In this day when a moderate or temperate stand on the current condition of things that are by their nature extreme is viewed with disdain, I offer my modest claim to the middle view: I support the war on Islamism but I have lost confidence that Bush can wage it.

This is a peculiar position for any number of reasons. It creates a kind of cognitive dissonance that others will perceive as mindlessness or, at worst, wobbling on the issues. More to the point, it smacks of hedging in a time of war. I firmly believe we are in a war for civilization and, less importantly, our own personal survival, which means that if I am ever killed in a terrorist attack, God forbid, I would want America to keep fighting.

So what about Bush? I am not driven to attack him. It is more a disappointment than anything else; one for which my liberal friends can say, "I told you so." Though they would only be half right.

My "rightwing-nut-job" credentials are archived on this website. Some of it I'm ashamed of. Some I like. Every time I hear someone say, "Bush is stupid," I feel sorry for that person's narrow vision of things, like my saying, "crap is brown." We all know crap is brown. It's obvious and we can go on from there. However, if the statement is untrue like "kitty-cats can drive SUVs," then after being shown evidence to the contrary, we shut up and not repeat ourselves.

Not so the anti-Bush league. No matter how many times they've been shown that the Texas-draw-I sound reTARded-Bush is an ungrounded perception based on pure animus, they continue to assert what they believe to be so factual and obvious even they sound weary of saying it. But say it they do. As I live in Manhattan, a place I love for millions of reasons, I often hear "Bush is stupid" the way I would say, "Islamism is evil." Why is it I can't see the obvious?

But the problem is deeper and has to do with Bush himself. He is the anti-Reagan in one crucial respect. He is NOT a communicator. Another one would be his love of big government: all those toys to cure society's evils. Yes, no one is perfect. Can I blame Bush for not possessing charisma or the ability for high oratory which this nation needs so much right now? No, I don't blame him. But I still hold him accountable for not taking the war to the American people themselves.

That is exactly what the left is trying to do: make the American people realize we are in a war. Only this time the war is unjust and bad and immoral and murderous and killing innocent American youth. That is the central dialogue that has shaped the common consensus of the war-debate right now. Hell, what am I saying? What war-debate? Bush isn't really interested, as yet, to address head on the nonsense Sheehan is spouting and to stop it from spreading no matter how ludicrous it sounds.

Bush has left a vacuum for Cindy Sheehan to crawl into and make a mockery of this war that her son willingly risked, and ultimately and tragically gave, his life for.

Where is Bush in all this? Some will argue he should stay out of it. Absolutely not. That is a critical error. Bush must reclaim the dominant message. He has to play court, be a leader, not recede into a protective shell almost like the Politburos of old and just hope the revved up base keeps things in line. I believe in the quasi-numen of the Oval Office, which Clinton defiled. The office has radiance and power. It can lead if there is a leader in it that actively engages the public.

Bush has to reach out. To prove he hasn't, his approval rating has slumped to 38%:

"Bush told a Salt Lake City audience of war veterans that America must continue to "take the fight to the terrorists abroad before they can attack us here at home" - a remark that comes as half of Americans in one recent poll favored some type of U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.

And with bad news from the Middle East growing and anti-war support galvanizing, Bush has to keep his message out there.

"He's pretty much at the mercy of what happens on the ground in Iraq," Zogby says. "The speech is . . . timed well in the sense that two things are going on: His numbers are slipping and he's looking not good, and he hasn't been terribly visible to the public."

BINGO! Bush "hasn't been terribly visible to the public." He must get out there all the more aggressively. That needn't mean he has to drone on with innumerable speeches. It means finding new ways to get his message out there.

He can use other PR tactics. Though many readers will find this outrageous, Bush should, for example, go out from his ranch and talk to Ms. Sheehan and show the American people who are waffling that he is on higher moral ground. It would be a perfect PR coup. Bush never makes a gesture without full calculation. The Rove machine is indeed a beautiful, if at times immoral, thing. Above all, Bush is great with the one-on-one, not at the podium where he stumbles. He needs more close-ups where he shines, to let his very likeable persona win people over, show his true and sincere compassion for her loss, and the Sheehan brouhaha can fizzle out. Bush doesn't have to be Reagan. He has to be Bush. The Bush that wins through one-on-one.

It doesn't matter at all that the anti-Bush base won't ever believe him. That's a cop-out excuse and leads to the Bush administration's extreme isolation from the American public. Their attitude is, why bother when so many are against us? What's the use?

Bush needs to appeal to those who are in the center, not an uncritical base for him, and not to lose their support. The so-called "Purple America." If that part of the spectrum is alienated, it could have consequences in '08 and the very future of fighting and winning this war, unless the Democrats miraculously come up with a true pro-war candidate. Is anyone holding his breath?

I realize prognostications usually show the writer to be a fool, but the slackening support for the war is a real phenomenon and has two causes:

1. Bush handled the post-invasion phase of Iraq ineptly; and
2. Bush does not dominate the dialogue of the war at home.

The first cause stated does not stem from a claim that the insurgents are winning militarily. In terms of the capacity to wage war, the United States cannot be defeated. We could decisively win in the way Israel could win decisively by entirely "purging" all the territories of Palestinians under the claim of belatedly acquired war booty. America could unleash draconian measures to wipe out Islamists in Iraq with limited concern for civilian casualties. Yet neither electorate has, as yet, the stomach for it.

But the Islamists don't have to win militarily if they can politically, and that can only happen with the consent of the American people. The most crucial question one can ask is, for how long and to what degree will the American electorate support this war? I still support Bush and the war and I sympathize with his predicament, but to a large extent he is the author of this mess.

Nor will I rehearse the obvious criticism that Bush undermanned the Iraqi invasion and left our youth open to attack by guerillas, proving Gen. Shinseki, whom Rumsfeld forced into retirement, correct in assessing a much higher troop level than actually used, allowing for looting right after Saddam's fall (about which I am ashamed to admit I had bought Rumsfeld's propaganda spin that it was permitting the Iraqis to blow off steam), and for allowing the insurgents to settle the Sunni Triangle as a bastion for terrorism.

Some of this couldn't be helped. Bush was handicapped by Turkey's refusal to invade from the north to swoop down on the Triangle while forces come from the south. There is also the consideration that Bush didn't have the electoral mandate, already strained by the anti-war Democrat Party, to send more troops. Fewer troops also conveniently tied into Rumsfeld's "lean and mean" military machine and their admittedly stunning victories in Afghanistan and the Iraq invasion itself. So you end up with Rumsfeld's "the army you get."

Also, the WMD debacle was not only Bush's doing. George Tenet, who was one of the few officers in Bush's tenure to resign, said it was a "slam-dunk." Yet France and Germany also believed Saddam had WMDs. Or, at the very least, like the U.N., no one was saying that Saddam definitely did not have them.

It is my belief that the war has become more difficult as a result of not seizing the chance for control over the insurgency. The chance for gaining control, however, has passed and won't be won without a lot more sacrifice both abroad and at home as is becoming more apparent virtually each day. There looms another crucial question, how long and to what degree will the American electorate support this war that has become unnecessarily protracted and with a larger body count than supposed?

It is very possible that America's lost chance to seize control was in April of 2005 at the city of Fallujah. It was at that time that Bush flinched. No matter how you slice it (Bush didn't want to get the Sunnis mad at us more than they already are so he backed off or the belief that the Iraqis could do it themselves, which proved disastrous) - the fact remains that failing to take Fallujah just when the Marines, who would have been assured victory, were poised to take it, has had long term consequences and, perhaps along with under-manning the Iraq mission, has cost unnecessary loss of American life, producing a strain on the American people's conscience.

Even optimistic news about the second battle of Fallujah was bought at an avoidable price:

Both the terrorists and American troops were on the offensive. This culminated in the second battle of Fallujah during November, 2004. This time, the Baath Party was not able to talk their way out of it. But American casualties that month were a record 1,504. However, the success in Fallujah worked, as U.S. casualties dropped to 603 in December, and 549 in January. While some 4,000 terrorists were killed or captured in Fallujah, an equal number fled before the battle began, and set up shop in Mosul and Samara. Emphsis added.

I don't think it's irrational to suppose that the Islamists had the chance to flee precisely because we didn't do the job the first time in April 2004. The Islamists knew Bush was serious this time because wavering is not his style, fled Fallujah, spread out, and are now all the more unpredictable, having bought plenty of time.

Bush has always been a risk-taker. He went against the odds by putting his presidency on the line with Iraq's invasion before the second presidential election. But things were different then. The times seemed more urgent because we ran afoul of the U.N. and most of the world, and we were amassing troops on Iraq's southern border. Nothing would stop Bush from invading.

The times now are just as tense but we really don't get that sense from Bush. He doesn't communicate it. I'm not talking about mere window dressing as if PR were some fluff exercise like badminton. How this war is conveyed to the public is essential for winning it. Will Cindy Sheehan win the day ultimately, or will Bush, and by that I mean all of us, with victory over the insurgents in Iraq?

I do not fear the insurgents. I do not fear terrorists. I do not fear Islamists. What I do fear is the American people gradually withdrawing their support for this war and having our troops come home prematurely.

Enter Cindy Sheehan.