Much to the [tag]White House[/tag]’s chagrin, the Wall Street Journal’s [tag]Peggy Noonan[/tag], the former Reagan speechwriter, hasn’t exactly been a [tag]Bush[/tag] cheerleader. She’s panned Bush’s State of the Union and even openly speculated about Bush getting rid of Dick Cheney. Noonan certainly hasn’t shifted to the left — she did, after all, say that liberals have “fallen half in love with death” during the Terri Schiavo matter — but she hasn’t rallied to Bush’s aid, either.
In her column today, Noonan offered some commentary on the staff changes at the White House and explained, with surprising candor, why moving a few deckchairs around won’t make a substantive difference.
The presidency can break you — we’ve seen it break presidents — and [Bush] does not intend to be broken. But one senses he fears to bend because if he bends, he breaks.
The odd thing is sometimes the bravest thing is to question yourself, question the wisdom around you, reach out, tolerate a hellacious argument, or series of arguments. Yes there is a feeling of safety in decisiveness, but if it’s the wrong decision, the safety doesn’t last. And safety isn’t the point in any case. Governing well is. That involves arguments. It means considering you may be wrong about some things. This isn’t weak — it’s humble. It’s not breaking, it’s bending, tacking, steadying yourself in a wind. […]
Inside the White House they say, “We think big.” Maybe. But maybe they’re not thinking. They say, “We’re bold.” But maybe they’re just unknowing, which is not the same thing. The bold weigh the price and pay it, get the lay of the land and move within it. The dreamy just spurt along on emotions.
Noonan explained her belief that the staff “shake-up” is of little consequence because the president, as she put it, “does not tolerate dissent, argument, bitter internal battles” the way an informed president should. Noonan even quoted an unnamed prominent Republican who described Bush’s staff by saying, “Those people aren’t drinking the Kool-Aid, they’re sucking it from a spigot!”
Noonan concludes that it’s less important for the staff to change and more important for Bush to broaden his base of information by tolerating “dissent, argument, ambiguity.” This, she argues, would be more meaningful progress for the Bush White House, as opposed to shuffling around a few staffers, which is, as Noonan put it, is merely the “appearance of change.”
First, I’m not at all comfortable agreeing so much with Noonan, but today I’ll make an exception. Second, I think Noonan may soon be taken off the White House Christmas-card list.