- President George W. Bush's presidency
is a disaster - one that's still unfolding. In a mid-2004 column, I argued
that, at that point, Bush had already demonstrated that he possessed the
least attractive and most troubling traits among those that political scientist
James Dave Barber has cataloged in his study of Presidents' personality
types.
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- Now, in early 2006, Bush has continued
to sink lower in his public approval ratings, as the result of a series
of events that have sapped the public of confidence in its President, and
for which he is directly responsible. This Administration goes through
scandals like a compulsive eater does candy bars; the wrapper is barely
off one before we've moved on to another.
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- Currently, President Bush is busy reshuffling
his staff to reinvigorate his presidency. But if Dr. Barber's work holds
true for this president -- as it has for others - the hiring and firing
of subordinates will not touch the core problems that have plagued Bush's
tenure.
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- That is because the problems belong to
the President - not his staff. And they are problems that go to character,
not to strategy.
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- Barber's Analysis of Presidential Character
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- As I discussed in my prior column, Barber,
after analyzing all the presidents through Bush's father, George H. W.
Bush, found repeating patterns of common elements relating to character,
worldview, style, approach to dealing with power, and expectations. Based
on these findings, Barber concluded that presidents fell into clusters
of characteristics.
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- He also found in this data Presidential
work patterns which he described as "active" or "passive."
For example, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson were highly active; Calvin
Coolidge and Ronald Reagan were highly passive.
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- Barber further analyzed the emotional
relationship of presidents toward their work - dividing them into presidents
who found their work an emotionally satisfying experience, and thus "positive,"
and those who found the job emotionally taxing, and thus "negative."
Franklin Roosevelt and Reagan, for example, were presidents who enjoyed
their work; Thomas Jefferson and Richard Nixon had "negative"
feeling toward it.
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- >From these measurements, Barber developed
four repeating categories into which he was able to place all presidents:
those like FDR who actively pursued their work and had positive feelings
about their efforts (active/positives); those like Nixon who actively pursued
the job but had negative feelings about it (active/negatives); those like
Reagan who were passive about the job but enjoyed it (passive/positives);
and, finally, those who followed the pattern of Thomas Jefferson -- who
both was passive and did not enjoy the work (passive/negatives).
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- Interestingly, the category of presidents
who proved troublesome under Barber's analysis is that of those who turned
out to be active/negatives. Barber placed Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover,
Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon in this class.
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- In my prior column, I found that the
evidence is overwhelming that George W. Bush is another active/negative
president, and the past two years, since making that initial finding, have
only further confirmed my conclusion.
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- Because active/negative presidencies
do not end well, it is instructive to look at where Bush's may be heading.
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- Bush's "Active/Negative" Presidency
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- Recent events provide an especially good
illustration of Bush's fateful - perhaps fatal - approach. Six generals
who have served under Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld have called for his
resignation - making a strong substantive case as to why he should resign.
And they are not alone: Editorialists have also persuasively attacked Rumsfeld
on the merits.
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- Yet Bush's defense of Rumsfeld was entirely
substance-free. Bush simply told reporters in the Rose Garden that Rumsfeld
would stay because "I'm the decider and I decide what's best."
He sounded much like a parent telling children how things would be: "I'm
the Daddy, that's why."
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- This, indeed, is how Bush sees the presidency,
and it is a point of view that will cause him trouble.
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- Bush has never understood what presidential
scholar Richard Neustadt discovered many years ago: In a democracy, the
only real power the presidency commands is the power to persuade. Presidents
have their bully pulpit, and the full attention of the news media, 24/7.
In addition, they are given the benefit of the doubt when they go to the
American people to ask for their support. But as effective as this power
can be, it can be equally devastating when it languishes unused - or when
a president pretends not to need to use it, as Bush has done.
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- Apparently, Bush does not realize that
to lead he must continually renew his approval with the public. He is not,
as he thinks, the decider. The public is the decider.
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- Bush is following the classic mistaken
pattern of active/negative presidents: As Barber explained, they issue
order after order, without public support, until they eventually dissipate
the real powers they have -- until "nothing [is] left but the shell
of the office." Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, Lyndon Johnson and
Richard Nixon all followed this pattern.
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- Active/negative presidents are risk-takers.
(Consider the colossal risk Bush took with the Iraq invasion). And once
they have taken a position, they lock on to failed courses of action and
insist on rigidly holding steady, even when new facts indicate that flexibility
is required.
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- The source of their rigidity is that
they've become emotionally attached to their own positions; to change them,
in their minds, would be to change their personal identity, their very
essence. That, they are not willing to do at any cost.
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- Wilson rode his unpopular League of Nations
proposal to his ruin; Hoover refused to let the federal government intervene
to prevent or lessen a fiscal depression; Johnson escalated U.S. involvement
in Vietnam while misleading Americans (thereby making himself unelectable);
and Nixon went down with his bogus defense of Watergate.
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- George Bush has misled America into a
preemptive war in Iraq; he is using terrorism to claim that as Commander-in-Chief,
he is above the law; and he refuses to acknowledge that American law prohibits
torturing our enemies and warrantlessly wiretapping Americans.
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- Americans, increasingly, are not buying
his justifications for any of these positions. Yet Bush has made no effort
to persuade them that his actions are sound, prudent or productive; rather,
he takes offense when anyone questions his unilateral powers. He responds
as if personally insulted.
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- And this may be his only option: With
Bush's limited rhetorical skills, it would be all but impossible for him
to persuade any others than his most loyal supporters of his positions.
His single salient virtue - as a campaigner - was the ability to stay on-message.
He effectively (though inaccurately) portrayed both Al Gore and John Kerry
as wafflers, whereas he found consistency in (over)simplifying the issues.
But now, he cannot absorb the fact that his message is not one Americans
want to hear - that he is being questioned, severely, and that staying
on-message will be his downfall.
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- Other Presidents - other leaders, generally
- have been able to listen to critics relatively impassively, believing
that there is nothing personal about a debate about how best to achieve
shared goals. Some have even turned detractors into supporters - something
it's virtually impossible to imagine Bush doing. But not active/negative
presidents. And not likely Bush.
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- The Danger of the "Active/Negative"
President Facing A Congressional Rout
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- Active/negative presidents -- Barber
tells us, and history shows -- are driven, persistent, and emphatic. Barber
says their pervasive feeling is "I must."
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- Barber's collective portrait of Wilson,
Hoover, Johnson and Nixon now fits George W. Bush too: "He sees himself
as having begun with a high purpose, but as being continually forced to
compromise in order to achieve the end state he vaguely envisions,"
Barber writes. He continues, "Battered from all sides . . . he begins
to feel his integrity slipping away from him . . . [and] after enduring
all this for longer than any mortal should, he rebels and stands his ground.
Masking his decision in whatever rhetoric is necessary, he rides the tiger
to the end."
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- Bush's policies have incorporated risk
from the outset. A few examples make that clear.
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- He took the risk that he could capture
Osama bin Laden with a small group of CIA operatives and U.S. Army Special
forces - and he failed. He took the risk that he could invade Iraq and
control the country with fewer troops and less planning than the generals
and State Department told him would be possible - and he failed. He took
the risk that he could ignore the criminal laws prohibiting torture and
the warrantless wiretapping of Americans without being caught - he failed.
And he's taken the risk that he can cut the taxes for the rich and run
up huge financial deficits without hurting the economy. This, too, will
fail, though the consequences will likely fall on future presidents and
generations who must repay Bush's debts.
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- What We Can Expect From Bush in the Future,
Based on Barber's Model
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- As the 2006 midterm elections approach,
this active/negative president can be expected to take further risks. If
anyone doubts that Bush, Cheney, Rove and their confidants are planning
an "October Surprise" to prevent the Republicans from losing
control of Congress, then he or she has not been observing this presidency
very closely.
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- What will that surprise be? It's the
most closely held secret of the Administration.
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- How risky will it be? Bush is a whatever-it-takes
risk-taker, the consequences be damned.
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- One possibility is that Dick Cheney will
resign as Vice President for "health reasons," and become a senior
counselor to the president. And Bush will name a new vice president - a
choice geared to increase his popularity, as well as someone electable
in 2008. It would give his sinking administration a new face, and new life.
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- The immensely popular Rudy Giuliani seems
the most likely pick, if Giuliani is willing. (A better option for Giuliani
might be to hold off, and tacitly position himself as the Republican anti-Bush
in 2008.) But Condoleezza Rice, John McCain, Bill Frist, and more are possibilities.
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- Bush's second and more likely, surprise
could be in the area of national security: If he could achieve a Great
Powers coalition (of Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France, and so
on) presenting a united-front "no nukes" stance to Iran, it would
be his first diplomatic coup and a political triumph.
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- But more likely, Bush may mount a unilateral
attack on Iran's nuclear facilities - hoping to rev up his popularity.
(It's a risky strategy: A unilateral hit on Iran may both trigger devastating
Iran-sponsored terrorist attacks in Iraq, with high death tolls, and increase
international dislike of Bush for his bypass of the U.N. But as an active/negative
President, Bush hardly shies away from risk.) Another rabbit-out-of-the-hat
possibility: the capture of Osama bin Laden.
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- If there is no "October Surprise,"
I would be shocked. And if it is not a high-risk undertaking, it would
be a first. Without such a gambit, and the public always falls for them,
Bush is going to lose control of Congress. Should that happen, his presidency
will have effectively ended, and he will spend the last two years of it
defending all the mistakes he has made during the first six, and covering
up the errors of his ways.
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- There is, however, the possibility of
another terrorist attack, and if one occurred, Americans would again rally
around the president - wrongly so, since this is a presidency that lives
on fear-mongering about terror, but does little to truly address it. The
possibility that we might both suffer an attack, and see a boost to Bush
come from it, is truly a terrifying thought.
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