I tend to agree, but the Pearl analogy doesn't quite hold. Suppose, for whatever reason, in WWII the US and Japanese were originally allies, and there were high level Japanese military officials working in the Pentagon. Then it becomes clearer that proceeding incorrectly could cause far more damage than proceeding slowly but cautiously.

Unfortunately, the perceived "character" issues that the White House has is working against the US in this time of crisis. The WH is suspected by some of using "emergency" situations to gain power, and some folks are suspicious that they may try to do it again.

There are a lot of people for whom the phrase "George Bush has a plan to fix this" doesn't inspire confidence.