The staff isn’t the problem

October 10, 2005

Time magazine’s Joe Klein has a column this week suggesting that Bush’s presidency has effectively fallen apart, but offering the president some advice on setting things straight — “Renovate the West Wing.”

“This Administration has been excellent at politics and spin,” [an unnamed Republican Senator] told me. “It hasn’t been very good at governance. Perhaps it’s time for Bush to do what Ronald Reagan did to shore up his White House in the final years — bring in a team of terrific managers, people with credibility from Day One.” Faced with the Iran-contra scandal, Reagan brought in Howard Baker and then Ken Duberstein as chiefs of staff, Frank Carlucci and then Colin Powell as National Security Advisers. […]

President Bush confronts nothing so threatening to his Administration as Iran-contra. But it’s probably time to renovate the West Wing staff under new leadership.

I’m skeptical of Klein’s approach, in large part because it seems to miss the point of Bush’s troubles. “Terrific managers” aren’t trivial, but the need for “new leadership” starts with the one White House staffer who can’t be fired — the one in the Oval Office.

The problem isn’t that Bush’s aides and managers are incompetent; it’s that Bush has personally created an atmosphere of ignorance and fear.

It’s a standing joke among the president’s top aides: who gets to deliver the bad news? Warm and hearty in public, Bush can be cold and snappish in private, and aides sometimes cringe before the displeasure of the president of the United States, or, as he is known in West Wing jargon, POTUS. […]

Bush can be petulant about dissent; he equates disagreement with disloyalty.

The president could “bring in a team of terrific managers,” but would they change Bush’s worldview? If Rove, Card, and Bartlet were gone, what, exactly, would change with a 21st century version of Baker, Duberstein, and Carlucci?

It was Bush’s choice to surround himself with yes-men. It was Bush’s choice to tell those around him to tell shield him from news he may not like. It was Bush’s choice to embrace “Bubble Boy” policies that expose him exclusively to pre-screened sycophants.

In one sense, Klein is right, America would benefit from a “renovated” West Wing, but we’ll probably have to wait for January 2009 to see it.

I would also disagree whole-heartedly with Klein’s assertion that: “President Bush confronts nothing so threatening to his Administration as Iran-contra.” I can think of more than a few things put into motion by this administration which could easily exceed Iran-Contra if there is a change in Congress in 2006…

  • Klein really ought to know better. Once a president gets to “blame the staff” you know the whole presidency is in shambles.

  • “I wonder if this is true…”

    Sure is weird. The Onion would be hard pressed to improve on that oddball pairing.

  • It was Bush’s choice to surround himself with yes-men

    There’s a huge part of me that refuses to believe that this is indeed “Bush’s choice” – try “Cheney’s choice” – and replace “yes-men” with “handlers” and maybe we’d be better describing the “Bush” Administration. Does anybody *really* believe that Bush is his own man in the Johnson or Nixon or even Clinton sense? He’s nothing more than a front man and I think it’s erroneous to view him as anything otherwise.

  • Pondering some of those same thoughts…

    You can’t call it terror if you’re not afraid of it.

    Bush boasts endlessly that “freedom is on the march.” But it looks as if the only place democracy in America is marching is toward oblivion. Bush plays origami with the constitution and we stand back and let him because we are very afraid. People died for these liberties and we hand them over to a rank amateur who couldn’t find WMD or Osama or a rat in his own inner circle. That scares the bejabbers out of me.

    FDR led us out of a depression, conquered the hideous evil of Nazism and inspired our “greatest generation,” even as he receded into a wheelchair. I would like to suggest that Bush channel FDR’s “nothing to fear but fear” message, but the sad reality is that he couldn’t shine Roosevelt’s shoes. Bush’s cache is cooked. He can’t even channel the 9-11 Bush anymore….

  • Joe Klein: “President Bush confronts nothing so threatening to his Administration as Iran-contra.”

    Is Klein nutz?!
    Iran-Contra was a minor bit of business, compared to what threatens Bush. Bush’s problems are not limited to a couple of minor aspects of foreign policy, which lots of people do not understand; and Bush has not gotten “out in front” of the scandal, the way Reagan and Reagan’s people got “out in front” of Iran-Contra, sacrificing a few aides. The material interests of the U.S. were not majorly at stake.

    Bush’s Iraq policy seems to be aimed squarely at either turning over the number 2 oil country in the world to Iran, and/or creating an endless civil war in that country. And, underneath that foreign policy catastrophe — a catastrophe the magnitude of which dwarfs all except Vietnam — lies a miasma of corruption and incompetence scandals. Abramoff/DeLay scandal(s) only need to expand a little bit more, to encompass the dormant Iraq CPA scandal and the just birthing Louisiana Reconstruction scandal, and we’ll need more buses than the New Orleans evacuation, just to cart away Republican crooks.

    And, none of that touches on Constitutional issues, posed by Bush’s claim that he cannot be restrained by law in his conduct of war, even to the extent of prohibiting torture.

  • Have you all seen this quote from a review of George Packer’s latest book (in WaPo) on the Bush administration?

    “It is not too soon, however, to return a judgment on those at the helm who took a difficult job and made it infinitely more so, dramatically undermining America’s regional and global position in the process. They were ‘careless people,’ as Fitzgerald said of Tom and Daisy Buchanan, who ‘smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.'”

  • I am sorry if this is a little off subject, but I have spent several frustrating hours this morning being turned away from the Library and my Credit Union. It turns out that today is Columbus Day. Now, I don’t have any personal animosity toward Columbus, but why should he get this day? Magellan, Balboa and Marco Polo do not have holidays, and they were pretty important explorers.

    Anyway, instead of fighting it, I would like to propose a new holiday — Genghis Khan Day. I haven’t thought much about the date, but surely he had as much historical impact as the others.

    Happy Genghis Khan Day!

  • America would benefit from a “renovated” West Wing, but we’ll probably have to wait for January 2009 to see it.

    CP, don’t be so dark. I’d rather say January 2007 plus a few months if … if the Democrats capture either the House or the Senate.

    One chamber, oh just one chamber, my little Jesus, please, just a little tiny single one, please, please, pretty please …

  • I, too, did a triple take when I read this comment
    by Joe Klein:

    ” President Bush confronts nothing so threatening to his Administration as Iran-contra.”

    I assume what he means is that Bush has gotten
    away with his crimes, misdemeanors and
    destructive domestic policies, not that they
    don’t make Iran-Contra look like a mere
    peccadillo.

    Then again, maybe he does mean it, and he’s
    caught the same disease as the rest of the
    American people.

  • I’d think it’s obvious why Bush faces nothing as threatening to his Administration as Iran-Contra. He can do anything and neither the Republican-dominated house or the Republican-dominated Senate would investigate it, just echo the statements about it being partisan politics.

  • Nothing short of a full-scale replacement of every key advisor is called for if this administration is going to have any credibility at all. What we need
    is creativity, freshness, and originality. Is Geena Davis available?

  • What would this magical new renovated White House look like? Surely the fault is not W’s, because it can’t be. So options are limited but clear:
    Attorney General Jeb
    Dad in State
    Neil in the Treasury
    Barbara as Ambassador to the UN
    The twins get the newly reorganized Interior, Design, and Fashion
    Cheney stays as VP
    Barney becomes Press Secretary.

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