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It took a few days, but I finally found the key to George Bush's theme in the debate last Thursday. I know, that was last week; we're supposed to be speculating on the VP debate and talking about polls and momentum. Bear with me a moment longer.
What George Bush was saying, under all the hems and haws, was that being president is a challenge for which he was not prepared in 2001. Kerry has all these nice, tidy plans, wants to do things his way, etc. George Bush knows now that you can't plan a presidency. One line from the debate kept sticking with me:"I understand how hard it is to commit troops. Never wanted to commit troops. When I was running -- when we had the debate in 2000, never dreamt I'd be doing that." He was running for the position of Commander-in-Chief, with all kinds of active and barely contained military problems in the world, and he didn't consider committing troops? What did he think he'd be spending the term doing, exactly?
Sorry, I don't want to be too partisan about it: that line bothers me deeply, but it also explains why Bush was so quick to denigrate Kerry's plans for change."The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley," the poet said, and it's true, perhaps more so for the presidency than other jobs. You're responsible for the economy, which responsible economists admit you can't really do much of anything about in the short term. You're responsible for security, in which you are dependent on the competency of hundreds of thousands of law enforcement officials (and the incompetency of innumerable socio- and psycho-paths, not to mention true believers), and foreign policy, in which you are dependent on the enlightened self-interest and rationality of the most ambitious people on earth, besides yourself, and they have their own constituencies to worry about. There are billions of nuts out there, and every one of them seems to have your phone number some days.
Kerry thinks that he's smart enough and experienced enough to do the job, and he's right. But if we who support him and/or oppose Bush think that Kerry can just come into the office and send out a few memos and move things to the right track, then we should take a little time to contemplate Bush's experience. I don't think Kerry thinks that: I think he's got a much better idea what he's going to face (the political liabilities of Bill Clinton and the international mess of George Bush, all rolled into one). But I think it needs to be crystal clear that the alternative to things getting worse steadily is not things getting better quickly.
Our interesting discussion moves further and further from Mr. Dresner's article. But to the extent that his and our speculative observations about Bush one day may be compared against archival records from Bush's administration, here's a less sanguine view of record keeping from John Earl Haynes.
I had raised questions about Presidential records in another forum (H-diplo) in 2003 and received an interesting reply from historian John Earl Haynes, which I've copied below. I got the ball rolling by pointing to concerns such as those expressed by Linton Weeks, a Washington Post columnist, who observed a chill in Washington's air. He wrote about it in "Dear Diary: Today I, Ah, Never Mind; History May Lose Out As Subpoena Fear Quashes Note-Keeping" (03/04/98).
Weeks noted, "Increasingly, the threat of subpoena has cast a pall over would-be scribes at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Just as President Nixon's Watergate experience brought an end to Oval Office taping, the Clinton administration's various intrigues may mean the death of the White House diary. Some staffers have stopped keeping journals. Others no longer take notes at meetings. Some say they still fire off memos to one another, but the missives are more meek, mealy and milquetoasty than they used to be. At every level, from President Clinton on down, White House aides are watching what they say on the phone, thinking twice before hitting the 'send' button on e-mail and learning the value of the shredder, because everything, every thing, is subject to scrutiny and potential exposure."
Weeks concluded, "'High muckety-mucks don't keep notes,' [historian Taylor] Branch says. 'It means we won't have very good history. It means that it will be lifeless.'" Lloyd Cutler expressed similar concerns in his own op ed, and I already quoted Michael Beschloss's 2002 PSQ article above.
Here's what John Earl Haynes wrote on H-diplo in 2003:
"Maarja Krusten is all too right about the disastrous effects on the historical record of legally mandated rapid disclosure of policy making records of public officials enacted in the late 1970s and later. These
mandates resulted in a pigs in mud golden era for journalists with their near-term agenda and "gotcha" mentality, and, to be sure, allowed historians of the 1960s and 1970s to gain access to records much sooner
than they otherwise would have had. But the trade-off has been catastrophic for future historians. Pre-emptive sanitization of the record is not episodic but nearly universal among policy making officials and their staffs since the mid-1970s.
As a staffer for policy-making officials in the executive branch of state government in that era I and my colleagues drastically changed our record keeping habits after the passage of mandatory rapid disclosure of
executive branch records. Earlier our internal debates over policy decisions (balancing budgetary effects against often conflicting policy goals and including advice from legislative supporters and, sometimes,
legislative opponents) were embodied in written memoranda, position papers, back-and-forth exchanges, and records of conversations. That these records would one day be opened for research was of no concern because that day was many decades away and of no political or personal
importance. After the passage of freedom of information laws that opened these records either immediately or after only a brief period of restricted access, our practices changed. Our discussions became largely
verbal supported only by ephemeral personal notes immediately discarded and the written record contained only technical documents and our final decisions with the supporting rationale. We cared greatly for our policy
goals which we regarded as in the public interest and were determined that nothing would exist in the record of use to our political opponents or those of the media seeking controversy. We were not at all unusual. In
my post-political role as a acquirer of historical records, the drastic diminution of the richness of the record between those created before the mid-1970s and later is obvious.
The practical result of legally mandated rapid disclosure of the records of policy makers has been to impoverish the historical record. Records not created are not available, ever, for historical research.
John Earl Haynes
20th Century Political Historian
Manuscript Division, Library of Congress"
Tom Bruscino -
10/8/2004
I'm more sanguine about our ability to write on Presidents Clinton and Bush in the future. The records will be opened and there will be plenty of material. It is actually funny that Beschloss brings up FDR, considering FDR's papers are a mess, he hardly wrote anything down for himself, and the material is so voluminous and hard to get at that FDR has killed numerous historians trying to write multi-volume biographies of him.
Richard Henry Morgan -
10/8/2004
Before firing him I would ask myself whether the alternative candidate (or candidates) would correct the mistake, and whether the mistake was emblematic of a pattern, and whether the mistakes to come from alternatives would be worse. But yeah, I think Bush would have benefited from a reading of Machiavelli -- fortune favors the bold. He should have gone in fast and hard and with overwhelming force. This baloney with Fallujah and al Sadr and whatnot has only encouraged more of the same. Unfortunately, once large-unit fighting stops, the suits stop listening to generals and start listening to clerks.
Richard Henry Morgan -
10/8/2004
Thankyou for your gracious reply.
Derek Charles Catsam -
10/7/2004
Richard -- that last line, is utterly irrelevant. Would I bet that I'm smarter than you? Sure. But it has nothing to do with what's going on here, where you said, and I quote, "Actually, I don't think Kerry is smart enough to do the job. " Then you go on and make this vacuous distinction without a difference between intelligence and being smart, the sort of too clever by half nonsense that apparently you don't realize does not make any sense. This is not about being informed. It is about being called to account for saying a whole array of inanities, by clearly not understanding various approaches to sanctions, and by making idiotic and demonstrably untrue assertions about what I understand about terrorists versus warlords. As for making this about biography, let us keep in mind that you were the one here who in that flatulation of a first post mentioned your own background in military intelligence. If these posts are an example of what you brought to the table, I have to say I am glad that your experience can be listed in the past tense.
dc
Maarja Krusten -
10/7/2004
I agree that Gergen's use of the painting was somewhat extreme. I, too, do not fall comfortably into either of the two categories he describes among viewers of the Wesley painting.
I primarily was interested in Gergen's assessment of the changes in MBA teaching, and Bush's seeming failure to keep up with changes in management philosophy. Of course, I read the article in the context of Gergen's interesting memoirs, which I read a couple of years ago.
Your point about history on the fly is well taken. But, I'm not sure we will be able to assess the accuracy of Gergen's and others' "pyscho-biography" as readily as we have been able to do with earlier Presidents. Perhaps historians will be forced in the future to rely more and more on memoirs, Bob Woodward's books (yikes!) and what auditors call "uncorroborated testimonial evidence," rather than on rich, contemporaneous pre-decisional documentation. I don't know if you read my article on Allen Weinstein's nomination as Archivist of the United States (http://hnn.us/articles/6675.html), which points to serious problems with public access to Presidential records. I am not optimistic about historians having a rich archival record to draw on in the future.
Presidential scholar Michael Beschloss believes that concerns about investigations and early disclosure have led public figures to stop writing thoughtful, discursive letters and revealing memos.
Writing in Presidential Studies Quarterly, Beschloss pointed out that "People in Washington are more public relations savvy than in earlier times and, thus, more adept at drafting memos and other records that conceal their motives and can fool the historian."
He conclued, "The result of all of this is that a historian of the years of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, or their successors may not have the kind of sources needed to understand who did what to whom and why as well as a scholar might for, say, the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt. The result of this could be that historical scholarship on future presidents may become, of necessity, more speculative.”
At any rate, the speculation and debates about Bush here on HNN are interesting to read, even if, as you say, "history on the fly" often turns out to be off the mark. Again, thanks for the thoughtful post,I will look for the article by Stephen Tootle on Rebunk, which is a new source of reading for me.
Tom Bruscino -
10/7/2004
Let me clarify: When I said "we," I really was speaking only for myself, but I think it was a pretty safe assertion to say that most of us agree that not all perspectives are equal. Perspectives was an imprecise word because it was related to the link, which is to a post I wrote on the flaws of social scientific thinking in government and the military and the need to have more emphasis on the humanities. My point was that management theory (and its history) is so tied up in social scientific theory--and the jargon that goes along with it, as you mention--that historians are probably inclined to be hostile to it. That doesn't mean management theory history is not worth doing, but in my limited experience, it is nearly impossible to apply theories to everyday life, business, and people.
As far as the Gergen article goes, I have to admit that as a historian I am skeptical. The type of psycho-biography on the fly and from a distance that he attempts usually ends up being off base. My colleague at Rebunk Stephen Tootle just wrote a dissertation on how the political pundits of the forties, fifties, and sixties created pretty far off the mark reputations for Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy. It took years of research and perspective for historians and biographers to come to some sort of balance, and still lots of people have false impressions of those three. In Gergen's case, I think he overestimates the fervor of both the opposition to and support of President Bush. I don't know about you, but I do not fit into either of the categories he posits for people looking at the painting.
Maarja Krusten -
10/7/2004
I haven't had time to read your link yet, although I will, I have a healthy amount of intellectual curiosity. And I'm all in favor of "continuous learning," adding to my skill sets, etc. But, just so I understand you better, could you clarify what you mean by writing, "We are fine with new and different perspectives, we just don't think all of them deserve equal attention." Does it mean "we HNN historians" don't find different perspectives, such as management history, to be of interest, although we acknowledge they exist? Or does it mean, we HNN readers don't discourage anyone from posting, but we cherry pick whose posts we read and respond to? (I initially took it to mean the latter and chuckled at it being included in a thread on insularity but then I saw that you might have meant the former, instead.)
I actually find management history interesting and very useful in my job as a Federal historian. As a Historian I am called on to do more than traditional historical research. I provide litigation support and also help senior executives who are in charge of my agency. The latter work often involves helping senior executives who are charged with being "change agents." I can't sell history to such people just on the basis of a restrospective look back at events. In fact, some executives in Washington may even shrug and say, who needs history, that's old, arcane stuff that has no relevance to governance. If that is how they view history, they might even abolish the position of agency historian! Many government agencies unfortunately have abolished their history offices, perhaps because the incumbents had trouble adapting to a Washington which nowadays looks increasingly to business models in the private sector.
I, and, I suspect, most corporate historians also, succeed best when I can show how an organization's employees view present day initiatives through the prism of past events. Employees may reject new initiatives because they lost faith in old ones. This requires me to understand the thinking behind TQM, business process re-engineering, Sigma Six, etc. Some worked, some didn't. and then there is the jargon, ugh. You wouldn't believe how many times I have sat through meetings where managers "communicate" by throwing out terms such as "leveraging our assets," "identifying pain points," "picking the low hanging fruit."
By learning about and understanding the history of management, I can enable senior executives to understand where new initiatives will be accepted and where they are likely to meet resistance or rejection by employees. The managers' jobs often hinge on their being successful change agents, and believe me, it is immensely rewarding for me to be able to demonstrate that history is a useful tool in current management. I often draw on people such as transition expert William Bridges. Bridges notes in "The Human Side of Organizational Change," that an historical perspective helps organizations. "There is no other way to preserve something than to change it from time to time, and so this is also a time for reminding people of what it is that the change is going to preserve."
If you had a chance to apply for a high level job as a corporate or government historian, how would you sell your services? Would you be willing to learn about management history? Or would a purely academic perspective place you be at risk of getting screened out in the first round of job interviews? I am thinking about succession planning at my agency right now, and need to consider where best to find people who can do the type of work I do. I've seen archivists (who often have graduate degrees in history) debate on the Archives Listserv over the value of a second degree in business administration. Do you think such people would provide a better pool of candidates than "pure" historians for corporate and government history jobs?
Bush seems to view himself as a transformational President. Yet, as David Gergen suggests in the article described below, the managerial methods he learned at Harvard Business School largely have been rejected by present day CEOs. I, for one,learned a great deal from Gergen's piece. In fact, I learned more about Bush from Gergen's article than I have from many of the articles I see posted on HNN! But your post provides useful context for that assessment, as well, and I thank you for responding!
Ralph E. Luker -
10/7/2004
Richard, It's no longer possible to believe that you take the past as any guide, given your support for continuing this administration in office.
Richard Henry Morgan -
10/7/2004
My poor opinion of Kerry's judgement (the application of intelligence to understanding, rather than rationalizing) extends only to his command of foreign policy. I agree with him on just about every domestic issue, with the exceptions of vouchers and tort reform. Perhaps Kerry will represent, on the domestic front, a return to Democrat Party roots, rather than the Clinton era of embracing big business. Further, I don't think the domestic issues represent as pressing concerns (as they once did, like civil rights), as the challenge of Islamist terrorism and bringing the Middle East into the modern world -- two issues that demand a familiarity with the Freudian reality principle, rather than Carter-style-Kumbayah-Make-a-Wish-Foundation foreign policy (the latest example being Edwards' suggestion that if we just, like, sell nuclear fuel to the Iranians, then they will make nice).
I'll wait for the evidence that Kerry has demonstrated he is any good at what he does. I haven't noticed his demonstrated excellence as a master of the legislative process, though as I understand it, legislator (to the extent he's actually ever present in Washington for hearings and votes) has been his experience of late. Who knows, though? Maybe he'll win and surprise me. The past is always a good guide, but not an infallible one. History offers surprises, not just patterns. Who really thought beforehand that Truman had a clue?
Tom Bruscino -
10/7/2004
I'm with Ralph on this one. I don't know how on earth anyone can define being outside the federal government as "insular." The contributors and posters to HNN are a fairly diverse lot of historians or those interested in history, and I think that most of us think that the study of history can shed light on present issues. There is certainly a history of management techniques (fads?), but historians are usually either hostile or indifferent to the theories and models that make up such techniques. One of my least controversial posts at Rebunk discussed this issue from a slightly different angle. We are fine with new and different perspectives, we just don't think all of them deserve equal attention.
Maarja Krusten -
10/7/2004
AT home today for an appointment so have a little more time in the a.m. than usual. Hey, Mr. Dresner, at least we read your article and it made us think, even if not always in the patterns you had hoped for, LOL. I don't know how deep Bush's people skills go. David Gergen suggests that he follows an old fashioned, command and control style of management, which largely has been rejected by modern day CEOs. It may have added to the problems with the Iraq analysis and planning. Perhaps we should add continuous learning--the lifelong acquisition of knowledge or the lack of interest in it--to our discussion of smarts, judgment, and character. Richard and others, please see my post below at http://hnn.us/readcomment.php?id=43779#43779 .
(Given Derek Catsam's use of the terms stupidity and idiocy in responding to Richard, I don't know whether to direct him to Gergen's article or not. I don't know if flinging about such terms reflects humor or an ingrained style of argument for him. In any event, I'm with Gergen, who notes in discussing successful leadership and persuasion that "Since no one has a monopoly on wisdom—indeed, reality itself may be socially constructedby the most powerful in society—a public leader, more than leaders inany other arenas, should seek multiple perspectives, inviting voices of dissent."
Maarja Krusten -
10/7/2004
Mr. Dresner correctly concludes that, "What George Bush was saying, under all the hems and haws, was that being president is a challenge for which he was not prepared in 2001. Kerry has all these nice, tidy plans, wants to do things his way, etc. George Bush knows now that you can't plan a presidency." Others have noted that when Bush went to Harvard Business School, he learned to be comfortable making decisions without being able to know the outcomes. While his training is reflected in his public comments on Iraq--which continue to imply he took the only course available, one in which freedom will previal--the plaintive debate comments about "hard work" seem to reflect something else. Perhaps they simply reflect historical ignorance. Had he read more history, and read more books in general, Bush might not have been surprised by the fact that, as Mr. Dresner correctly points out, you cannot plan a Presidency. He also would have learned that some of what he learned in business school now has been replaced by newer philosophies, ones he should have, but did not, consider learning and applying.
I disagree with Dr. Luker, who asked above in the thread on "odd responses" why management science should be pertinent on a message board in the History News Network. How a President gathers and uses information, whether he shoots the messenger, and his pre-decisional and post-decisional actions, are key components in his success or failure. Historians will focus on those aspects of Bush's leadership, as they have in assessing other Presidents. If presidential management is to be considered retrospectively by historians, there is no reason to exclude it from our attempts to look at Bush now.
Please take the time to look at an excellent, although somewhat dated, article from 2003 by David Gergen, who served in the Nixon, Reagan, and first Bush administrations. See "Leadership in the Bush White House" posted on a Harvard Business School website at http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item.jhtml?id=3745&;t=leadership
Gergen begins by noting that Bush hung a painting of Charles Wesley in his office while he was governor, then sent a memorandum to his staff, saying: 'When you come into my office, please take a look at the beautiful painting of a horseman determinedly charging up what appears to be a steep and rough trail. This is us. What adds complete life to he painting for me is the message of Charles Wesley that we serve One greater than ourselves." Bush's personal identification with the painting, which now hangs inthe Oval Office, reveals a good deal about his sense of himself as a political leader. Gergen looks initially at Bush's faith, then goes on to assess his style of management.
Gergen writes that Bush's handling of Iraq reflects a style he has used throughout his professional life, "Once he sets a course, he may try his hand at public persuasion. But if people don'tswing behind him, he plunges ahead anyway, trusting that they will catch up later." As to how he arrives at his decisions, Gergen notes, "Bush is a top-down, no-nonsense, decisive, macho leader who sets his eye on the far horizon and doesn't "go wobbly" getting there. He is crisp and can be confrontational, expecting others to follow or get out of the way.He is a big-picture fellow who learned in business school and in Austin to focus on only two or three goals at a time and pursue them fiercely,seeing other issues as distractions." Gergen compares Bush to FDR, Jack Welch, and Bobby Knight.
However, as he points out, Bush's style is out of date and has been abandoned by many CEOs. "The command-and-control approach was still in vogue for CEOs when Bush studied at the Harvard Business School in the mid-1970s, and there is little doubt that as the first MBA president, he reflects his training. But in much of leadership studies today, that style is distinctly retro. The consensus in the field now holds that the person at the top should engage in consensual, collaborative leadership. Don't issue orders or fiats, but persuade and gently bring others around to your point of view. Since no one has a monopoly on wisdom—indeed, reality itself may be socially constructed by the most powerful in society—a public leader, more than leaders in any other arenas, should seek multiple perspectives, inviting voices of dissent. Let wisdom rise to the top instead of sending orders down. Deliberate, negotiate, collaborate, and then collaborate some more. Perhaps this is a caricature, but if you thumb through the pages of the many new books on leadership, you will find those precepts. Indeed, I have taught them myself. But with a nonchalant wave of the hand, Bush goes his own way.He's very much his own man."
Again, please read the entire Gergen piece on the HBS site if you have time and the intellectual curiousity. Surprisingly for "an old Washington hand," Gergen is a thoughtful, reflective person who also has written a valuable memoir which describes what works and what doesn't in the White House.
Jonathan Dresner -
10/7/2004
Well, it's nice to know I'm appreciated, even if I'm unappreciated....
Sorry, Mr. Morgan, but your repetition of Bush's cv would be much more convincing if I'd ever heard anyone say that he did a good job at any of them, or brought something to them besides prodigious people skills. That's fine, as far as it goes, but the president needs more. And whatever it is you mean by judgement, I don't entirely understand, but I don't see enough wisdom or intelligence or character in George W. Bush for me to consider him John Kerry's superior.
Richard Henry Morgan -
10/7/2004
Derek, you write that these are matters of judgment, not intelligence, and that this countervails my "increasingly untenable first post". I find that curious inasmuch as in that very post (yeah, the "increasingly untenable first post") I wrote that Kerry ain't smart, he's intelligent, and the fact that he ain't smart is precisely because he lacks judgment.
You, like Teresa Heinz Kerry, don't seem to appreciate the distinction between warlords and terrorists. Warlords predated the entrenchment of al Qaeda terrorists, and some will continue to be outside the polity long after terrorists there have been reduced to near nothingness. She, on the other hand, goes one further, and identifies war lords with the Taliban (but then, she's a twit).
On the other hand, I really enjoy it when you (quite objectively of course) assure me that you are inevitably better informed on every topic under the sun, and that I am, invariably, stupid or dishonest. Don't stop being you.
Derek Charles Catsam -
10/6/2004
Richard --
Please try not to confirm my concerns about who in fact is stupid here. At no point have I argued for sanctions in Iraq, and indeed rather publicly I have argued against them. But once again, and I'll try to use small words, disagreements on policy are not matters of intellectual ability. My mentioning of Cuba is simply to point out that useless sanctions are not the domain of one political side or the other, and my mention of South Africa is to indicate that sanctions can and have worked in cases where conservatives opposed their use.
Richard, I dare say I am as well read on the War on Terror as you are with the added bonus of being more generally correct. But if you are pointing to Afghanistan as a success, you are the one who needs to go beyond talking points. i would say that there is a long way to go in Afghanistan, that there were some solid gains especially in the first year, but that many of those gains have been lost, that warlords are if anything more powerful now than they were a year ago, and that we are a long way from victory.
My silence on issues I do not find especially compelling is not necessarily a sign of my concession that you are right (I note there are plenty of things I addressed to which you did not respond. Let's get away from first-time-HNN user idiocies and understand that in the give and take of comment posts none of us are fetishists for completism, shall we?) . Your own interpretations certainly are hardly airtight. We can go into depth about inanely irrelevant military issues from the 1980s if we'd like -- the GOP does not exactly come across as strong on the question of terrorism that is on the table, to be sure, and in any case, what were George W. Bush's views on these issues at the same time? It seems that while it is fine for you to make this a matter of you versus John Kerry, the race we have now is Bush v. Kerry, and so it would seem that Bush's views in the 1980s to today are a lot more germane than your intellectually sloppy and/or dishonest aspersions on Kerry's intelligence.
Again, these ARE matters of judgment, not intelligence, which is what I asserted from the getgo, and which directly countervails your increasingly untenable first post. I will take this about face as a concession. You were wrong then. You are somewhat less wrong now. Huzzah.
dc
Richard Henry Morgan -
10/6/2004
Your point being that unsuccessful sanctions in Cuba are a warrant for successful sanctions in Iraq? Too funny. Read up on Afghanistan (or at least more widely than DNC talking points) before saying the War on Terror has failed on al fronts. I specifically said he has intelligence, not judgment, and asked for a defense of his judgment that sanctions would suffice to rid Kuwait of Iraq. Your silence on that tells me what to think. His judgment that Nicaragua was another Vietnam? His judgment that military rearmament wouldn't bring the Soviet Union to heel? Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. From a St Paul's graduate, and class speaker at Yale. Judgment, not intelligence.
Richard Henry Morgan -
10/6/2004
I actually agreed with your main point, just rejected (and continue to reject) your subsidiary presuppositions. The idea that running a Senate office compares with two terms as governor (granted, Texas has a relatively weak executive) in terms of executive experience (particularly executive experience most relevant to the office of President) seems a rather weak argument though, granted, before that Bush led a dissipated life characterized by special privilege.
But on second thought, even that goes to far. I would submit that being a managing partner of a professional baseball team involves more executive responsibility and decison-making than running a Senate office. And certainly, Bush had no more foreign policy experience than Kerry, though Kerry's stands in that area (as opposed to executive experience, of which he had none) seems to have consisted in an unbroken record of getting things wrong: he opposed the Reagan military buildup as incapable of bringing the Soviet Union to its knees; he opposed action in Nicaragua, seeing it as another Vietnam, even going so far as to say he already saw a long line of body bags returning to the US (an example of putting that massive 3 1/2 months of combat experience to good analytic use); and he opposed the first Gulf War, insisting that sanctions could do the job of removing Saddam.
I agree about plans, too. And I don't think the Albright-Zinni slogan of "the path to Middle East peace passes through Jerusalem" passes muster as a plan, though it certainly qualifies as a good catch phrase. Perhaps now that Albright is no longer splitting hairs between 'genocide' and 'individual acts of genocide', while a million people die, she'll have the leisure time to put flesh on her slogan. There was a "process", but I didn't see anything even roughly approximating a plan.
On the Bush record, you're not far off. At best it is mediocre. The economy is slowly improving, though at the cost of an enormous deficit. Afghanistan, by all accounts, is much improved, despite the expert foreign policy pronouncements of heiress Theresa Heinz Kerry, who thinks the Taliban are running the country -- who writes her material? Terry McAuliffe? Iraq is a mixed bag. Improvements in infrastructure, education, medecine, etc., are all imperilled by the worsening security matters in some (many?) parts of the country. There, in particular, is the potential for things to get worse steadily. I ask where else?
The point you made that positive change is not rapid, nor can it all be planned out in advance, seems so correct it hardly needed my approbation.
Derek Charles Catsam -
10/6/2004
As opposed to the administration that supports the oh-so-successful sanctions in Cuba? The neo-Cons who meanwhile opposed what proved to be successful sanctions in South Africa? the administration that has failed on almost every front in Iraq and the "War on Terror"? Judgments with which you disagree have nothing to do with intelligence. Conflating the two certainly shows that someone is not that bright. But it is not the Senator.
dc
Jonathan Dresner -
10/6/2004
You can, you just can't expect the author to be thrilled when those tangential offshoots vastly outnumber directly relevant responses.
Maarja Krusten -
10/6/2004
Sorry, I "missed" the part in the "rules" which told us we cannot take a thread in a blog and look at it from an angle different from the author. Obviously I am new to blogdom and unfamiliar w/ do's and don'ts.
Jonathan Dresner -
10/6/2004
Kerry as senator does have executive experience: running a senatorial office (and a political campaign, which is a multi-year project). Is it on a par with being shuttled from sinecure to sinecure while rich friends bail out commercial failures and political machines make your decisions? Hmmm...
Kerry is far more qualified for the position of president than George Bush was four years ago. If you set a higher bar than that, you are a hypocrite. Bush's 'experience' over the last four years proves very little to those of us who don't think he's accomplished much of anything positive.
The whole point of my post, since you obviously don't get it or don't care, was that you can't plan some of these things. Anyone who says they have a plan for Mideast peace is just floating ideas: you need a process, not an abstraction. Anyone who says they have a plan for the economy either needs to be talking about education and property law, or they are just tinkering with macroeconomics (and likely creating more trouble for all of us down the road).
Jonathan Dresner -
10/6/2004
I thought my post was about the uncertainties inherent in the position of the presidency. Historical issues, not so much political ones. Apparently, I was wrong, though, as you and Mr. Morgan have made abundantly clear.
Posted on personal time at conclusion of lunch break.
Ralph E. Luker -
10/6/2004
Employment in or by the government is not the only job-related cause of hesitation to post on the net. I'm not at liberty to discuss that further. But why would you expect discussions at History News Network to explore management science, except as incidental to the concerns of readers here?
Maarja Krusten -
10/6/2004
You refer to my supposed cosmopolitanism. Not sure where that comes from. As to insular, I use the term as defined in Webster's this way, "having a restricted or isolated range or habitat," with an emphasis on restricted.
I asked previously on HNN how many people posting here currently are employed by the federal government as permanent employees. I got no affirmative answers, or answers of any kind. No one else posts on HNN by referring to being in a current governmental position. There may be lurkers who feel unable to speak up. If so, their silence provides some clues as to what it is like to work in Washington these days. So, to the extent HNN posters seem to overwhelmingly work outside the federal government, and are thereby "restricted" in their "habitat," the term insular does apply.
You all certainly are welcome to post on governmental issues. But, I am puzzled by your lack of interest in engaging with someone who actually has spent 31 years as an observer of government during Democratic and Republican administrations and who is taking somewhat of a risk in speaking out. I would be handicapped in trying to comment on controversial matters in an academic environment. I probably would preface any of my postings with a qualifier, such as "I've never experienced this, but, for what it is worth, here's how it looks to an outsider, blah blah blah." I would pepper you all with questions that would enable me better to understand the challenges you face in your workplaces. For example, I would ask whether your offices have gone through the managerial fads we have seen in government (TQM, Sigma Six, etc.) and whether dissenters are dismissed as "outliers," etc.
I noted above, "Try transposing your posts here on Cliopatria and elsewhere on HNN into your work environment. What if the people discussed in HNN's blogs and articles were corporate officials at or associated with the top of your reporting chains? How would you be handling tough questions about their actions?" No responses thus far.
I've often thrown out comments which point to analogies between what you must occasionally face on the job and what we Feds face. I would love to hear how you all survive and successfully handle bosses who demand message discipline and who rule by shooting the messnger (I faced those challneges in a prior job at another agency). Feds also would welcome realistic advice on how to tell a top-down manager he is on the wrong path. How do you break through an echo chamber effect without risking being fired? Surely, given Robert Novak's columns about dissension within the CIA and DOD, such questions have pertinence to what we are discussing on HNN.
Perhaps I am handicapped in not being an ideologue. I focus more on leadership and management than on ideological purity on public policy issues. (I see many public policy challenges as so difficult, I think politicians of both parties find themselves with less wiggle room than they imply they have during campaigns. Mr. Dresner touched in his blog entry on some of the uncontrollables, such as the economy, etc.)
In addition to being trained as an historian, I am interested in management science, communication issues, etc. as reflected in books such as David Oesterreich's _Driving Fear Out of the Workplace_. Perhaps planning for the Iraq war would have been handled better if there had been less focus on ideology and less "fear in the workplace." If you find it hard to relate to what I am talking about in the workplace, well, just consider yourselves lucky in your greater autonomy and freedom of speech!
If my attempts to broaden discussion of the "first MBA President" beyond history to include management science are out of place here, I certainly do apologize. If you HNNers want to stick to the straight and narrow of historical analogy, as the quiet thud of the tennis balls I lob indicates (few return vollies), please do speak up and I will do my best to comply.
Posted on personal time during break.
Richard Henry Morgan -
10/6/2004
I think the analogy to Kennedy is actually quite good. And Kennedy was in trouble, politically, before he was martyred and criticism of him became beyond the pale. Certainly the Bay of Pigs was a foreign policy disaster, as was the Berlin Wall crisis. Credit LBJ with major legislative success, but he had been a Senate leader. And the disanalogy between Kerry and JFK holds on one level strikingly -- Kerry has the sparkling charismatic personality of Warren Christopher on quaaludes.
Ralph E. Luker -
10/6/2004
Your comment, itself, strikes me as unusual. No one here can somehow change the fact that you work for the federal government or mitigate whatever constraints that may have for what you can say. You comment fairly voluminously on HNN and, if I may say so, no one has made you feel unwelcome. Moreover, what percentage of a newspaper or periodical's audience sends letters to the editor? And, if I may ask without making you feel unwelcome, what cosmopolitanism enables you to find those who comment at HNN insular? Surely your own comments here help to mitigate the insularity.
Maarja Krusten -
10/6/2004
I've mentioned time and again that I am an official in the federal government. As such, there are some constraints on what I can say here on HNN. Moreover, my position affects the way I post. I often use indirection, citing comments from other sources rather than pounding my way directly through issues and telling you what I think myself. This often means I have to post fragmentary bits and pieces of information and to let you draw conclusions from them. Yes, it takes longer for me to make some of my points. And you have more to read through. But you all supposedly are trained in or interested in history so that should not be hard to do.
I don't know how many of you specialize in biography as a branch of history. Not many, I would guess from your postings. Anyone who does should have developed skills that enable him to figure out why people speak and act as they do.
Finally, to those of us in government, many historians come across as comfortable armchair analysts. They are quick to quibble but not always on the mark with digging out root causes or offering useful solutions or insights. Do you doubt that? Try transposing your posts here on Cliopatria and elsewhere on HNN into your work environment. What if the people discussed in HNN's blogs and articles were corporate officials at or associated with the top of your reporting chains? How would you be handling tough questions about their actions? Would you be able to respond candidly and directly to provide all the "contextual sophistication" outsiders need to discuss the issues more realistically? I suspect the tenor of your postings would be quite different!
Generally, as I noted last month, the HNN community seems awfully small and insular in terms of work background, gender, etc. If any of you have insights into why so few people currently employed with the government post here, I would be interested in hearing them. Have they tried but been made to feel unwelcome and just given up? Or do you think they fear retribution by their government bosses? Why so few voices and why the sense of insularity here on HNN?
Richard Henry Morgan -
10/6/2004
Well, Jon, to meet your challenge, I offer the following.
You assert, without argument or evidence, that Kerry is right to think he has the experience to do the job. Could you please elaborate? Has Kerry held an ambassadorship? No. A cabinet position? No. Has he held a governorship? No. Has he even held a position of business leadership? No. In fact, Kerry hasn't exercised executive authority since, roughly, he was a Ltjg more than 30 years ago. Just what does this posited experience consist in, that you have such confidence in asserting it?
You assert Kerry has plans. Does Kerry have a plan in the Middle East? And if so, is there any prospect that it will work, even given the slow capability for change within the system?
You assert that the alternative to things getting worse steadily, is not things getting better quickly. Granted. We agree on the narrow ground that things won't get better quickly if Kerry is elected. Could you elaborate on the presupposition that things will (might?) get worse steadily under Bush? That seems a distinct possiblity in Iraq. I assume, if only for the sake of argument, that Iraq is not coincident with the universe. Is the economy destined to worsen steadily? Employment? Domestic security? And any other number of topic?
Oscar Chamberlain -
10/6/2004
Richard, you asked,
"One question about Carter. Were you President, and an embassy full of Americans taken hostage, as a matter of strategic bargaining, would your first response to the crisis be to announce that your first and only priority was to return the hostages safely?"
Answer, No I would not have done that. I disagreed at the time, and it was one reason that I voted for a third party in 1980.
Having said that, if beginning a crisis with that mistake is worth tossing someone out, what should you do with a president who, after nearly a year and a half in war, has never put in enough troops (nor the right kind of troops)to even protect our Iraqi supporters in the Sunni region.
If you say , "keep him," I'll take you up on that poker game.
Oscar
PS I can forgive (in the poitical sense) Bush the choice of Iraq. I cannot forgive him the way he has run it.
Maarja Krusten -
10/6/2004
A throughline in many of my postings is whether or not Bush operates in an echo chamber and how that is reflected in his remarks. Your blog entry centered on one of his remarks. The poster from Britain whom I cited above indicates correctly that Blair faces direct challenges to his policies in a way in which Bush and U.S. Presidents do not. Many presidential appearances in the U.S. occur in much more controlled environments, that particularly has been the case during the Bush administration. Had Bush held more press conferences and faced audiences with a mixed rather than a friendly composition, he probably would have _known_ or have _learned_ to show less irritation and to avoid the groan-inducing "hard work" line during the first debate. Since you focused your blog entry on the "hard luck" line, I wouldn't look for it to be repeated in the next debate. Tada, there you go.
Maarja Krusten -
10/6/2004
Which I thought was debates and how the President handles them, no? Perhaps I posted the contrast to Blair under the wrong blog article, if so sorry.
Jonathan Dresner -
10/6/2004
Well, this is nice, but pretty irrelevant to the subjects at hand, I think.
Here's a counterfactual, almost as implausible as the one you posit: a blog post by a confirmed partisan trying to reach across the aisle and give credit where it is due is met with relevant responses and coherence.
I really do waste my time here.
Ralph E. Luker -
10/6/2004
It is, as you note, counter-factual, beginning with the removal of the sanctions. As long as we're doing counter-factuals, why not imagine a healthy, vibrant Soviet Union striking alliances against the West with Ossama bin Laden's vision of a united Islamic state from Morocco to Indonesia.
Richard Henry Morgan -
10/6/2004
Try, if only as an intellectual exercise, contemplating the likely course of future events in a counterfactual context. Imagine an Iraq, with Saddam still in power, sanctions lifted, his terrorist buddies like Abu Abbas (or others) and company still safely in place in Baghdad, and Iraq moving toward WMD delivery capability. Add Syria, with its Hamas connections, moving in a similar direction. And add Iran and Hezbollah, and their march to nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them.
Consider that they have no stake in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian dispute since whatever legitimacy those dictatorial regimes enjoy stems largely from an anti-Israeli animus and policy. And add Israel with 60 to 100 nuclear weapons. What exactly do you think would be the likely effect of kicking the can down the road and hoping for the best? Is hoping for the best a responsible policy? If not, what alternatives do you think would likely produce a better outcome? Is there anything in the history of the Middle East to suggest that kicking the can down the road will likely produce anything but disaster? Rose-colored glasses are optional.
Maarja Krusten -
10/6/2004
I have located the passage about Bush's temper and the debate coaching, which I referred to above. Here it is:
"The Washington Post, October 1, 2004
"Kerry vs. the Format, Bush vs. His Temper"
"President Bush has thrown Sen. John F. Kerry's words back on him during nearly every speech of the campaign, but he rocked back in irritation during the first presidential debate Thursday night when the Massachusetts senator did the same thing to him.
Bush's aides knew that his temper was a potential vulnerability, and his debate coaching sessions included practice in not getting rattled. But the camera shutters started snapping as the president shot a look into the University of Miami Convocation Center when Kerry seized on Bush's refrain that "the enemy hit us" and to point out that was not Saddam Hussein."
Richard Henry Morgan -
10/5/2004
One question about Carter. Were you President, and an embassy full of Americans taken hostage, as a matter of strategic bargaining, would your first response to the crisis be to announce that your first and only priority was to return the hostages safely? Just wondering. And if your answer is yes, can I interest you in a game of no limit poker?
Maarja Krusten -
10/5/2004
Richard, you write, "With Bush you may get a bad decison (I, obviously in the minority here, think the jury is still out on Iraq). With Kerry you will get a string of bad indecision." What if instead of getting "a bad decision," you get a string of bad decisions in the future? Bush could have eased some of the questions about the quality of his decisions by signalling that he understood some of the concerns about bad data or flawed analysis, cherry picking, etc. There was speculation at one point that he would ease out some people in his administration before the election. He has not. As many observers have noted, he seems served as "leak enforcer" during his father's Presidency and greatly values loyalty as a quality.
I've read that although Bush's aides were accustomed to seeing his anger and irritation, he had been cautioned not to show those qualities during the debate. That he could not conceal his annoyance does little to ally concerns that he operates in an echo chamber.
As to campaigns, the incumbent always has a record to run on and often feels compelled to stand fast. The challenger has more leeway to slice and dice issues any number of ways. How often does a President govern the way he indicated he would when he ran for office? Bush certainly turned out to be a different President than I had thought he would be by listening to him campaign in 2000. And no, I'm not talking about the 9/11 factor which "changed everything."
As to pandering, Presidential candidates are competing for a job. In a sense, the voters are their bosses, capable of hiring them on to do a job and also of firing them. I smile to myself when I hear voters complain about pandering during campaigns. How many voters can say truthfully that they never pander on the job, that they always speak straight with the man who has the power to fire them, etc? Most people would admit that they have had to twist and turn a bit in order to survive during their careers, although they try to hew to the straight and narrow when they can.
Many management books actually talk about how to survive on the job by managing up. I haven't read them, and have been able to get away without applying too many of the principles, but consider two recent management books:
You're right however that Kerry is a bit like John F. Kennedy, who also did not have many years of executive experience. Some HNNers think JFK was a pretty good president, others not. So, whether they vote for Bush or Kerry, voters really are being asked to take a leap of faith.
Oscar Chamberlain -
10/5/2004
Richard,
I apreciate your fear of indecision. It can be a deep flaw. Whether intimations of indecision are worse than clear evidence of mismanagement (though, as you say, you still think we might pull something good of Iraq) is a matter of individual choice.
Certainly Kerry has not given clear alternatives. I am not fully satisfied with his response. However, that is to some extent a problem with our system. It is hard to predict in September what you should do in January in a situation like this, and greater specificity can be a trap.
PS. I do think that you low-rate Carter a bit; he faced set of problems that might have gotten anybody sent to the showers.
Richard Henry Morgan -
10/5/2004
Tahnks again, Derek, for the charitable reading of my post. I did say he has intelligence, but without judgment, which doesn't make him smart. Perhaps you wish to make the argument for Kerry that sanctions on Iraq would have removed them from Kuwait? Until you do, I'll stick to my view that in matters of judgment, particularly when it comes to foreign policy, Kerry is an idiot.
Leo Edward Casey -
10/5/2004
Kerry is, to my mind, a classic example of the intelligent rationalizer who ends up making stupid decisions. I think it a particular brand of idiocy to think that continued ill-executed sanctions, against a dictatorial power in possession of a natural resource much of the world needed, would work (after a decade of failure?)...
Oh, yeah, it takes a "real idiot" not to realize that a decade of sanctions designed to eliminate all WMDs from Saddam's hands were a "failure." Let's keep the "real brains" in charge, who know that the sanctions were failures no matter what evidence might contradict that little hypothesis.
Derek Charles Catsam -
10/5/2004
I would say that averring that Kerry is not bright enough to do the job might be the stupidest thing ever said on HNN. Congratulations, Richard.
dc
Richard Henry Morgan -
10/5/2004
What precisely is there about Kerry's history that shows he can learn, or has learned? Just wondering. Kerry has said that Bush misled the country on WMD, and then out of the other corner of his mouth has said we might yet find WMD in Iraq. Squaring the circle would seem an easier task than reconciling those two assertions, but then I don't have the New York Times' command of nuance.
I also don't think he has "the experience". The guy hasn't exercised executive authority in over 30 years.
I have a rule of thumb. I don't vote for anybody who has been running for President since the age of ten for, invariably, the only thing they stand for is their own ambition.
Your point on Bush is dead on. Others are paying for his ambitious gamble that he could change the dynamics throughout the Middle East by changing Iraq. Fine. Now what are the risks of doing nothing, and simply letting sanctions continue, or even dispensing with them? There is a pernicious myth, endorsed by Clinton, and it looks also by Kerry -- that there are no risks in doing nothing. So while Clinton was vetoing military plans to take out al Qaeda, between poaching hummers from interns, al Qaeda grew bigger and stronger, and developed their plans. So much for the theory that doing nothing -- and let's be clear, that has been Kerry's pattern in foreign policy (that is when he isn't endorsing the Israeli wall on Monday, and condemning it on Wednesday) -- is a risk-free proposition.
Remind me one more time. What exactly has Kerry accomplished during his tenure in Congress? He says he likes hard work, and yet missed over three quarters of Senate Intelligence Committee hearings. Where was he? Setting up an election committee, or snowboarding in Aspen on his wife's dime?
I think Bush is the very definition of mediocrity, but in Kerry I see another Carter, and Carter ranks in my book as one of the worst presidents this country has produced. With Bush you may get a bad decison (I, obviously in the minority here, think the jury is still out on Iraq). With Kerry you will get a string of bad indecision. But don't worry, the blame won't be laid at his feet.
Oscar Chamberlain -
10/5/2004
"And maybe Bush bit off more than he could chew in Iraq"
That wouldn't be so bad if it were Bush's teeth that were in peril. People are dying in that phrase. I don't say this to suggest that you don't care for the dying, simply as a reminder that bad presidential decision in peace and war have really bad conequences.
Also, concerning character, part of presidential character is being able to learn and change in response to experience. Kerry's career suggests that he can learn. What has Bush done since the invasion of Iraq to suggest that he can learn when his ego is on the line?
Richard Henry Morgan -
10/5/2004
Actually, I don't think Kerry is smart enough to do the job. When I was in MI we were taught to seek out officers first for interrogation, not just because they knew more, but because with their higher intelligence they were better at rationalizing the revealing of intelligence info.
Kerry is, to my mind, a classic example of the intelligent rationalizer who ends up making stupid decisions. I think it a particular brand of idiocy to think that continued ill-executed sanctions, against a dictatorial power in possession of a natural resource much of the world needed, would work (after a decade of failure?).
Nor is it clear to me how France, for instance, could be brought on board, as Kerry seems to think. France actually championed, in the Security Council, lifting sanctions on Iraq in exchange for the mere return of inspectors. And the French Foreign Minister sandbagged Powell, pledging to vote for a second resolution if Saddam didn't come to heel, only to vote against a second resolution. So much for the global test.
I could go on (Nicaragua, for instance) but to me Kerry is intelligent enough to believe a half dozen impossible things by breakfast. Intelligence ain't the issue, it's judgment. And maybe Bush bit off more than he could chew in Iraq, or at least hasn't conducted the campaign all that well, or even had the brights to lay out an exit strategy -- like give the Iraqi government enough time to tool up a military, and then split. But at least he stands for something, and overall I don't see that even with his mixed bag in Iraq, his judgment is any worse than Kerry's. And unlike Kerry, he didn't tell an Arab audience (in reference to the Israeli security barrier) that we didn't need more barriers to peace, only to turn around and tell a Jewish audience that he supported the wall. Give credit where credit is due -- Kerry is never completely wrong on any issue inasmuch as he's always on both sides.
Maarja Krusten -
10/5/2004
I agree that no President can predict and plan for all the challenges he will meet. All the more reason to surround himself with good, well-qualified advisors and officials. Less clear is whether Bush's comments about "hard work" referred to the pace of the job or the difficulty of it, or both.
[BEGIN WASH. POST QUOTE] "The insinuation by the Democratic nominee is subtle but unmistakable: George W. Bush, the president of the United States, is lazy. Outside Youngstown, Ohio, on Sunday, John F. Kerry mocked Bush for attesting in Thursday's presidential debate -- 22 times -- that his administration is engaged in "hard work." "I welcome hard work," Kerry said. "I like hard work. I think hard work is a good thing." [END QUOTE]
Satuday Night Live seized on the "hard work" line as well, using it to portray a Bush who has an aversion to work. The Bush impersenator complained, "Frankly, I don't know why my opponent wants this job, because it's hard!" When the moderator asked,"So your plan is to crush terrorism by coming in on Saturdays?" the faux Bush responded, "If that's what it takes."
William Saletan offered a different view in Slate, http://slate.msn.com/id/2107517/ last week, placing Bush's comments about hard work within the context of duty:
[BEGIN EXTRACT] "In tonight's debate, moderator Jim Lehrer asked Bush, "Has the war in Iraq been worth the cost of American lives—1,052 as of today?" Bush looked down. He recalled a woman whose husband had died in Iraq. "I told her after we prayed and teared up and laughed some that I thought her husband's sacrifice was noble and worthy," the president said. "Was it worth it? Every life is precious. That's what distinguishes us from the enemy. ... We can look back and say we did our duty."
That's how Bush judges the war's worth: not by costs and benefits, but by character. It shows our nobility. It shows we did our duty. He used the word "duty" seven times tonight. Kerry never used that word, except to refer to "active duty" troops. Eleven times, Bush called the mess in Iraq "hard work." To recognize error would be to abandon that work and shirk our duty. Again and again, he framed the acceptance of bad news as moral failure. Will. Resolute. Steadfast. Uncertainty. Weakness. Supporting our troops."
Saletan noted,
"Kerry offered a different way to judge the war's truth and worth: by the evidence. "I don't know if he sees what's really happened," Kerry said of Bush's Iraq spin. He worried that Bush was "not acknowledging what's on the ground. He's not acknowledging the realities of North Korea. He's not acknowledging the truth of the science of stem-cell research or of global warming and other issues."
Saletan concluded:
"But the greater shame belongs to the candidate who launched this war, refuses to admit his errors, and now holds the moral pride of his countrymen hostage, blackmailing them into shunning the truth. Tonight he scoffed, "If I were to ever say, 'This is the wrong war at the wrong time at the wrong place,' the troops would wonder, 'How can I follow this guy?' "Exactly, Mr. President. If you were ever to give them the correct assessment, they would ask the correct question." [END SLATE EXTRACT]
So, did the references to hard work point to laziness or to a sense of duty? Another interpretation would be that the job offers greater intellectual challenges--with fewer pat answers and easy solutions--than Bush anticipated.
However Bush meant it, it was startling to hear him mention "hard work" as often as he did. As noted in several press reports, members of several focus groups found it disconcerting. The Los Angeles Times noted on October 1, 2004 that among the members of voters watching in Pennsylvania, "On virtually all of the questions, the audience scored Kerry's responses higher than Bush's. The crowd seemed particularly impatient with Bush, groaning audibly when he repeated several times that the rebuilding of Iraq and rooting out of terrorism was "hard work."
