David Brooks: Patching the Presidency
On Dec. 31, 1986, Robert Novak and Rowland Evans wrote a column with the headline "The Reagan Presidency Is Dead." Halfway into its second term, the Reagan administration was beset by the Iran-contra scandal. Its legislative agenda was in tatters. Morale was low, and the decision-making process was in chaos.
Ronald Reagan had to decide whether to hunker down in the storm or break out of it. Pat Buchanan, who was the communications director, recommended that the president bring a special counselor into the White House to handle Iran-contra and bring an objective perspective to the administration's troubles.
Reagan agreed. David Abshire, then the ambassador to NATO, was hired and given complete autonomy.
Abshire describes his job in his new book, "Saving the Reagan Presidency." He had four tasks. First, puncture the bubble of intellectual conformity that marks every administration by breaking the spell of groupthink and self-serving spin. Abshire had direct access to the president, and in his 12 one-on-one meetings with Reagan, he was able to say things he could never have said in larger meetings. Even so, Reagan found it very hard to admit that what happened in Iran-Contra actually happened.
Second, iron out the feuds and tensions (between, say, Defense and State). Third, repair relations with Capitol Hill. Congress dominates all second terms, and any president who doesn't adapt will fail.
Finally, Abshire helped kick-start a new policy agenda. The old chief of staff, Don Regan, was fired, and Howard Baker was brought in. Reagan gave a contrite speech taking responsibility for Iran-contra, and his approval rating jumped nine points.
New initiatives to end the cold war were launched, including the speech calling on Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall. Domestic ideas, built around an economic bill of rights, were floated. The administration never fully recovered, but the last two years of Reagan's term were productive, and, in the way Reagan dealt with Gorbachev, historic.
The Bush administration is not in quite the same bind the Reagan administration was in. There is no one big scandal (sorry, Plamegate is not it). But at key moments - Social Security, Katrina, Harriet Miers - the president has been uncharacteristically out of step with the American people. Second-term-itis is setting in.
Remember, every president since Grant has had a miserable second term. Eisenhower called his sixth year in office the "worst of his life."
There are many causes: one's own party gets fractious; management failures that have festered over the years blossom into scandal; people who have failed inside the administration snipe from the outside. But the primary cause is psychological.
"The political mind," Calvin Coolidge wrote after his presidency, "is the product of men in public life who have been twice spoiled. They have been spoiled with praise and they have been spoiled with abuse. With them, nothing is natural, everything is artificial." ...
Read entire article at NYT
Ronald Reagan had to decide whether to hunker down in the storm or break out of it. Pat Buchanan, who was the communications director, recommended that the president bring a special counselor into the White House to handle Iran-contra and bring an objective perspective to the administration's troubles.
Reagan agreed. David Abshire, then the ambassador to NATO, was hired and given complete autonomy.
Abshire describes his job in his new book, "Saving the Reagan Presidency." He had four tasks. First, puncture the bubble of intellectual conformity that marks every administration by breaking the spell of groupthink and self-serving spin. Abshire had direct access to the president, and in his 12 one-on-one meetings with Reagan, he was able to say things he could never have said in larger meetings. Even so, Reagan found it very hard to admit that what happened in Iran-Contra actually happened.
Second, iron out the feuds and tensions (between, say, Defense and State). Third, repair relations with Capitol Hill. Congress dominates all second terms, and any president who doesn't adapt will fail.
Finally, Abshire helped kick-start a new policy agenda. The old chief of staff, Don Regan, was fired, and Howard Baker was brought in. Reagan gave a contrite speech taking responsibility for Iran-contra, and his approval rating jumped nine points.
New initiatives to end the cold war were launched, including the speech calling on Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall. Domestic ideas, built around an economic bill of rights, were floated. The administration never fully recovered, but the last two years of Reagan's term were productive, and, in the way Reagan dealt with Gorbachev, historic.
The Bush administration is not in quite the same bind the Reagan administration was in. There is no one big scandal (sorry, Plamegate is not it). But at key moments - Social Security, Katrina, Harriet Miers - the president has been uncharacteristically out of step with the American people. Second-term-itis is setting in.
Remember, every president since Grant has had a miserable second term. Eisenhower called his sixth year in office the "worst of his life."
There are many causes: one's own party gets fractious; management failures that have festered over the years blossom into scandal; people who have failed inside the administration snipe from the outside. But the primary cause is psychological.
"The political mind," Calvin Coolidge wrote after his presidency, "is the product of men in public life who have been twice spoiled. They have been spoiled with praise and they have been spoiled with abuse. With them, nothing is natural, everything is artificial." ...