They're all talking to the Paintings now

This may be the most unintentionally funny statement ever to come out of the White House:

To Bush's critics, the incident is unsettling. Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, noting that the president has also compared himself to Harry Truman, told U.S. News: "This is delusional-comparing the equivalent of Warren Harding to two of our greatest presidents!" Adds presidential historian Robert Dallek, author of Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power: "He may come across to some people as a man of principle, but a great majority see him as stubborn and unyielding. ... And everything he touches turns to dust."

This is all nonsense, according to senior White House officials. They say that Bush isn't delusional at all and that history will vindicate him, just as it vindicated Lincoln and Truman.

I'm calling the Tautology Police.

Leadership is about Wisdom, and while Bush doesn't have the capacity, Wisdom is reflected in the ability to adapt to changed circumstances and understanding when underlying assumptions are clearly in error. If you do not learn that lesson from Lincoln and Truman you are not trying. Lincoln did not begin the Civil War to end slavery, or create powerful central authority, but he did after learning and recognizing several painful lessons. Truman most famously stood up to and fired military authority to prevent the wider war Bush would have craved...and it was his successor (who knew a thing or two about war) that quickly wrapped up an unpopular war, accepting stalemate.