David Frum on Scott McClellan's new book: George Bush got the team he deserved

Except maybe for MSNBC’s wild-eyed commentator Keith Olbermann, nobody in politics or media seems to have a good word to say for Scott McClellan, the former George W. Bush press secretary turned ferocious Bush critic.

The right complains of McClellan's disloyalty. The left complains that McClellan’s change of heart arrived too late. The old Washington hands shake their heads at a press secretary writing a book at all: FDR’s and Eisenhower’s men took their secrets to their graves — why cannot today’s whippersnappers do the same?

Yet there is something very sad and sympathetic about McClellan and the bitter, accusatory memoir that leaked out this week. (The book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception, has hit number one on Amazon.com’s sales chart despite the fact that it won’t be officially released till next week.)

If you ever watched McClellan’s televised confrontations with the savage White House press corps, you probably thought: This is terrible! The man has no business being up there. He looks frightened, like a schoolboy trying to retrieve his mittens from a persecuting gang of bullies. His words stumble and clomber. When he has good news to announce, he cannot elicit any interest; when the news is bad, his clumsy efforts to evade questions only draw more attention than ever.

As the current press secretary Dana Perino daily reminds us, you don’t have to be a genius to succeed as press secretary. But you do need (1) composure under fire, (2) verbal fluency, (3) an understanding of the imperatives of the news business and (4) access to the interior workings of the administration. McClellan never possessed qualities (1) and (2), and his colleagues refused to grant him (4).

In these deficiencies, McClellan was not alone. George W. Bush brought most of his White House team with him from Texas. Except for Karl Rove, these Texans were a strikingly inadequate bunch. Harriet Miers, Alberto Gonzalez, Karen Hughes, Al Hawkins, Andy Card (the last not a Texan, but a lifelong Bush family retainer) — they were more like characters from The Office than the sort of people one would expect to find at the supreme height of government in the world’s most powerful nation. McClellan, too, started in Bush’s governor’s office, and if he never belonged to the innermost circle of power, he nonetheless gained closer proximity than would be available to almost anyone who did not first serve in Texas.

That early team was recruited with one paramount consideration in mind: loyalty. Theoretically, it should be possible to combine loyalty with talent. But that did not happen often with the Bush team.

Bush demanded a very personal kind of loyalty, a loyalty not to a cause or an idea, but to him and his own career. Perhaps unconsciously, he tested that loyalty with constant petty teasing, sometimes verging on the demeaning. (Robert Draper, whose book Dead Certain offers a vivid picture of the pre-presidential Bush, tells the story of a 1999 campaign-strategy meeting at which Bush shut Karl Rove up by ordering him to “hang up my jacket.” The room fell silent in shock — but Rove did it.)

These little abuses would often be followed by unexpected acts of thoughtfulness and generosity. Yet the effect of the combination of the demand for personal loyalty, the bullying and the ensuing compensatory love-bombing was to weed out strong personalities and to build an inner circle defined by a willingness to accept absolute subordination to the fluctuating needs of a tense, irascible and unpredictable chief.

Had Bush been a more active manager, these subordinated personalities might have done him less harm. But after choosing people he could dominate, he then delegated them enormous power. He created a closed loop in which the people entrusted with the most responsibility were precisely those who most dreaded responsibility — Condoleezza Rice being the most important and most damaging example.

For three years, Bush left Scott McClellan in a position for which he was unsuited and in which he must have suffered terrible anxiety and stress. Finally, McClellan was deputed to act as the administration’s shield and buffer in the Valerie Plame leak case. The administration had nothing to fear from the truth, but McClellan was assigned to say things that later proved untrue. Understandably, he feels terrible bitterness about the episode — and predictably, a book publisher offered him the opportunity to exact his revenge.

The lesson of this story is emphatically not that presidents should seek staffers even more fanatically loyal than Bush’s. The lesson is that weak personalities break under pressure. And since a White House is the world’s highest-pressure environment, a wise president will seek to staff it with strong personalities.

To recruit and hold strong personalities, a president must demand something more than personal loyalty. He must offer a compelling vision and ideal — a cause that people can serve without feeling servile. Otherwise a president will only get … what Bush has now got.

Good questions. We have to take into account that it was not meant to be a comprehensive analysis of all, or even key players, by Frum.

My understanding is that Cheney was himself somewhat an outsider, though obviously much valued, and did not participate much, if at all, in staffing of non-principals in upcoming administration which was also delayed by Gore’s court challenges and recounts. Same can be said about other strong personalities in principal positions (Rumsfeld at DoD, Rice at NSC, Powell at DoS, Ashcroft at DoJ) - they did not come from Texas Governor campaigns and political circles, but that was pretty much it. None of these strong people depended on Bush or being viable in government service for their [political or financial] future. And there were also many stories about Bush actually looking and asking for different advice from different points of view and varied experience from these principals.

Also, of these principals (with likely exception of Powell) were pretty busy early on, looking to find replacements and/or get through delayed confirmations in their respective or related departments and reshape/establish their policies and shortly after had to deal with 9/11. One might say they did not have much time or choice [to vet] and went with whoever were known and comfortable to Bush.

It seems that Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice (as NSA) were pretty close and for the most part on the same page, including their immense contributions in developing a concept of COW (Coalition Of the Willing) which is much needed replacement of failed NATO (as an organization and a structure) and the need to restructure severely downsized military to fit new budgets and new kinds of threats.

I think Frum in this article only tries to deal with people who are not a part of that very small “decision circle” but rather, as he described, “these subordinated personalities” (which makes his shot at Rice even more puzzling, and more likely refers to her tenure at DoS which he - and many of her detractors, including on FR - may consider disappointing and “damaging”)

We don’t know if Cheney had any hand or input into relieving from duties any mediocrities (such as Andy Card) but this administration had a long list of them, probably not too long a list of better people willing to serve to replace them, and not too much time to look for qualified and willing replacements. Considering that Bush himself was not a movement leader, the problem of finding the “willing qualified” was probably magnified - real conservatives are not known to favor serving in administrative positions in Washington to affect “change”... For Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice and the like it was more like another “tour of duty”.

Plamegate exposed weaknesses and ineptitude and created cracks in the Bush “defense” structure and lack of communication and cohesiveness between him and among “these subordinated personalities”; post-Katrina, Harriet Miers and Dubai Ports World PR fiascoes broke the dam and opened the floodgates.

After a quick search, I can't find a quote to confirm my assertion, but Wikipedia shows that O'Neill and Cheney worked together in the Ford Administration and were close. I'm pretty sure Cheney was the primary promoter of O'Neill (and then John Snow for the second Treasury appointment). I love Cheney so it pains me to put the onus on him for this nomination -- but that's one of Bush's problems: staying loyal too long and letting inept people remain in their positions for too long. Much damage was done.

One of the most profound errors in the Bush Administration was in not using Cheney more -- he could have and should have been the spokesperson for the Administration. He could have been very effective at something that W just had no confidence and no competence. I'm sure the Administration's leaders decided they couldn't let Cheney have that kind of public and prominent role because it would have fueled the suspicion that Cheney was in charge. So W's Administration just went ahead without any effective communication to the American people defending the Administartion's policies and the long-term vision they were following. Compare W's success with that of Reagan -- and I think this inability to communicate is by far the primary reason.

Regarding using Cheney as more of a spokesman for the administration. IMHO he was used a fair amount for that but unfortunately the MSM did not report half of it, if you go to the White House Website you can find all of his speeches made since he was Vice President on behalf of the administration, fund raisers etc. How many of those were reported I suspect a fraction of of them.

Having said that if we say he still was not used enough maybe we go back to the loyalty aspect with the President. VP Cheney has always said that his role within this administration is promoting the President's policy and he would not use it as many VP’s have for furthering their political standing or career. He made it clear that at the end of either the 4 or 8 years that was it for him in an official political/governmental capacity in Washington. I am out of here is a term he has used often.

Bearing this in mind this would therefore the President feel happy in using the VP as a spokesman for some issues with which they did not agree? The marriage amendment springs to mind even that though Cheney the loyal servant he is did promote it a few times even though privately it is known both he and his wife felt it was a State's issue not Federal one. No doubt this is partly to do with sexual orientation of his younger daughter Mary but that aside he was still prepared if push came to shuff to support the President.

I would suspect there were other issues probably one of them is in how to tackle the immigration issue where he and the President did disagree again here there are few speeches where he did push the President's views and wishes but compared with other issues I agree he has not been that outspoken on this probably because privately he did not agree 100 per cent with the President.

Now going back to loyality aspect I would suggest the President would not feel comfortable getting the VP to constantly go against some of his own personal views to promote the President's point of view and that is why I suspect that maybe he has not been used on some ocassions as a spokeman for the adminstration. Again you can say the President maybe was wrong and that as the Commander in Chief he should not have taken this into consideration but I believe that this is part of his character and his own loyalty that he would take it into consideration.

One footnote from me on this take this away from the President and you take away his character and what IMHO makes the man tick and he would be a lesser person maybe not a lesser President but certainly a lesser person.

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