(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
by Frank James
What message should we take away from President-elect Barack Obama's choices for his national-security team?
One is that his presidency will be far different than the past eight years. By his choices, he's rebuking the presidential management style of President Bush who didn't really enjoy the to and fro of heated Washington policy disagreements.
Of course, Bush's approach was pretty much a rebuke of his predecessor Bill Clinton's college-seminar style of policy debate which was seen as undisciplined by the Bush people.
Today, Obama sent the message that he can handle disagreement and in fact welcomes it, so long as everyone knows at the end of the day, he's the guy who's running the place, who ultimately sets the direction.
At his press conference today, he said:
... I assembled this team because I'm a strong believer in strong personalities and strong opinions. I think that's how the best decisions are made. One of the dangers in a White House, based on my reading of history, is that you get wrapped up in groupthink and everybody agrees with everything and there's no discussion and there are no dissenting views. So I'm going to be welcoming a vigorous debate inside the White House.
But understand, I will be setting policy as president. I will be responsible for the vision that this team carries out, and I expect them to implement that vision once decisions are made.
That, of course, is in contrast to what is known of how disagreement and dissent were treated within the Bush White House where those who disagreed with the president's and Vice President Cheney's preferred views were often sent packing.
Think Lawrence Lindsey, who headed the Bush White House's National Economic Council until he estimated prior to the Iraq War that it would cost $200 billion. Think Secretary of State Colin Powell who clashed with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld over how the war was being managed. Since Rumsfeld's view was closer to Bush and Cheney's, Powell was cashiered.
Obama's was implying what so many Americans believe, that it was such behavior on the part of the Bush White House, this inability to listen to dissenting voices and even learn from them, that led to the invasion of Iraq and other serious policy mistakes in foreign and domestic affairs.
By choosing people like Clinton who forcefully disagreed with him during the campaign on negotiating with U.S. adversaries, Obama sends the message that he can take having his assumptions questioned by those who report to him, that he doesn't view being challenged as a sign of weakness.
Secondlly, it's no secret that there was little love lost between Obama and Clinton, or their staffs, during the primary season. The tension between the candidates was at times almost palpable.
In choosing Clinton, Obama shows that he doesn't hold a grudge, that he's focused on something bigger than his own feelings.
Selecting Clinton reinforces Obama's campaign message that he will be the sort of president who can take a markedly different approach with U.S. adversaries than Bush.
If he can do it with the Clintons (you get two for the price of one, remember) who as it was reported during the campaign, really worked his nerves at times, then it makes it more credible that he is at least capable of trying to create some bridges to the Iran and Venezuela.
Then there is the continued message of pragmatism underscored by his decision to keep Defense Secretary Robert Gates and to make Gen. James Jones his National Security Adviser.
Obama wants to make sure his administration represents a well-defined break with the current one which has too often been driven by ideology to its and the nation's detriment.
Both Gates and Jones are non-ideological, clear-eyed leaders with reputations for intellectual honesty. That Gates is a Bush appointee and Jones appeared with Sen. John McCain at a presidential campaign appearance is all the better in terms of sending the kind of signal Obama wants to send.
Of course, with Jones it probably didn't hurt his chances with Obama, the basketball-playing president-elect, that Jones is 6'4" and played forward for the Georgetown University Hoyas back in the 1960s.
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Comments
Should be interesting with some of his apointment, with their back and forth reputation-
Posted by: Inky | December 1, 2008 6:16 PM
"Journalism is publishing what someone doesn't want us to know, the rest is
propaganda." - Horacio Verbitsky
Posted by: donnet | December 1, 2008 6:33 PM
Finally, the Bush Republican terror is almost OVER!
Rich Republican folks are born made to wave the flag
Ooh, they're red, white and blue
And when the band plays "Hail to the Chief"
Oh, they point the cannon at you, Lord
It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no rich Republican's son
It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no fortunate one, no
Rich Republican folks are born silver spoon in hand
Lord, don't they help themselves, oh
But when the tax men come to the door
Lord, the house look a like a trickle down rummage sale, yes
It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no millionaire's Republican's son, no, no
It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no fortunate one, no
Yeah, some Republican folks inherit star spangled eyes
Ooh, they send you down to war, Lord
And when you ask them, "How much should we give?"
Oh, they only answer, more, more, more, yoh
It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no rich Republican's son
It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no fortunate one
It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no fortunate one, no, no, no
It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no fortunate Republican's son, no, no
.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vB2E1UjQaK8
.
Posted by: Palin fan | December 1, 2008 7:13 PM
I am not a supporter of Bush but I think that Obama because he is choosing a different management style is rebuking Bush's. Bush as he said did the best he could and it is the fault of the American people for not only electing an incompetent but reelecting him.
Bush had neither the curiosity, the intellectual background or the willingness to attend to detail that Obama has. He would have been lost in a situation where things are not defined in the clearest of terms as being either good or evil. That is why he feels he was true to his principles because there is only one choice in any situation. Once he sees that choice, he has no further need for information.
I am glad Obama is the way he is and I regret that Bush was a poor executive but I dispute that because Obama chooses another management style that he is rebuking Bush. This may only be a matter of semantics but I think this is piling on Bush.
Posted by: Ron M | December 1, 2008 7:21 PM
Nearly every facet of the main causes of the public's repudiation of Bush had to do with his adherence to the principles of movement conservatism, both in its governance:
.
*Foreign-policy debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan.
*A government that invades nations under false pretenses.
*A nation less secure and at greater risk of terrorist attacks than ever.
*A sinking economy.
*An expanding gap between rich and poor.
*Utter inaction on global warming.
*$5-a-gallon gasoline.
*An unresolved immigration problem.
*An incapacity to deal with natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina.
*A debacle in public-school education testing and funding.
*Declining food and consumer-product safety standards.
*A government that spies on its own citizens.
*A government that tortures prisoners held in their detention facilities.
.
And in its politics:
.
*The absurd impeachment of Bill Clinton in spite of the public's broad disapproval.
*The caricaturization of a future Nobel Peace Prize winner, Al Gore, in the course of foisting a Bush presidency upon an unsuspecting public.
*The relentless campaign to portray anyone dissenting from Bush's post-9/11 war plans as insufficiently patriotic and "soft on terrorism."
*The tireless recourse to a string of "Friedman units" in excusing the interminable extension of the Iraq war.
*The swift-boating of John Kerry.
*The Terri Schiavo fiasco.
*The Graham Frost fiasco.
*The ritual and ongoing demonization of Latinos as criminals, welfare bums, America-hating, job-stealing foreigners.
*The crude dog-whistle campaign run against Obama, depicting him as a terrorist-loving, America-hating, secret Muslim brown man.
*The deeply disturbing way that conservatives acted on this rhetoric: spewing hate, racism, and threatening violence.
In nearly every single one of these instances, movement conservatives pronounced their avid support because they reflected "conservative values" -- and indeed, in a number of them (such as the opposition to gay rights, or inaction on global warming, or the Schiavo matter) they were directly at the behest of movement conservatives, particularly the religious right. You know, Tony Perkins' people.
Mind you, not only does it not do any good to point this out to ideologues like Perkins (and nearly every other Republican in sight), at some point it only makes sense to let them wander off into the political wilderness for a few years. They have it coming.
Posted by: Drill, Baby, Drill | December 1, 2008 10:47 PM
You people are funny, you really think picking out of the dysfunctional will produce functionality?
Really?
By the way...
It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no rich Republican's son
It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no fortunate one, no
Was written of Democrats who measurably controlled the house and senate when the song when written in the 60s.
Posted by: Jack Moss | December 2, 2008 12:29 AM
There's no better way to lose a war than to have your on-the-ground decisions be forced through an ideological prism. And it was obvious even to outsiders that this was how Bush was conducting the Iraq war -- indeed, it was the decisive factor behind the very decision to invade in the first place. It's even more telling that the military minds involved saw that this was occurring too.
But in truth, this constitutes not merely the entire Bush approach to governance, but conservative governance as well. Thus -- to use one example out of many -- during Bush's tenure there was not a single economic problem that could not be solved by anything other than tax cuts for the wealthy and deregulation of the financial sector.
Of course, we now realize that this was simply a prescription for gobbling PCBs after a diagnosis of cancer.
So when we hear conservatives tell themselves that the reason they lost this last election was their failure to adhere to "conservative principles," we know they're continuing to cling to the very reason they lost. Because such adherence inherently means that these "principles" -- that is, conservative dogma about how they believe the world ought to be, particularly the insistence that government itself is the problem, when the reality is that bad governance is the problem -- trump their ability to face realities on the ground.
From the outset, it's clear that reversing that approach is the most fundamental aspect of the "change" that Barack Obama intends to bring to the White House. And that is a very good sign indeed.
Posted by: DrainYou | December 2, 2008 3:30 AM
I think that Bush leads only by what he thinks is right and not for the American people as a whole. I don't think he even leads for the Republican party, It is his own little world and he is the ruler of that world. They are his army men and if you don't want to play the way he wants, you are sent home.
Posted by: lochnessmonster | December 2, 2008 7:02 AM
I still can't believe Hillary is going to be Sec of State. What a shock. I'm a conservative, but I dare anyone to mess with HER ha ha ha.
Posted by: Teresa | December 2, 2008 7:17 AM
The Obama administration? You mean the Clinton II administration, don't you?
Posted by: Change You Can Believe In | December 2, 2008 9:08 AM
I’m baffled by people like Christopher Hitchens of Vanity Fair, who is bitterly opposed to the idea of Mrs. Clinton as secretary of state. My question is where was Mr. Hitchens when she almost got the nomination for the Democratic Party? Does Mr. Hitchens thinks it was ok for Mrs. Clinton to have become president of the United States, and not secretary of state?
I’m not in any case a Hillary Clinton backer, and in fact I think this is one Mr. Obama’s first mistake giving her such a prominent place in his government. Then again, I have to trust his judgement, I have to believe he’s a man of vision and he can see beyond my concerns. If I can think of the obvious reasons why Mrs. Clinton is not a good choice, I think he had already thought of them. He’s the president-elect, and I’m not. I strongly agree with those who say Mr. Clinton was a great president, but we have to agree also that both Mr. Clinton and his wife are rotten to the bones. Remember we have to give the presient-elect a chance to put fourth his vision for the country, and forget not we chose him, he's our president; we therefore have a moral duty to wish the best for his success. It goes even for those who didn't choose him, he's our president-elect, and soon to be our president.
Good luck to president-elect Obama, and good luck to us all.
Posted by: Paul H Ceneac | December 2, 2008 10:12 AM
Other than Bill Clinton's uncontrollable libido, his administration was well ran and effectively managed our government. (Unlike the current administration) It would only be a tunnel visioned conservative that would not want proven, effective people running their government.
Posted by: Batski B | December 2, 2008 10:29 AM
"President Bush who didn't really enjoy the to and fro of heated Washington policy disagreements."
In other words, Bush didn't give a flying fig about the actual "work" part of his job. Gosh! That was really hard to tell from how well his presidency worked out.
Posted by: slag | December 2, 2008 10:31 AM
I sincerely hope she does well.
However I do hope that this is
not the start up of "Pantsuit Diplomacy". Lose the pantsuits
and dress for the role you are
playing. That been our main
representative the world over.
I'm sure with all the money she
and Bill has that they could get
some help from a good designer.
Posted by: Paul | December 3, 2008 8:45 AM
One thing to think about, 3 of the last 4 Sec. of State people have been women. While dealing with the mid-east, who hate women, is giving the mid-eastern rulers a subtle message. That is join the 21st century.
Hopefully, HRC will be able to accomplish this, but time will tell.
Posted by: JC Hammer | December 3, 2008 9:20 AM