The President's Call: Executive Leadership From FDR to George Bush (83 page)

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Authors: Judith E. Michaels

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BOOK: The President's Call: Executive Leadership From FDR to George Bush
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10
Conclusion and Future Directions
The PASs of any administration are in a unique position to offer wisdom to their successors. Many of George Bush's did this, and graciously. It was also clear to the author that certain trends have appeared in the institution of the presidential appointment system and its appointees, and that they have implications for research on these high-level political appointments. These are the subjects of this final chapter.
The Christmas Help and the Permanent Staff: PASs Offer Advice to Their Successors
In the course of the personal interviews with PASs, they were asked what adviceprofessional, political, and personalthey would pass along to their successors.
1
While, as one PAS put it, "Some things you can only learn by being hereyou have to live it; no child's guide to government will do," most were willing to offer some suggestions for survival, and beyond that, success. The most astute advice fell into three not totally distinct categories: administrative, political, and personal.
The advice they gave was sound, useful in any administration regardless of party label, and is offered for PASs of future administrations. However, if experience is any guide, it will be ignored soundly by them, having, apparently, to be learned firsthand by each generation of appointees.
Counsel for Successful Agency Administration
Good personnel choices are crucial for PASs once they successfully navigate the confirmation process themselves. Ted Barreaux, Bush Tran-
 
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sition Team member, advised that new PASs first choose the "top four, the most important members of the team." They are the congressional relations staff, the counsel ("to keep you out of trouble"), the deputy (the chief operating officer of the agency), and the public affairs staff.
Congressional relations is the most important of the four. That person keeps Congress from screaming at you. If you get off to a bad start with Congress you can spend the rest of your time in office testifying, dealing with congressional staff. It makes for a miserable experience. Best to coopt Congress, get it on your side. [One chief at] USIA is the classic example of someone who didn't do this. He felt dealing with Congress was beneath him, felt his mission in life was to travel. He got run out of his job, slipped off to Belgium as ambassador.
PAS interviewees often said that too many PASs came into office with an agendathey wanted to accomplish one or two things and that was all that was on their horizon. But few interviewees said, as did one, "Survival is not the pointhaving a goal is important. Be prepared for conflict in order to accomplish it." This single-minded approach constitutes a fatal flaw, according to many.
Frank Hodsoll at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) agreed with this analysis and said PASs should plan on spending 80 percent of their time in basic management of their agency. However, early on, preferably prior to their confirmation, they should establish some political priorities for their tenure.
Think through early the two or three things you'd like to do in the two to three years you have and plan to devote maybe 20 percent of your time to them. Think through why those particular things are important and how you would accomplish them. Consult with the career staff to inform yourself about the choices of the two or three things. Assess in the first six months on the job who can help get the job done and establish a team approach to do it. Establish a safety net to make sure nothing terrible happens to the rest of the program while you're working on your specific goals. Keep it all in reasonable perspective.
Hodsoll suggested that PASs focus on "specific areas with fixable problems to work on, especially high-risk areas and scandals or those in the making, such as the Housing and Urban Development scandals and Department of Defense inventory reporting."
Political appointees can inflict damage on their successors more read-
 
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ily than they can repair damage inherited from their predecessors. Steven Potts, head of the Office of Government Ethics, offered a cautionary word to counter the standard feeling of appointee newcomers that they should be "super careful and protect themselves" from the careerists. His advice was to consider that feeling carefully to see if it was really necessary or helpful. "There's a danger of building a wall between yourself and the career staff. You can do damage to the agency if you shut them out.
Rely on the careerists."
He noted how helpful this advice had been in his own experience in cementing his relationship with his career staff. He was able to restore the relationship with them and heal scars left by a previous agency director who had seriously alienated them.
To a person, the PASs spoke highly of the careerists with whom they worked. Many PASs addressed the importance of establishing good relations with career people, not only because of their high level of competence, on which most remarked, but because, as one said, "Government is consensual. Who does the work? Not the political appointees. You have to get the line people behind you."
PASs were keenly aware of their limited tenure; that, after all, is the nature of political jobs. They were equally aware of the key role the stability of the permanent bureaucracy plays in getting anything done in Washington. Simply put, they knew all too well how dependent the country is on the careerists and how relatively dispensable politicians are in the day-to-day management of agency business. As one said, "They look at us as the Christmas help. They know we'll be gone pretty soon. You need their support to get anything done."
Many interviewees discussed the larger nature of politics in Washington. Fred Hitz, inspector general (IG) at the CIA, suggested PASs "take the long view, don't think you're going to get everything done in a short timethe system will beat you bloody. It wages a war of attrition." Despite the warfare imagery, Hitz, along with others, considered government "funit's more fun than selling tires."
The Politics of Success
PASs as a breed are action- and results-oriented. Many in the Bush PAS Survey, especially those who came from the private sector, expressed amazement and frustration at "how long it takes to make anything happen. You have to remember to touch all the necessary bases." In general, PASs sometimes have trouble understanding that there are limitations on their ability to accomplish things because they have to operate vertically throughout their own agency and up to the White House, as well as hori-
 
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zontally within their agency and with other agencies in the federal bureaucratic maze. One compared the process to the drawn-out nature of labor negotiations.
As one former PAS observed, "This government requires an element of trust and a high degree of comity to work. Washington is a city of cocker spaniels more ready to be loved and petted than to wield power." Whether this is a cause or effect of the consensual nature of government is a matter of speculation.
The EPA's Linda Fisher advised,
People underestimate how hard these jobs are and how much intellectual heavy lifting you have to do to solve the public policy issues. It is substantive hard work. Be prepared to work hard. Be prepared to question the experts. You need to fully understand all sides of an issue; not everything is there at once. You have to consider what comes to you versus what hasn't come to you. What hasn't bubbled up may be more important than what has.
Others expressed surprise at the variety involved in their work, the heavy workload, the number of hours they had to devote to their work (fifty-five to seventy or more hours a week is standard), and the amount of reading they had to do, simply to keep up. Many issues are not clear-cut and require a certain level of sophistication in negotiating them. The fact that they often dealt in shades of gray intrigued some PASs, as did the complex nature of the nation's problems. As one PAS said, only half-facetiously, "In Washington you can only keep things from getting worseyou can't change things for the better."
Inspectors general (IGs), in particular, have to be aware of the pitfalls of their position. As one advised, "Always honor your integrity and independence or you're dead as an IG. Don't bend one way or the other. Your job is to collect and report the facts and stick to that."
Many were not prepared for the rough game that is politics in Washington. "Be very sensitive to your environment, be prepared for ruthless intensity," said one. The CIA's William Studeman suggested that PASs practice what he called "the conservation of enemies" because the various players "may be allies one time and enemies the next."
One PAS expressed surprise at "how mean it ispolitics is a rougher game than I thought it was. You're the personal target, particularly in a political [election] year." Another urged nominees to prepare themselves for "the nasty things people say about you during the confirmation process." And once in office, "get a thick skin. The easiest thing is to say

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