The LA Times’ [tag]Peter Wallsten[/tag] and [tag]Tom Hamburger[/tag], who have a new book coming out, mentioned the kind of anecdote yesterday that speaks volumes about how the [tag]Bush[/tag] gang approached public [tag]policy[/tag]. Or, in every possible instance, doesn’t.
Perhaps more than any other administration, the White House of George W. Bush has mastered the art of [tag]mixing[/tag] [tag]politics[/tag] and policy and keeping track of how federal government decisions can affect even obscure local elections. Rove, with a broad portfolio and extraordinary influence, introduced a new political doctrine, effectively putting the federal bureaucracy and the bully pulpit of the White House in the service of [tag]GOP[/tag] political ends.
All administrations are political, of course. But never before has the White House inserted electoral priorities into Cabinet agencies with such regularity and deliberation. Before the 2002 midterm elections, for instance, [tag]Rove[/tag] or [tag]Mehlman[/tag] visited with the managers of many federal agencies to share polling information and discuss how policy decisions might affect key races.
In 2002, Rove told Interior Department officials of the importance of helping farmers in Oregon whose political support was crucial to Gordon Smith, a vulnerable Republican senator. Within months, perhaps because of Rove’s exhortations, the agency did just that, supporting the diversion of water from the environmentally important Klamath River for the sake of irrigating farmland. Thousands of salmon eventually died in the newly shallow waters. But the senator secured his reelection.
None of this should come as a surprise to anyone, of course, but it’s yet another affirmation of what John DiIulio said after his stint as a policy advisor to the president: “There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus. What you’ve got is everything — and I mean everything — being run by the political arm. It’s the reign of the [tag]Mayberry Machiavellis[/tag].”
Truer words were never spoken.
It’s all part of what Kevin Drum has labeled the “[tag]Grand Unified Theory of Bush[/tag].”
Pundits keep trying to figure out just what it is that makes Bush so different from other presidents, but most of them start by trying to figure out what he values…. The fact is, all presidents rely for their decisions on a complex stew of ideology, interest group pandering, and political calculation. So what is it that makes Bush so different? Just this: until Bush they also all cared about serious policy analysis. This was obviously more striking in some (Clinton) than in others (Reagan), but they all paid attention to it and it informed their actions.
But not Bush. He’s subject to the same stew of competing interests and factions as any other president, but what truly makes him unique is what’s missing: a respect for policy analysis.
There is no precedent for such an operation. The history books will no doubt be filled with Bush’s errors and tragedies, but ultimately, his most profound legacy will be eight years of mixing policy and politics to the point in which there is no meaningful difference.
A senior White House official told Ron Suskind that the Bush White House is “just kids on Big Wheels who talk politics and know nothing. It’s depressing.” It’s that and more.