Time on George W. Bush, November 6, 2000

What the Time team of Karen Tumulty and Jay Carney told us about George W. Bush on the eve of the 2000 election, after they had been watching him closely for a year and a half:

How They [Would] Run The Show: by James Carney and Karen Tumulty: November 6, 2000: It is impossible to know precisely what problems George W. Bush or Al Gore will face as President... the two would bring dramatically different approaches to solving them. Bush comes to a decision by putting his faith in the advisers he picks; Gore, in the information they bring him. Bush's goal in mastering a new issue is to learn the lay of the land; Gore isn't convinced he knows the terrain until he runs his fingers through the soil. Bush's experience tells him there are few adversaries he cannot bring around with his irresistible charm; Gore's experience tells him there are few he cannot conquer with an irrefutable argument....

A President Gore would be a decided contrast to the candidate who reinvents his campaign as often as he changes his wardrobe. "Once he locks in, he'll lock in and be much tougher to move, whereas Bill Clinton used to continue to cogitate even after he made a decision," says former White House chief of staff Leon Panetta....

[Bush] became famous in Texas for cutting meetings short, demanding a cogent recommendation from his advisers, making a decision and moving on. Bush also has less patience with the status quo than his father did. If Bush the elder's governing philosophy was "first, do no harm," then his son's is "do something." Since his first campaign in Texas in 1994, George W.'s style has been to develop a limited, specific agenda and then focus almost exclusively on it.... What's more, some advisers suggest, Bush plans to push the hardest [goals] first: his gaudy tax cut, they say, will probably take a backseat to the arduous work of transforming Social Security....

Bush is intuitive. When asked about decision making, the Governor's first response is to talk up the importance of "picking a team of people you can trust." A former CEO, Bush views government through the eyes of a businessman. He delegates authority, empowers his staff member and trusts them to give the advice he needs to make a decision. He prefers short memos and brisk discussions. He doesn't pretend to know the details his experts are supposed to know, and he often makes a decision based on how effectively an aide argues for it....

The risk to this approach, says Bruce Buchanan, a University of Texas political scientist, is that Bush may be too staff-reliant: "The problem is that he may not always be in a position to discern the credibility of the options his advisers give him. One of the ways a staff can manipulate the boss is to stack options so that their preferred option is obviously better." Bush insists he can sense when a staff member is trying to roll him....

The typical Bush meeting begins with an adviser making a presentation.... Bush interrupts, peppering the adviser with questions. Sometimes the questions seem startlingly basic. During a briefing last year by defense experts, Bush stunned the room when he asked, "What's an army for?" "At first you had the feeling, 'Uh-oh, this guy's not so bright,'" recalls a participant. What it took advisers a moment to realize was that Bush was being deliberately provocative--forcing them to step back from the immediate issues in order to explain the fundamental assumptions behind America's defense strategy....

Even the best idea or policy proposal is worthless if the President can't sell it--to the Congress and the public. This is what Bush's supporters believe is their man's greatest strength, an affable, intimate manner that sent even Democrats in Texas into a swoon.... Bush's advisers say the Governor would cope with the isolation of the presidency by reaching out--and not just to fellow Republicans. The essence of Bush's message in the closing days of the campaign is that he is a "different kind of Republican" who will "change the tone in Washington" by working with both Republicans and Democrats. Bush places great faith in his capacity to find common ground with the other party, and he points to his record of bipartisan compromise in Texas as proof that he would be able to do just that in Washington....

The most successful Presidents are the ones who can capitalize on their strengths and grow out of their weaknesses. Certainly, today's Clinton White House bears little resemblance to the chaotic, shapeless operation it was in its first year.... President Bush would have to show that he can be both everybody's friend and nobody's fool...

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Note that the article contains no slam at Bush that is the equivalent of the article's slams at Clinton and Gore--the "chaotic, shapeless operation [the Clinton administration] was in its first year" and the "candidate [Gore] who reinvents his campaign as often as he changes his wardrobe."

And the overall thrust of the article turned out to be very false indeed.

Bush didn't "pick a team of people you can trust": He didn't trust Colin Powell or Paul O'Neill or Christine Todd Whitman or pretty much anybody except Cheney. Bush didn't work like "a businessman. He delegates authority, empowers his staff member and trusts them to give the advice he needs." He doesn't appear to have wanted advice, or to have delegated authority to anybody except Cheney, or to have empowered his staff. The risk turned out not to be that Bush was "too staff-reliant." Instead, Bush seems to have used the expertise of his staff hardly at all.

The claim that Bush is "deliberately provocative" in order to force his advisors to "step back from the immediate issues" so that they can examine "fundamental assumptions" seems very hollow today. It seems much more likely that it's a smokescreen to hide ignorance, and that the initial reaction that "uh-oh, this guy's not so bright" is the right one.

As to Bush's "greatest strength, an affable, intimate manner that sent even Democrats in Texas into a swoon," the less said the better. Bush not only failed to "reach out--and not just to fellow Republicans," he failed to reach to his own Secretaries of State and Treasury. He certainly has been a "different kind of Republican." He certainly has "change[d] the tone in Washington." But he hasn't shown "that he can be both everybody's friend and nobody's fool." He has shown that he is everybody's fool, and nobody's friend--except perhaps Osama bin Laden's.

Comments

[Zeno]

This is a good reminder of why I decided my subscription to Time was a waste of time.

[DILBERT DOGBERT]

On every visit to the doctors or dentists offices I take a glance at Time before I look for a copy of the New Yorker to read the jokes.
Every visit renews my happiness at giving up on subscribing a long time ago.
I reluctantly gave up on the Wall Street Journal and The Economist as I felt the editorial side was leaking into the news side. Even if I was wrong about The WSJ or Economist having to pay for the editorial side was fouling my plugs.

[Craig Nelson]

I disagree. The first half of the article was organized as a contrast of decision making styles, "Bush comes to a decision by putting his faith in the advisers he picks; Gore, in the information they bring him", which seems accurate.

GORE:
"Gore studies an issue until he can argue all sides with such certainty that aides sometimes have no idea which one he will ultimately take." Seems like a good idea for major issues, but not a bit like Bush.

BUSH:
' "He wants you to come in with a recommendation," says Clay Johnson, a friend since boarding school who is one of Bush's top aides in Texas. "He doesn't want you to give him a 20-page report and say, 'Read this and think about it.'" ' Seems like the way things go now and if nobody with Bush when he is briefed on Katrina realizes he needs to pay attention, well, what's a thousand or so unrecovered corpses rotting somewhere in the bayous.

What the article didn't predict was the dysfunction of the advisers. A lazy mediocrity will favor deferential strong willed doers as subordinates and is very likely to prefer the more authoritarian to the more authoritative. In the cabinet of such a president, those advisers who believe they should serve or please their leader are unlikely to prevail against those who intend to use the president. It's not that all of the advisers couldn't be trusted, but this president couldn't know who to trust except by "intuition".

[Hal]

This on Bush from the Washington Post says most of it: he is stupid, confused, but still "self-confident" and serene. He doesn't begin to comprehend that his administration is a disaster and a failure. Idiot comes to mind, but there may be a better characterization than that. "Not in touch with, or rather, nowhere near to reality" is a given.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/01/AR2007070101356_pf.html

[trialsanderrors]

Bush stunned the room when he asked, "What's an army for?" "At first you had the feeling, 'Uh-oh, this guy's not so bright,'" recalls a participant. What it took advisers a moment to realize was that Bush was being deliberately provocative--forcing them to step back from the immediate issues in order to explain the fundamental assumptions behind America's defense strategy....
=========

Sadly, that first feeling turned out to be right.

[Christine]

It's obvious that Bush knows what armies are for. Obviously, to channel hundreds of billions of deficit financed dollars to his corporate cronies.

[corvid]

Good corrective post, Mr. Delong. Blogs should do more of this with the MSM. Then, eventually, the question may become why bigfoot reporters aren't fired when they prove so worthless and so wrong.

[jim]

They were right about a limited, specific agenda, though: tax cuts for the rich and invading Iraq. Stuff that wasn't on that agenda didn't get that much attention, even "the arduous work of transforming Social Security" or immigration, where Bush had a mild interest, let alone rebuilding New Orleans, where he didn't.

[ed]

Thanks for the lovely reminder. Maybe you can post transcripts and/or youtube links to the Bush/Gore debates. I forget, how were they covered at the time? I wonder how they hold up.

[ed]

There's a lot of funny to be culled from that piece of crap from Time, but, "Bush's goal in mastering a new issue is to learn the lay of the land," is one that stands out in particular. One gets the feeling that the only thing Bush has attempted to master in his adult life is computer golf.

[Michael Cucek]

The "what is an army for?" type question is familiar to any professor or scholar who has to teach an entry-level course where the students can challenge the instructor.

No assiduous intellect can provide a coherent, multi-faceted answer to such a question in a brief span of time--and the questioner knows it.

The goal is to provoke the instructor into scrambling and summarizing, thereby making his or her grasp of the "fundamental questions" appear to be feeble.

The only correct answer, for the college professor at least, is, "That's a question more appropriate for office hours. My next ones are on --- at---. I expect you to be there. Moving right along..."

[Craig]

I'm reminded of Teresa Nielsen Hayden's take on Bush's "provocative" questions back in 2003:

"I recognize that behavior. Lord help me, I’ve seen it done. It’s one of the tactics you can use if you’re in an executive-level job that’s beyond your abilities, you have to have meetings with underlings who know more than you do, and your only concern is to save face while making sure they’re giving you what you want."

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/001556.html