Often regarded as the dean of the White House press corps, Helen Thomas began writing for United Press International during World War II. After leaving UPI last May, she began writing a political column for Hearst Newspapers. They run on this site twice a week.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush is running the war in Afghanistan as a low-key CEO. He doesn't pick targets. Nor does he agonize over the death toll or take the suffering of the survivors personally.

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer explained to reporters this week that "the president sets and defines (the goal) for the military, and the military implements it."

He said Bush is "pleased that things are going so well and has not had many surprises" in deploying America's military might.

It all sounds so easy, doesn't it? "We're on a roll," as one official put it.

Unlike former President Lyndon Johnson, who was intimately involved in the ill-fated Vietnam War and clearly anguished over it, Bush is detached, leaving the details to his confident pros from previous wars and previous Republican administrations.

After dropping more than 10,000 bombs on Afghanistan, the Pentagon has issued no estimates of enemy or civilian casualties. The official attitude seems to be: Why should we?

When three Americans were killed by so-called "friendly fire," correspondents in Afghanistan were held in a warehouse and barred from covering the removal of the bodies. You see, it's that kind of war -- focus on the good news.

When asked about the destruction inflicted on the country by the U.S.-led bombing campaign, Fleischer noted that the United States was dropping food packages as well as bombs.

Most of the president's comments on the war amount to threats against terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, such as: "He can run but he can't hide."

Does Bush worry? Maybe. His hair is a little grayer, and the lines in his forehead are a little deeper. But he is still upbeat and flamboyantly confident that he will get bin Laden "dead or alive."

Although officials insist they are going after the entire terrorist network, the Saudi-born bin Laden is the prize Bush really wants "to bring to justice" for the World Trade Center, Pentagon and Pennsylvania catastrophes of Sept. 11.

Victory over Afghanistan's Taliban rulers was always in the cards. There was no way they could have beaten the United States, especially with the whole world against them and no comparable weapons to combat the superpower's arsenal.

With war still topping his agenda, Bush meets every morning with his national security advisers, as well as the directors of the FBI and CIA, to get updates from all fronts.

But mostly he relies on such pros as Vice President Richard Cheney, who was defense secretary in the Bush I era when a U.S.-led coalition defeated Iraq in the 1991 Persian Gulf, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who also held the same post in the Gerald Ford administration.

Rumsfeld, in frequent news conferences, warns that the war is not over. That is the administration's mantra. It doesn't want the country to assume the battle has been won or to let its guard down.

The president is enjoying popularity ratings between 80 percent and 90 percent. There are no significant protest demonstrations although there is some apprehension, particularly among our allies in the Afghan war, over where Bush will take us next.

It's questionable that he would have the solid backing of the American people if he insisted on an open-ended campaign to pursue terrorists everywhere in the world.

In the mid-1960s President Johnson was often preoccupied with the Vietnam War. He shared with reporters his anxiety and soul-searching as well as his own suffering.

And we worried, too, especially when he told us, "I'm commander-in-chief, and I haven't used all my power yet."

That threat gave us pause, but ultimately we knew that Johnson would never use the nuclear bomb.

Walking fast, he would answer questions from the press corps during news conferences around the South Lawn of the White House. Running at times to keep up with his giant strides, we dubbed these sessions "walkie-talkie news conferences" and "the Bataan death marches." But through them and other Q-and-A dialogues, we gained a real understanding of his Hamlet-style approach to his dilemma.

He had to deal with a war he could not win. Nor could he tolerate the thought of retreat. The late Vermont Sen. George Aiken, R-Vt., gave him the best advice when he suggested, "Declare a victory and leave." But Johnson rejected it although it could have saved his presidency.

In historian Michael Beschloss's book, "Reaching for Glory," Johnson is quoted as telling Defense Secretary Robert McNamara in a taped conversation: "Now we're off to bombing these people. ... I don't think anything is going to be as bad as losing, and I don't see any way of winning."

Bush is lucky that he does not have Johnson's dilemma or doubts. But he needs to understand the moral limits of military power and not overplay the United States' hand.