In a September 25 article titled “For Bush, War Anguish Expressed Privately,” Washington Post staff writer Peter Baker wrote that while President Bush's “public persona gives little sense that he dwells on the costs of war ... the private Bush comes across differently in the accounts of aides, friends, relatives and military family members who have met with him.” Baker quoted several anonymous sources and family members of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan to demonstrate that for Bush, as one unnamed adviser put it: “Sending troops into harm's way, that's something that weighs on him.” Baker made no mention, however, of instances in which Bush has publicly made seemingly dismissive -- and even flippant -- comments about U.S. involvement in Iraq. For example, just the day before, Bush told CNN host Wolf Blitzer that the horrific violence in Iraq -- of which the families Bush has met with privately are victims -- will be viewed as “just a comma” “when the final history of Iraq is written.” And at the 2004 Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner, Bush made light of the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Baker wrote:

Now more than five years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Bush has served as a wartime president longer than any occupant of the White House since Lyndon B. Johnson. He has presided over more U.S. military casualties than any since Richard M. Nixon. While he travels the country defending his policy and arguing to stay the course in Iraq, he also confronts the human burdens of wartime leadership.

The two sides of Bush as commander in chief can be hard to reconcile. His public persona gives little sense that he dwells on the costs of war. He does not seem to agonize as Johnson did, or even as his father, George H.W. Bush, did before the Persian Gulf War. While he pays tribute to those who have fallen, the president strives to show resolve and avoid displays that might be seen as weak or doubting. His refusal to attend military funerals, while taking long Texas vacations and extended bicycle rides, strikes some critics as callous indifference.

Yet the private Bush comes across differently in the accounts of aides, friends, relatives and military family members who have met with him, including some who do not support him, such as Halley. The first question Bush usually asks national security briefers in the Oval Office each morning is about overnight casualties, aides say, and those who show up for the next round of meetings often find him still stewing about bad news from Iraq.

Baker might have noted that as recently as the September 24 edition of CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, Bush dismissed the escalating sectarian violence in Iraq as “just a comma” in the larger history of Iraq:

BLITZER: We see these horrible bodies showing up --

BUSH: Of course you do.

BLITZER: -- tortured, mutilation. The Shia and the Sunni, the Iranians apparently having a negative role. Of course, Al Qaeda in Iraq still operating.

BUSH: Yes, you see -- you see it on TV, and that's the power of an enemy that is willing to kill innocent people. But there's also an unbelievable will and resiliency by the Iraqi people. Twelve million people voted last December.

Admittedly, it seems like a decade ago. I like to tell people when the final history is written on Iran -- Iraq, it'll look like just a comma because there is -- my point is, there's a strong will for democracy.

These people want a unity government. The unity government is functioning. I'm impressed by [Iraqi] President [Nuri Kamal al-] Maliki.

I've talked to him. I've seen the decision-making process that he's put in place. The Iraqi army is still recruiting and training.

Bush's use of the phrase “just a comma” appears to be a religious reference. The biblical story of Jesus's resurrection has been interpreted to mean that death is not the end of life -- or as some have put it: “It is not a period in one's existence; it is just a comma.”

Also, at the May 2, 2004, Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner, Bush narrated a slideshow depicting him searching around the White House, saying: “Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere.” Then-Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe said of Bush's routine: “This is a very serious issue. We've lost hundreds of troops, as you know, over there. Let's not be laughing about not being able to find weapons of mass destruction. ... We certainly should not be making light of the situation.”