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For what it is worth, I found Ms. Priest's analysis to be more of a badly written editorial than anything else. First, Priest displays a short-sighted grasp of American history. She would have readers believe that Bush the Younger was an aberration in his use of his executive authority to fight a war. However, bookshelves groan under the weight of books that show otherwise.
Second, her grasp of President Bush's approach to GWOT is also flawed. While Bush the Younger defined GWOT as an ideological conflict that is global in scope and generational in length, and while he allowed the use of controversial methods, neither the scope or the methods were 'limitless.' Most notably, the Bush administration did not do what his predecessors had done during the Cold War: use nuclear weapons to deter aggression. Nor did the president adhere to what the late Russell Weigley termed "the American Way of War" in either Iraq or Afghanistan. (That is, the armed forces did not annihilate the enemy.)
Her understanding of the incumbent president's intentions do not inspire confidence in her grasp of that man's view of terrorism. As QP Dozer illustrated in his post, the president seems to be modifying the tools of war that he will use rather than abandoning the war as many of the president's supporters would like him to do. (It remains to be seen if such is the case.)
Most galling is her parroting of the assertion that President Bush made a "false the choice between our safety and our ideals." This statement is enjoying great currency in the afterglow of the president's inauguration but it is false.
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