Editorial: Follow-through is critical

Monday, Oct. 10, 2005 | 8:56 a.m.

The latest national polls show that President Bush's approval has dropped below 40 percent. The federal government's indifferent initial response to Hurricane Katrina, rising energy prices and disillusionment with Iraq are hurting the president the most, pollsters say.

On Thursday the president gave a speech billed as a major policy statement, but he said very little that he has not said many times before over the past two years. We feel that much more is needed from the president than another speech about why the war on terrorism needs to be centralized in Iraq. The Los Angeles Times quoted Republicans as saying the speech demonstrated Bush's "strong, principled leadership."

In our view, leadership is more than a speech that gets supporters cheering and clapping. Leadership has a lot to do with follow-through -- what you do after the speeches. The president has given his Thursday speech many times before, yet an increasing majority of Americans are seeing the Iraq war as a quagmire that, if anything, is fueling terrorism. Speeches aren't going to change that perception, nor are they going to change the perception that the president is detached from average Americans and aligned with wealthy cronies.

Only action will improve the president's approval ratings. He must devise a winning, not stagnant, strategy for Iraq and the overall war on terrorism, and he must come up with domestic programs that benefit real people, not drug companies, Wall Street financiers and energy barons.