Politics & Power Quote by Tommy Franks

Calling George W. Bush “a man of extremely high character” isn’t really an argument; it’s a shield. Coming from Tommy Franks, the general who led the opening phases of the Afghanistan campaign and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the line reads as a bid to relocate judgment away from outcomes and toward temperament. Character becomes the safer battleground when the policy record is radioactive.

The phrasing does a lot of quiet work. “As I look at” frames the claim as eyewitness testimony, the soldier’s genre of credibility: I’ve seen the man up close, beyond the cameras, beyond the pundits. “Ultimately be judged” kicks the verdict down the road, betting that time will sand down controversy and recast motives as virtues. It’s not “was right,” or even “made good decisions.” It’s “high character,” a moral credential that can coexist with catastrophe, and that’s the point.

Context matters: in the early-to-mid 2000s, Bush’s public standing was being pulled apart by Iraq’s mounting costs, contested intelligence, and a widening civil-military tension over planning and aftermath. Franks’ praise functions as institutional loyalty and narrative management. If the commander in chief is framed as ethically solid, then the chain of command looks less like complicity and more like dutiful service under a decent leader.

There’s also a subtle preemptive defense here for Franks himself. Elevate Bush’s character and you implicitly launder the war’s architects as honorable men caught in history’s fog, not agents of a willful misadventure.