On MSNBC yesterday, I pointed to (my home state) Governor Tim Pawlenty’s bold actions to balance Minnesota’s budget as the sort of leadership that’s currently lacking in the White House:

For anyone not following the Minnesota budget battle, I urge you to read Kim Strassel’s column in today’s Wall Street Journal. As Kim writes, Pawlenty took responsibility for balancing the budget when the state legislature failed, and is making the tough decisions that a strong leader should.

Contrast that to Barack Obama, who has spent most of his presidency avoiding politically tough decisions.

As I wrote in my first POLITICO column, Obama is not bold. If he was, he would spend less time trying to “frame” issues and more time making tough policy decisions. Specifically, in the case of Guantanamo, he would level with Americans exactly where he planned to ship the detainees currently at Guantanamo. But he’s not doing that – I suspect because many would end up in Supermax in Colorado, where state residents will welcome them about as well as nuclear waste was welcomed in Nevada. (Notably, scrapping Yucca Mountain was one promise Obama has kept.)

Similarly, if Obama was truly bold, he would take ownership of his Afghanistan policy, which he recently said was the toughest decision he’s made so far. Why was it so difficult? Because in addition to putting the US on a path towards higher casualties overseas, his Afghanistan surge has the potential to become the most politically unpopular initiative of his Administration. Yet he still has yet to give the sort of high-profile, headline-making speech about Afghanistan that he did about Guantanamo Bay yesterday.