WASHINGTON - It was tense.

On his first big international test, going mano a mano with the fearsome and mysterious Chinese dragon,
could W. cut the mustard? Could he stand the heat and stay in the kitchen (where the mustard is)?

But now that we've been vouchsafed the insiders' account of Hainan Noon, it is abundantly clear that the man is the man.

W. never picked up the phone to Beijing. The truly cool have no need of the hot line.

His bedazzled staffers report that he never blinked and never broke a sweat.
It only took the president three days to tell aides that it was time to find a solution to the crisis. Sang-froid City.
They were amazed at how his mind hardly wandered: Potus Focus.

The president, they marveled, stayed one step back to come out ahead. He was the hidden hand, the unseen demiurge,
the eye of the storm, the wind beneath our wings. He made Josiah Bartlet look like Bridget Jones.

He set the tone and the parameters. His aides almost wept at his unslakable thirst for knowledge.

"He really does seek information," Karen Hughes effused to Reuters. "He's very curious, and so he asked a lot of questions.
He asked some detailed questions. Several times he asked, `Do the members of the crew have Bibles?'
`Why don't they have Bibles?' `Can we get them Bibles?' `Would they like Bibles?' "

She had never seen a man so indifferent to his own needs, so vigorously serving others.

One day, the president got off a helicopter at the White House and barked, "Get me Condi." It was the bark of an engaged man, a big man, a man who puts his ego aside, who is unashamed of his reliance on others. The reporters who heard his aides' account of his need for Condi were plainly moved.

This is the dependence of a truly independent man, a man who is prepared to leave the diplomacy to the diplomats and the interior decorating to the interior decorators.

He even left troop movements to the brass. It seems his top command knew it did not need to consult him on such details as whether to send an aircraft carrier up the Chinese coast to flex some American muscle.

Blissed out Bushies confided to reporters doing ticktocks that W. "grilled" Condi about the contents of the letter of regret to Beijing and "peppered" his staff with questions about the crew. When you are in the steaming kitchen sweetening the hawks and cutting the mustard (why is it supposed to be hard to CUT mustard?), you don't simply ask questions. You grill and you pepper. A man for all seasonings.

He gave his underlings a free hand, checking in only on the points that particularly interested him: Are the crew members getting enough exercise? Do they have free weights? Are there treadmills for everyone? How about massages?

Other presidents would not have let Colin Powell out of their sight during the crisis. This one needed to meet with him only twice.

All through the China standoff, W.'s aides kept thinking about that Kevin Costner movie about the Cuban missile crisis, about J.F.K.'s 13 sleepless days when he saved the world. And when it was over, they gazed reverently at G.W.B. and thought: He did it in 11! He was lucid, rested, steady, rested, measured, curious and rested.

Other presidents have to work all night or late into the night. This one can get the job done by working late into the evening.

W. is not known for his linguistic precision. But his aides revealed with tremulous pride that he actually read and signed off on the drafts of letters to the Chinese written in highly specialized and nuanced diplomatic argot: Sorry? Very sorry? Very, very sorry with whipped cream and a cherry on top?

The president's triumph was all the sweeter because he flew solo. He did not have the distracting advice of any China experts —or "panda huggers," as the Bush hawks like to call them —because he has none in his inner circle.

Then there was the grandeur of the ending. Like Gary Cooper, W. left town when his work was done, flying off for a four-day weekend at the ranch. He did not hang around for applause or tarry for accolades.

His presence here is so powerful that it does not require his presence here.