Peggy Noonan
Editorial-board member & columnist, Wall Street Journal & author, most recently, of the upcoming When Character Was King

Bush has really become himself. I think all new presidents have to find themselves within the presidency and become themselves within it — and then once they're themselves they sort of without trying give shape and purpose to their presidency. Usually this happens over the first year or two. With Bush it all happened in the past month. It's as if he was given seven months to get comfortable in the new job, and then he was handed a crisis of world-changing dimension and forced to become the president he would become.

And now we have him. He is: honest, self-trusting, compassionate, shrewd. He goes by his gut, and is a Christian, a prayer who knows he is prayed for. He wants the best to happen but seems to prepare for the worst. He's had the roughest new presidency since Ronald Reagan. Reagan got shot six weeks in and almost died; it's hard to start your presidency while incubated. Bush came in and got World War III. I think Bush is going to prove to be a great man. Last night in his news conference he reminded me, again, of what Bob Bullock, the Texas Democrat who ran the state legislature, said about him a few years ago, just before Bullock died. He said of Bush, "He's going to be president some day — and he's going to be a great one." I think Bob Bullock got Bush.

David Limbaugh
Syndicated columnist & lawyer. Limbaugh is author of Absolute Power , about the Clinton-Reno Justice Department.

In his press conference last night, President Bush continued on the high level of performance he began following the 9-11 attacks. He persisted in defining this war in moral terms and repeatedly referred to the terrorists as “evil doers.” He reiterated his message that we are not at war with Islam.

Bush was very well prepared and conversant with all the details of the multifaceted operation, and with other foreign-policy matters as well, e.g., the ABM Treaty and missile defense. He left no doubt that he is in charge (the operation has his fingerprints all over it, even down to his compassionate plan to send food packages to starving children) and that he remains committed to the goals he laid out in his speech to Congress. This is important because some believe there have been mixed messages from the administration over whether we would expand this campaign beyond Afghanistan. In his recent pronouncements and very plainly tonight he indicated that he will not permit Saddam Hussein to manufacture or possess weapons of mass destruction or to abet terrorists. This is as important to eradicating the terrorist threat as eliminating Osama and al Qaeda.

Bush is also being very judicious in his public statements, careful not to telegraph our every move and keeping the terrorists guessing — which is language they can understand. He is treating our press with respect, but signaling that he will not compromise national security to satisfy their craving for additional information.

Since 9-11 and including last night President Bush has silenced all but his utterly intransigent critics. For all the planning Osama and his henchmen did in preparation for this war, he may have made one fatal error: listening to the mainstream media in the United States about the respective prowess of various presidents. Don’t you know that they are just kicking themselves in those caves right now for their terrible timing — in picking on the wrong cowboy?

Frank J. Gaffney Jr.
President of the Center for Security Policy

President Bush's prime-time news conference last night confirmed an impression indelibly made by his address to the Congress, the nation and the world on September 20th: Against many people's expectations — including, frankly my own — Mr. Bush is proving to be a Churchill for our time.

It is not simply that our president is, like Britain's great wartime leader, the public face of the forces of good in a life-and-death struggle with an unprecedented evil. While his words have yet to approach Sir Winston's soaring rhetoric, his articulation of the dangers we confront, the sacrifices required and his resolution to prevail are decidedly Churchillian. So were the touches of humanity and humor he injected to make a bit more bearable the difficult message he conveyed.

Most striking is that, unlike last month's speech before the Joint Session of Congress — powerfully delivered by Mr. Bush but crafted by professional communicators — last night it was him and him alone who addressed us. In response to penetrating questions from the White House press corps, he conveyed unmistakably a man authentically rising to the occasion. It falls to us now to do as Churchill's people did and prove worthy of our leader.