Bush's growth spurt: George W. has found his presidential authority and voice since September 11th.

Seven months into the new administration in Washington, D.C., George W. Bush was still an enigma. Everyone wanted to know: Was he a conservative ideologue or the compromiser-in-chief? One minute he was eager to drill in the fragile Alaskan wilderness, the next he was cutting deals with Ted Kennedy to spend more money on education. Europeans didn't like him much and Americans were split. Nobody knew what to make of the United States' new president.

Then tragedy struck. The September 11th attacks gave Bush, indeed his entire Baby Boom generation, its mission and, as Bush told us, its "moment." It is said that great presidents can emerge only at times of great struggle. Well, Bush now faces such a crisis. The question is: Is he up to the task? As this issue went to press, he clearly seemed to be. He was moving methodically, effectively, and, yes, impressively against an intractable foe. He had assembled an expansive coalition of nations willing to help militarily and otherwise to defeat the terrorism of al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and Osama bin Laden. Coordinated police actions throughout the world had rounded up hundreds of suspected terrorists. Millions of dollars in assets tied to the plotters had been frozen. Military strikes were underway and hitting their targets in Afghanistan.

By all accounts, Bush, with his astronomically high job-approval ratings in the polls, had gone from goat to hero in Americans' minds, and in the minds of civilized people around the world. But as any student of management will attest, that's a superficial and probably fleeting assessment. The war won't last forever, at least not at its initial, fevered pitch. So qualities beyond that extraordinary circumstance will be the ultimate measure of the man. This article takes that broader view.

Bush's ability to command under pressure and to stir the American people with his words were two traits not apparent prior to the attacks on New York and Washington. But clearly he possesses both. We also now know that he is willing, actually, eager, to delegate as long as he has competent appointees. And his appointees have turned out to be first rate.

Bush all-but turned over centralized control of the emergency on September 11th to his chief lieutenant, Vice President Dick Cheney. It was Cheney who ordered the evacuation of congressional leaders as well as the hopscotch trek across the country of the President himself aboard Air Force One on that fateful day. In addition, the able team of Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld pieced together the international coalition.

Bush has taken this delegation of authority so far that we can now say that for the first time in decades, true Cabinet government has been restored. For years, the White House staff had been preeminent in policy matters, and the cabinet was mostly a mouthpiece. No longer. Cabinet members are true players, not public relations purveyors, in Washington. At the same time, Bush makes the final decisions on strategic matters. He isn't a figurehead CEO.

Bush is also as determined as any president in memory to get what he wants on the domestic front, even when facing war abroad. His behavior on domestic issues, in fact, can shed some insight into his overall presidential style. To wit: Bush swaggers and promises a lot, never expecting to get everything. And in that way he accomplishes more of what he wishes than anyone might have anticipated.

This cowboy demeanor is partly a Texas tendency, one that annoys many Europeans. But it is also a calculated strategy. Bush likes to promise the moon, as he did when he pledged to eradicate global terrorism. But that is mostly an expression of resolve, meant both to inspire and provoke. He will always accept less, when he has to.

There are many examples of this. When Nick Calio, the President's top congressional lobbyist, first visited the then-President-elect in Texas in January, Bush told him, "We're not going to negotiate with ourselves." The modus operandi of his White House, Bush explained, will be to talk tough for as long as possible, but mostly as a bargaining tool. Referring specifically to tax cuts, a top priority at the time, Bush described the strategy this way. "We're not going to negotiate with ourselves on taxes. We'll say, `$1.6 trillion over ten years, and they'll move toward us. We won't get everything we want but we'll get a tax bill." In other words, Bush never expects to win what he wants. But he intends to state loudly and clearly his fondest wish for as long as he can as a way to make the other side compromise more. A similar tack was used against the Taliban when Bush announced jauntily that he wanted bin Laden "dead or alive."

The danger is that Bush often overpromises, as Calio soon found out. The grousing on Capitol Hill about the size of the tax reduction rapidly grew shrill in early 2001. And when Calio went to Bush to seek guidance, Bush wouldn't bend. He reminded Calio of the game plan. "Don't wobble," Bush urged. Calio did what he was told. And lo and behold, the stubbornness paid off. In May, Bush managed to get most of what he desired. Congress passed and he signed into law $1.35 trillion in tax relief over eleven years. The wisdom of his tactic became manifest. And a pattern of his presidency came clear.

Here's what you need to know: Bush can't be seen in a snap shot. He's a moving target. He begins with a firm position, almost always on the political right, and moves leftward only when he has to. He will issue veto threats, as he did once with the so-called Patients' Bill of Rights (health care reform), and he will swear support for proposals, such as education vouchers, that he knows have no chance. He will strut and bluster (to the pleasure of Republican stalwarts) until he gets as much as he can. Then he'll relent, declare victory, and move on. And that's the key. "The goal," Calio says, "is to get things done." Bush believes he'll be judged by results, not process. His administration's daily press briefings detailing progress on the war front (bombings, numbers of people arrested, etc.) all fit with the philosophy.

This tactic may work in the long run, but in the short run it is exceedingly messy. On domestic issues, middle-of-the-road and left-of-center American voters, as well as plenty of foreigners, will see him as too conservative. Indeed, to watch the President at the beginning of any debate, you'd never know that he won the White House after losing the popular vote. He operates with the confidence of a landslide victor. He acts as if he has a mandate from the electorate to govern as far to the political right as he can reach.

In fact, he has no such mandate. So by pushing so hard for so long to the right, he not only angers the left but also gives false hope to his conservative loyalists. When he's through with a legislative debate, and he compromises leftward as he almost always must, his credibility with congressional allies (read: conservatives and Republicans) will often be in shambles. They will see him as too liberal and too willing to accommodate. Over time, he will be stranded alone, with little more than his swagger. His fellow Republicans will be especially disappointed.

Before Bush got his tax cut, for instance, his aides had to meet somber-faced Republican leaders in a Capitol hideaway to implore them to accept more tax breaks for low-income parents than they had planned. The lawmakers shook their heads but acceded. Prior to that, angry Republicans, including House Majority Leader Dick Armey and House Whip Tom DeLay, had to be brought to an Oval Office showdown with the President before they accepted a hugely expensive education bill. This will also be part of the Bush pattern: carnage on the political right after lengthy despair on the left.

Much of this division has been hidden for the sake of the war effort. Bush is slightly more willing to compromise with the Democrats to display unity as far as is possible. His tough posture, however, carries risks. If he presses Arab allies too hard, he could ignite dissension that could topple their regimes. Bin Laden could become more of an icon than he already is. Bush also might prove unable to topple terrorism, and this could create a backlash that would undermine his standing both at home and abroad.

One bulwark against such calamities is the fact that his White House is exceptionally well run. George W., a Harvard MBA, insists on complete loyalty and organizational discipline among his underlings. The Bush I White House wasn't nearly as collegial; its aides always feuded, and George W. saw that and hated the situation. Bush II staffers, by contrast, get along well, perhaps because they have to. War will do that.

Nevertheless an inevitable question remains: How long will Bush's own party continue to back him if he keeps tugging it to the center? The answer is: probably forever. "The right is as house broken as the President's dog," says Marshall Wittmann, a Republican analyst at the Hudson Institute. The reason: Republicans prefer having their own guy in the White House and they realize that the best way to keep him there is to hold their nose and vote for watered-down legislation. More important, war requires more solidarity than is usual, and Bush will certainly get it from Republicans and Democrats.

Bush also benefits from being underestimated. For example, Republican insiders worried prior to his speech on federal stem cell research over the summer that Bush had chosen an obscure, no-win topic for his first nationally televised address. But Bush knew better. He understood that bioethics is a political frontier that Presidents will have to cross in the new century. He also was willing to risk a display of courage. Sometimes that backfires. But not this time. Bush came out a winner. He delivered a thoughtful and eloquent explanation for his preference for allowing limited research by the federal government. He worked hard at showing how thoroughly he had studied the complex issues (perhaps a little too hard). And in so doing, he effectively undercut the raps against him that he is camera shy and slow-witted. In truth, he is neither and his enemies merely fall into his trap if they try to sell the story, so popular in Europe, that he is a buffoon or a naif.

He is, in fact, a fellow amply clever enough to change his mind if he is forced to. And also to express unflinching determination when he must. His top White House counselor, Karl Rove, who is considered the reigning political genius of the Republican Party these days, aids him when he needs to know when to do which. A better helpmate would be hard to find.

Before the terror events, Bush was flexible to a fault. Every time you looked up, you saw a new George W. Whether he was endorsing a form of energy-price controls after decrying them, stumping against global warming after downplaying it, or ending bombing on Vieques Island, Puerto Rico, after permitting it, the President was forever changing course. Such flips have happened so frequently that the White House devised a euphemism to describe them: mid-course corrections. In truth, they were reversals made in response to international pressure or voter opinion, making Bush, early on, the U-turn President.

Yet when war came, he showed that he could stand firm as well. He refused to negotiate with the Taliban, for instance. He also remained nimble enough not to press the coalition into doing things that could cause strife within the partners' own borders. When Saudi Arabia and Egypt expressed concern that public support might undermine their own power to control the mob, Bush reportedly accepted private assurances and deals under-the-table, the details of which we aren't likely to know for years. In addition, Bush balanced our guns with butter by delivering humanitarian aid packages along with military salvos to the people of Afghanistan. Unlike his predecessor Bill Clinton, Bush doesn't pander at the drop of a poll. He isn't oblivious to his popularity, but he also doesn't make a fetish of finding his policy positions at a focus group. Bush can't be counted on to do things just because they gain him votes. At the same time, a more complete picture of Bush must include the following: Bush understands that, at times, he will have to adapt to forces beyond his control, such as a diverse international partnership against terrorism and a U.S. Senate controlled by the opposition party.

Take the situation at home. After Democrats took control of the Senate in June, the Patients' Bill of Rights and an increase in the minimum wage moved to the top of the legislative calendar. Both are popular with voters but weren't what Bush wanted to tackle fight away. Yet Bush embraced both and has tried to put his stamp on each. He also wanted to wait on the next Democratic agenda item, a new prescription-drug benefit for Medicare. But here, too, he will accept the inevitable, probably next year, and try to mold the finished product.

Over the long haul, reviving the economy will be as large a challenge for Bush as winning his war against terrorism. The attacks pushed the U.S. economy into a recession. As a result, there simply isn't as much money to pay for the many items that once topped his wish list, such as energy tax credits. Other propositions, like his multibillion-dollar missile defense, seem like unnecessary and anachronistic extravagances. In addition, his plan to invest in the stock market some payroll taxes that now go exclusively into the so-called Social Security Trust Fund has faded with the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

But don't count on Bush's presidency sinking with the GDP. What had looked like the Bush Recession prior to September 11th is now and forever the bin Laden Recession. Besides, voters don't seem to give as much credit or blame to politicians as they once did for the state of the economy. And that can only help Bush.

Something else that clearly helps him is his sense of humor, which hasn't left him even during the rough times of war. He continues to wisecrack with his senior staff whenever he can. Here's one example. When top aides were discussing the pending federal takeover of airport security, Calio, who is diminutive in height, noted that he couldn't become a security guard because he was only five-foot, six-inches, which is below the federal standard for such a job. "Don't worry," the President shot back, "You can get a job. They want to use you to make sure the bags fit through the screening machines." Everyone in the room laughed, especially the President. Bush has a job that requires a sense of humor and, certainly, he has that trait too.

Jeffrey H. Birnbaum is the Washington Bureau Chief of Fortune magazine and a contributor to Fox News Channel.