Excerpt from War In A Time Of Peace by David Halberstam, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

By the summer and fall of 1991, the polls had begun to show a potential vulnerability for Bush. His personal ratings still remained high, but there was a growing public restlessness about the direction of the economy and therefore of the country. The economy, then, that was turning into a slow-burning but eventually inflammatory issue for the incumbent. Several regions in the nation were suffering from a recession, and by the end of 1991, the entire country would be declared in a recession. One type of economy, a blue-collar industrial one, was coming to an end, and the new high-tech digital one that would soon replace much of it had not yet arrived with sufficient impact to compensate for its predecessor's decline. The Japanese were producing heavy industrial goods of a higher quality than we were, and America's industrial heartland was being called the Rust Belt. The budget deficit was growing larger every year, as was the trade imbalance with Japan. Ordinary people who did not usually monitor such economic trends felt squeezed and believed they were working harder and harder just to stand still. It was one of those moments in American life, despite the continuing growth of the postwar economy, when economics and politics converged because normally abstract economic numbers were becoming deeply personal.

Steeper had discovered in late 1990 and early 1991 that there were increasingly serious political problems stemming from what was a stagnant economy. The irony of the Gulf War was that it had momentarily changed the lead topic on the national agenda from a growing concern about the economy to pride in our newly manifested military might. That, of course, was of immediate political benefit for Bush, resulting in the quantum increase in his personal popularity. Yet his vulnerability on economic issues was there. Right before the Gulf War, despite the success of the administration in ending the Cold War, the responses to the most elemental question a pollster can ask -- "Is the administration on the right track or the wrong track?" -- had been disturbing. Steeper's polls showed that roughly two out of three Americans thought the country was headed down the wrong track. Clearly there had not been much domestic political bounce to the amazing events that marked the end of the Cold War. But then came the triumph of the Gulf War. A mere two days into the fighting, a poll had shown a complete reversal of that most important index: two out of three Americans now thought we were headed in the right direction.

The Gulf War, however, had only temporarily obscured deep dissatisfaction in the country, particularly about the economy. That was new problem number one. Problem number two was that despite the warm and enthusiastic welcome accorded the returning troops, the Gulf War itself had surprisingly little traction. Yes, the country had sat transfixed for those few days, watching the television coverage released by the Department of Defense -- video clips of high-technology bombs landing precisely on their intended targets. And yes, everything had gone not only as well as it was supposed to, but unlike most events in warfare, even better than expected. The entire country had fallen in love with the troops and their amazingly swift victory. If not everyone loves a sword, then almost everyone on the winning side loves a swift sword. But in truth, it was a war without real resonance. The actual land combat had lasted just four days, and it had been conducted by an elite professional army, thereby touching relatively few American homes. For much of the country it was a kind of virtual war, something few people were engaged in or had sacrificed for. Thus, like many things celebrated in the modern media, it was distant and oddly nonparticipatory; when it was over, it was over, leaving remarkably little trace. People had tied yellow ribbons to their mailboxes or gateposts as a sign of their support for those fighting, but it was very different, indeed, from the time during World War II when small flags with stars were displayed in windows to signify that a member of the family was in service, probably overseas and in harm's way.

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