In Light of the Crisis

The problem with this caution is that it is hard to distinguish from timidity, or even confusion. Obama, after all, has little experience in these matters. It is easier to hang back when you have nothing to offer. Hesitance can indicate an undeveloped worldview. Still, Obama may have calculated correctly that Americans are weary after the unrelenting strategic boldness of the Bush years. And Obama's reserve tends to emphasize his greatest political strength: an impression of calmness and stability.

But the largest figure revealed in the light of the financial crisis has been President Bush. Americans may be tired of strategic boldness, but Bush clearly is not. When Paulson and Bernanke came to the president in mid-September, warning of an imminent financial meltdown, Bush's reaction was typical. He told Paulson not to worry about the politics and to propose whatever was economically necessary. It would have been easier for the administration to produce symbolic, easily passable legislation. Bush chose to go to the root of the problem -- toxic debt in the financial system. The plan was not perfect, and later improved. But charges that it is somehow timid or irrelevant are absurd. Seven hundred billion dollars amounts to about 5 percent of all mortgage debt in America -- about one-third of all subprime debt.

Bush's ambition, bias toward action and indifference to political pressure are sometimes criticized. But his greatest failures -- such as the Katrina response and the initial strategy of the Iraq counterinsurgency campaign -- have come when he ignored those instincts. The troop surge resulted when he followed them. And Bush's economic ideology -- a belief in markets, combined with a recognition that intervention is sometimes necessary to make markets work -- seems well suited to the current crisis.

With months remaining in his term, Bush's influence is not what it once was. But if his rescue plan eventually passes, there will be reason for thanks that Bush, rather than McCain or Obama, is president at this moment -- even if few offer that thanks.