The saboteur lurking in the White House
The saboteur lurking in the White House
By Jacob Weisberg
Published: May 11 2006 03:00 | Last updated: May 11 2006 03:00. Copyright by The Financial Times
Recent personnel changes under Joshua Bolten, the new White House chief of staff, have already begun to follow a pattern. An anonymous official speaking for the US president indicates that the time has come for a senior head to roll - be it that of Scott McClellan (ushered out last week as White House press secretary), John Snow (still clinging to his job at the Treasury department) or - in the drama played out over the past days - Porter Goss at the Central Intelligence Agency. The unnamed senior administration official avers that we need someone competent and qualified in this important position, as if this novel idea had just occurred to George W. Bush and his advisers.
Perhaps the president is to be commended, even at this late stage, for attempting to place more capable people in positions of authority in his administration. But for a presidency that has already entered its graveyard spiral, this human resources initiative comes too late. Mr Bolten's belated focus on better leadership merely points up what a travesty Mr Bush's management style has been. Entirely aside from debates over his policy and spending choices, the first president with an MBA degree has proved inept as the federal government's chief executive.
In Mr Bush's sixth year, the US executive branch resembles a smouldering landscape after battle. The staffs of various agencies and departments have been routed by political interference, neglect and failed leadership. The CIA is a prime example of how Mr Bush has botched it. In spite of its failure to prevent the September 11 2001 attacks, the agency was populated by a corps of able spies and analysts, some of whom got the story about Saddam Hussein's absent weapons of mass destruction and links to al-Qaeda right before the Iraq invasion. After silencing and ignoring these professionals, Mr Bush sent a loyalist from Congress to purge the survivors. Mr Goss brought his own flunkies from Capitol Hill to help him squelch leaks and improve the agency's image. In just a year and a half, he nearly completed the work of demoralising the agency and driving out a generation of senior talent. Now the Bushies want to repair the damage, without owning up to their role in causing it.
This is not an isolated failure. New agencies that Mr Bush has launched, from an office of "faith-based" initiatives to the new Department of Homeland Security, have failed to find their footing, to put it charitably, primarily because Mr Bush has not structured them properly, found competent leadership or otherwise followed through on his plans. Anecdotal evidence points to declining morale and an exodus of top people from various departments. At some agencies, performance has deteriorated to such an extent that it will take decades to restore their capability.
Mr Bush is often charged with undermining federal workers by politicising what are supposed to be objective and analytic functions. He has done this at, among other places, the CIA, the Food and Drug Administration and the Nasa space agency, where a 24-year-old college dropout was until recently in a position to order senior officials to make references to the Big Bang compatible with the possibility of "intelligent design". Politics per se, however, is not the enemy of effective public sector management. Those presidents who have run the federal government most effectively - Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton - have balanced their policy wonks with capable hacks while cultivating youthful idealism. Politics, more than money, is what creates accountability and motivates performance in the executive branch. But for the government to work, the hacks have to be fundamentally competent.
Mr Bush's stated management model - appointing good people, delegating authority to them and holding them accountable for results - reflects what he picked up at Harvard Business School. His management practice, however, has not followed that model. Mr Bush tends to appoint mediocre people he trusts to be loyal, delegates hardly any decision-making authority to anyone beyond a few top aides and seldom holds anyone accountable. These failures are related. If you do not give people real authority, you cannot reasonably hold them responsible for results. What has grown up around the president as a result is not an effective political machine but a stultifying imperial court, a hackocracy dominated by sycophants, cronies and yes-men.
Under Mr Bush's actual management system, decision-making is concentrated in the White House, with cabinet secretaries and the heads of agencies functioning as figureheads and mouthpieces. That this disempowers and often humiliates top officials has not been lost on potential recruits, which is why Mr Bush has so far been unable to persuade a top Wall Street executive to replace Mr Snow as Treasury secretary.
Both liberals and conservatives sometimes profess surprise that Mr Bush, who spits out the term "bureaucrat" with as much scorn as Ronald Reagan or Newt Gingrich ever did, has increased government spending as a share of the US economy faster than any president since Roosevelt. In fact, Mr Bush has chosen what may be a far more effective strategy for fighting big government. Frontal attacks of the past have failed, but Mr Bush's sabotage seems to be hitting its mark.
The writer is editor of Slate.com
By Jacob Weisberg
Published: May 11 2006 03:00 | Last updated: May 11 2006 03:00. Copyright by The Financial Times
Recent personnel changes under Joshua Bolten, the new White House chief of staff, have already begun to follow a pattern. An anonymous official speaking for the US president indicates that the time has come for a senior head to roll - be it that of Scott McClellan (ushered out last week as White House press secretary), John Snow (still clinging to his job at the Treasury department) or - in the drama played out over the past days - Porter Goss at the Central Intelligence Agency. The unnamed senior administration official avers that we need someone competent and qualified in this important position, as if this novel idea had just occurred to George W. Bush and his advisers.
Perhaps the president is to be commended, even at this late stage, for attempting to place more capable people in positions of authority in his administration. But for a presidency that has already entered its graveyard spiral, this human resources initiative comes too late. Mr Bolten's belated focus on better leadership merely points up what a travesty Mr Bush's management style has been. Entirely aside from debates over his policy and spending choices, the first president with an MBA degree has proved inept as the federal government's chief executive.
In Mr Bush's sixth year, the US executive branch resembles a smouldering landscape after battle. The staffs of various agencies and departments have been routed by political interference, neglect and failed leadership. The CIA is a prime example of how Mr Bush has botched it. In spite of its failure to prevent the September 11 2001 attacks, the agency was populated by a corps of able spies and analysts, some of whom got the story about Saddam Hussein's absent weapons of mass destruction and links to al-Qaeda right before the Iraq invasion. After silencing and ignoring these professionals, Mr Bush sent a loyalist from Congress to purge the survivors. Mr Goss brought his own flunkies from Capitol Hill to help him squelch leaks and improve the agency's image. In just a year and a half, he nearly completed the work of demoralising the agency and driving out a generation of senior talent. Now the Bushies want to repair the damage, without owning up to their role in causing it.
This is not an isolated failure. New agencies that Mr Bush has launched, from an office of "faith-based" initiatives to the new Department of Homeland Security, have failed to find their footing, to put it charitably, primarily because Mr Bush has not structured them properly, found competent leadership or otherwise followed through on his plans. Anecdotal evidence points to declining morale and an exodus of top people from various departments. At some agencies, performance has deteriorated to such an extent that it will take decades to restore their capability.
Mr Bush is often charged with undermining federal workers by politicising what are supposed to be objective and analytic functions. He has done this at, among other places, the CIA, the Food and Drug Administration and the Nasa space agency, where a 24-year-old college dropout was until recently in a position to order senior officials to make references to the Big Bang compatible with the possibility of "intelligent design". Politics per se, however, is not the enemy of effective public sector management. Those presidents who have run the federal government most effectively - Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton - have balanced their policy wonks with capable hacks while cultivating youthful idealism. Politics, more than money, is what creates accountability and motivates performance in the executive branch. But for the government to work, the hacks have to be fundamentally competent.
Mr Bush's stated management model - appointing good people, delegating authority to them and holding them accountable for results - reflects what he picked up at Harvard Business School. His management practice, however, has not followed that model. Mr Bush tends to appoint mediocre people he trusts to be loyal, delegates hardly any decision-making authority to anyone beyond a few top aides and seldom holds anyone accountable. These failures are related. If you do not give people real authority, you cannot reasonably hold them responsible for results. What has grown up around the president as a result is not an effective political machine but a stultifying imperial court, a hackocracy dominated by sycophants, cronies and yes-men.
Under Mr Bush's actual management system, decision-making is concentrated in the White House, with cabinet secretaries and the heads of agencies functioning as figureheads and mouthpieces. That this disempowers and often humiliates top officials has not been lost on potential recruits, which is why Mr Bush has so far been unable to persuade a top Wall Street executive to replace Mr Snow as Treasury secretary.
Both liberals and conservatives sometimes profess surprise that Mr Bush, who spits out the term "bureaucrat" with as much scorn as Ronald Reagan or Newt Gingrich ever did, has increased government spending as a share of the US economy faster than any president since Roosevelt. In fact, Mr Bush has chosen what may be a far more effective strategy for fighting big government. Frontal attacks of the past have failed, but Mr Bush's sabotage seems to be hitting its mark.
The writer is editor of Slate.com
posted by Carlos T Mock at 3:04 PM
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