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Author of Dead Certain Robert Draper paints a portrait of Mr. Bush as a staunch optimist, supremely confident in his views and judgments and heedless of bad news and disconfirming information.  Needless to say, a strong argument could be made that his dead certainty and abundant confidence have led him to make some policy errors with grave consequences for his administration, his party, and the country.  From assuming that we'd be happily welcomed as liberators in Iraq, to proclaiming "mission accomplished" in 2004, to spending the political capital he claimed to have earned with his 2004 election on such undeniably risky (and arguably ill-advised) propositions as the overhaul of social security and the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, Mr. Bush's compulsive confidence and optimism are partly responsible for his plummeting approval ratings, his party's loss of the House and Senate, and the nation's inchoate sense of unease.

As an experimental social psychologist, my job is not to analyze anyone's personality, let alone an individual whom I've never seen larger than in a 42-inch image.  However, Draper's characterizations of Bush lead me to ask, "How much optimism and confidence is good for world leaders and how much is too much?"