December 13, 2005
Sealed White House Needs Outside Advice
By Bruce
Bartlett
In its latest
issue, Newsweek magazine has a disturbing portrait of George
W. Bush as an aloof, out-of-touch president, isolated by his own
governing style. Because of his intolerance for dissent, he has
effectively surrounded himself with yes-men (and women) fearful
of telling the president anything he doesn't want to hear.
Written
by veteran reporters Evan Thomas and Richard Wolffe, the Newsweek
story confirms reports we have heard for the last five years about
Bush's disinterest in the policy process or even the day-to-day
politicking that ordinarily goes with the job. He dislikes meeting
with members of Congress, is not a big consumer of news that does
not come to him through official channels and relies almost exclusively
on a small cluster of close aides, ignoring his Cabinet and the
rest of the federal establishment.
The result
is that Bush appears to live in a sort of fantasy world utterly
divorced from reality. For example, Newsweek quotes a
senior Republican congressman -- unnamed for fear of White House
retaliation -- who was astounded in a meeting with Bush about
Social Security at how out-of-touch he was with the political
prospects for his reform plan. The congressman and everyone else
in the room knew the plan was dead, yet Bush went on and on as
if it were on the brink of enactment.
"I
got the sense that his staff was not telling him the bad news,"
the lawmaker said. "This was not a case of him thinking positive.
He just didn't have any idea of the political realities there.
It was like he wasn't briefed at all."
According
to Newsweek, in many subtle ways Bush discourages his
aides from telling him the truth. One is the way he phrases questions
-- not so as to elicit information, but rather in order to force
subordinates into a position where the only answer they can give
is to confirm the wisdom of whatever decision he already made.
This problem
is compounded by Bush's antipathy for in-depth briefings. He prefers
short conversations that are "long on conclusion, short on
reasoning," we are told. "Faith, not evidence, is the
basis for decision-making," Thomas and Wolffe report.
Bush loyalists
will, no doubt, question the veracity of the Newsweek
account. But it is only the latest portrait that paints the same
picture. Last year, for example, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist
Ron Suskind reported that a senior White House aide actually mocked
him for living in the "reality-based community." The
aide said that the White House was creating its own reality that
did not require thought, analysis, evidence or logic. It simply
acted and reality changed.
But as the
Iraq war and declining poll ratings weigh ever more heavily on
Bush, the disconnect with reality seems to have gotten worse.
In September, Time magazine reported that his bubble
had grown "more hermetic ... with fewer people willing or
able to bring him bad news -- or tell him when he's wrong."
In October,
Thomas DeFrank of the New York Daily News reported that
Bush is now given to temper tantrums. He frequently berates others
for his own mistakes, refusing to take responsibility for them,
DeFrank reports. The picture that emerges is eerily familiar to
anyone who has read about Richard Nixon's last days in office.
Other press
reports suggest that Bush administration officials are now going
to extraordinary lengths to avoid displeasing their boss. According
to an item in New York magazine last week, administration
officials threatened to walk away from global warming talks if
Bill Clinton were allowed to speak to the group. Perhaps the United
States should abstain from the United Nations conference on policy
grounds. But to do so simply because of a Clinton speech is petty
in the extreme.
Unfortunately,
it appears that there is nobody -- even his father -- in a position
to sit President Bush down and force him to change course. The
one person who might be able to do so is Vice President Cheney,
but he has long been Bush's principal enabler, according to a
report by John Dickerson in the online magazine Slate. Lacking
any political ambitions of his own, Cheney has no incentive to
disagree with Bush on anything. This has contributed to the hermetic
nature of the White House, helping vitally to sustain the bubble
in which Bush operates largely on his own without ever hearing
a dissenting voice.
In the unlikely
event that Bush decides to take a new course, one place he might
turn is to University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato,
who recently posted some good advice on his website. Bush needs
to accept reality on Iraq, Sabato says, talk up the economy, develop
a new domestic agenda, re-staff his administration and admit error,
especially on the unaffordable Medicare drug benefit. I agree.
Copyright
2005 Creators Syndicate
