People who know me well would most likely say that despite outward goofy appearances, I have the tendency to be too cautious.

I don’t make pronouncements much at all, but especially not until I’m certain of the circumstances (including the pronouncement that I’m nonpartisan, which some people still insist I’ve said I am when I’ve said I’m independent and moderate; that does not equal nonpartisan). I don’t like duplicating work, so I wait until things that have been promised take place (which means nothing gets done if the people I’m relying on don’t do their part, which unfortunately happens a lot in my life). That can cause problems, especially with my stress level, since even though I’m a kind person, I’m not always very patient, but I’m working on that. (I’m very sorry for my short temper while I await the rest of my furniture. In other news, my patience and faith in humanity did work out last week, as the couple who were to mow my yard showed up again finally with a borrowed mower toward the end of last week.)

Still, caution is advised much of the time. After all, you don’t want to make premature announcements, then have to back off when things don’t go according to plan … or if you’re in government, find your position in danger (Neville Chamberlain, did you really have to go and pronounce “peace for our time,” forever tainting the word “appeasement” and giving editorial writers endless fodder?)

It’s one reason I would advise supporters of any political figure to take pronouncements with a grain (or perhaps pound or maybe even a ton, depending on the person) of salt, especially when that figure claims to have stopped eight wars in eight months (for one thing, ceasefires aren’t war-ending treaties and are known to fail).

I’m reminded of a moment on May 1, 2003, when President George W. Bush stood on the desk of the USS Abraham Lincoln in front of a banner reading “Mission Accomplished” and delivered a speech that seemed to imply that combat operations in Iraq were over.

History proved that wasn’t the case.

According to Dan Bartlett, communications director for Bush at the time, the banner reflected the motto of the aircraft carrier, and he said it was fine to display it.

“I didn’t think twice about it,” Bartlett told the Miller Center’s Russell Riley. “Now, did I say, is it going to be in the tight shot for the speech in which that is going to be hanging over him? I didn’t get into that detail. The rest is history. The president had multiple occasions where he could have thrown me, my staff, any of us under the bus for that. He never did. He just said, ‘That’s fine. It’s on me.’

“For it to come out that it was Bush declaring victory and all this. It was the exact opposite sentiment of him, and all of us, and what we attempted to do, and it just totally blew up in our face.”

In his speech, Bush said major combat operations were over but the work would continue. U.S. combat operations didn’t end in Iraq until Aug, 31, 2010; the final withdrawal of advisory forces was in December 2011. So yeah, not exactly mission accomplished, even though it was the banner, not Bush, that said it.

I have the greatest of hopes that fighting will indeed cease in Israel and Gaza and elsewhere in the Middle East, and applaud the president’s efforts to bring it about. I can’t remember a time in my lifetime when that region of the world wasn’t roiled in conflict, even though there have been brief spates of peace over the decades. But I know that peace doesn’t just happen; it can’t be willed into existence (boy, do I wish it could because it would make things a lot easier … Congress might actually get things done!). There’s a process, and it takes time and patience to let it play out; most importantly, the parties directly involved must agree to and carry out specified terms, and that hasn’t quite happened yet.

Jake Horton and Nick Beake of BBC Verify wrote: “[A] lasting peace still requires a number of difficult issues to be resolved, including Hamas giving up its weapons and the establishment of a new government in Gaza. ‘It is a big but very fragile accomplishment,’ argues Michael O’Hanlon, a defense and foreign policy expert at the Brookings Institution think tank. He says [Donald] Trump does deserve credit for being willing to push Israel more than previous U.S. leaders. ‘However, this is only stage one and getting to a two-state solution will be even harder. If he pulls that off, he and anyone else key to the success do deserve the Nobel Peace Prize someday.’”

He certainly wouldn’t be the only controversial recipient of the prize (Henry Kissinger, Yasser Arafat, etc.), but he should really cease campaigning for it and focus instead on follow-through and on peace in the United States if he really wants to merit it. (Heck, Mohandas Gandhi was nominated multiple times but was never awarded the prize. I can’t think of many people more deserving.)

As for the overarching claim of having ended eight wars in eight months, fact-checkers say not so fast. As the Poynter Institute’s Louis Jacobson and Amy Sherman noted, Trump’s “repeated talking point about solving eight wars is exaggerated.”

When you elect someone whose focus appears to be on gathering “wins,” you’re going to get a lot of exaggeration (like the most recent comment that he’s the only U.S. president to have ever “solved” a war, conveniently forgetting, at minimum, Theodore Roosevelt and Jimmy Carter; he also used his standard “what follows is a lie” statement, by saying people were telling him, “Sir, if you solve one more, you’re going to be known as a peacekeeper” … anytime he hauls out that “sir,” look askance at what he says).

Jacobson and Sherman wrote in a larger post fact-checking claims in the speech Trump made at the Knesset: “Trump had a hand in ceasefires that have recently eased conflicts between Israel and Iran, India and Pakistan, and Armenia and Azerbaijan. But these were mostly incremental accords, and some leaders dispute the extent of Trump’s role.

“Peace has not held in other conflicts. The U.S. was involved in a temporary peace deal between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, but violence in the region has continued, with hundreds of civilians killed since the deal’s June signing. After Trump helped broker a deal between Cambodia and Thailand, the countries have accused each other of ceasefire violations that have led to violent skirmishes.

“A long-running standoff between Egypt and Ethiopia over an Ethiopian dam on the Nile remains unresolved, and it is closer to a diplomatic dispute than a military clash. In the case of Kosovo and Serbia, there is little evidence a potential war was brewing.

“Trump has made notable progress by securing the Israel-Hamas ceasefire and hostage agreement, but the deal involves multiple stages, so it will take time to see if peace holds.”

But sure, facts. What good are they when the proclamation is the thing?

There’s surely a happy medium between leaping before looking and never leaping at all because you might fall (or because crippling social anxiety keeps you from making critical phone calls; seriously, if I could do all my communicating in writing, I’d be completely blissful). Caution should always be exercised, but there are moments that you have to throw caution to the wind (though I’d advise not doing that if your life is on the line; maybe accepting a party invitation, but not a game of Russian roulette). If you’re in the public eye, there’s also the very real danger of people taking whatever you say or do out of context or just making things up out of whole cloth; all you can really do in that case is point out the truth and hope that your reputation is solid enough that people will believe facts over fiction.

Those who are constantly chasing glory (or who just want to make sure they’re a topic of conversation) have the tendency to not act or speak with caution, which means they often have to backpedal, especially when it affects a lot of people.

It’s embarrassing, but I guess for some people, even bad news is good news because at least they’re in the news. Just ignore their carping over how they’re portrayed as a backpedaler.