War is a force that gives us meaning

From Krugman's latest:

To win, the Kerry campaign has to convince a significant number of voters that the self-proclaimed "war president" isn't an effective war leader - he only plays one on TV.

This charge has the virtue of being true. It's hard to find a nonpartisan national security analyst with a good word for the Bush administration's foreign policy. Iraq, in particular, is a slow-motion disaster brought on by wishful thinking, cronyism and epic incompetence

Although he faces tough competition from James Madison and Richard Nixon (who seems a wise and strategist in comparison), I can't think of any war president who surpasses Bush in the realm of utter incompetence.