Once a president gets to the White House, the only audience that is left that really matters is history.
That is what leadership is all about: staking your ground ahead of where opinion is and convincing people, not simply following the popular opinion of the moment.
The past is not simply the past, but a prism through which the subject filters his own changing self-image.
Where's the progress that we're going to see in Afghanistan? You have to keep public support both on the economy and the war or these things will really become troubling.