countries, but also made them resolute. Hitler would scream and pound the lecturn, making a raw emotional appeal.

[cyncooper]

You would MAYBE have a point if President Bush had comported himself this past year as a lectern pounding, out-of-control lunatic.

He has not.

This is an interview.

A little perspective, please.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

But was the U.K. and U.S. as feminized then as we are now?

[Paulus Invictus]

I actually heard FDR and Churchill make angry speeches and they were as adamant and outspoken as Bush!

[alnick]

You're really reaching.

[ohioWfan]

Compare the speeches of Churchill or Roosevelt in WW2 with those of Hitler.

Straighten me out if I'm wrong here, but are you in any way comparing President Bush's righteous indignation at the country he loves and leads being brutally attacked by evil terrorists with the lunacy of Adolf Hitler?

Are you??? ........ because if you're not, your whole point is, well, pointless, and if you are, you are an idiot.

[GOP_1900AD]

Maybe the 21st century calls for a bit of both? In the coming wars of mass destruction (of which 9/11 was only a minor assymetrical precursor attack - a warning wave) the leaders who win will be those who can muster a passion that FDR most assuredly did not have and that Churchill was only marginally embued with. Things are very different now. We are in a fight for our lives.

[Mudboy Slim]

"In times like this, people look to the president for someone with strength and self-control."

I believe Dubyuh has projected both traits admirably for the last year...MUD

[marron]

GW is well under control. His take down of the Taliban was masterful. His preparations to take down Iraq are smooth as silk. They don't even feel the blade going in. And I would put his memorial speech at the Cathedral right up there with Churchill.

The speech before Congress a few days later wasn't bad either.

[Wingsofgold]

Aw Gawd, let it rest. You ain't even seen the program yet n there you go carpin on Bush.

[MarthaNOStewart]

It depends on circumstances and conversation surrounding the "pounding on the desk" ..sometimes its justified. IT's people "who jump to conclusions" that rarely understand a fine man as intense as President Bush. Even JESUS overturned the tables of the money changers in the Temple, with justifiable anger. Don't judge before you have the facts is a good 'rule of thumb'.