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Analysis: CEO Bush Just Wants Results Ronald Kessler The White House's new glasnost policy is starting to produce results. The mainstream media are running fewer snarky pieces about the Bush administration, and stories that do run are more balanced. Even before Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed and Karl Rove was cleared in the CIA leak case, the different tone seemed to begin showing up in improved approval ratings for the president.
What took the White House so long? The media's story line is that someone else besides George Bush makes the decisions — either evil genius Karl Rove, scary Dick Cheney, or inscrutable neocons in the Pentagon. But the truth is that Bush acts like the Harvard Business School graduate he is, soliciting different views, then making up his mind.
For better or worse, the press policy has been entirely of his own making. As Dan Bartlett, the White House counselor in charge of communications, told me long before the more open policy took effect, Bush wants results. Too much contact with the media can lead to leaks — as occurred during his father's presidency — and can undercut the president's efforts by forcing his hand and allowing aides to push their own agendas in the press.
So Bush limited press access and presented his message in speeches. If the White House granted an interview with the president or an aide, it was to achieve a long-term strategy that the White House was pushing — not to make nice with a reporter.
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Even reporters who wanted to do favorable stories became frustrated. My own experience in writing "A Matter of Character: Inside the White House of George W. Bush" is instructive. Having written extensively about the CIA and FBI in my books, I recognized how much Bush was doing to fight terrorism after 9/11. As I proceeded to write the Bush book, I found much of what appears in the media about the president is mythology. But after a few months of trying, I still was not getting White House cooperation.
For behind-the-scenes perspectives, I called people like Secret Service agents and White House maids, butlers, and ushers at their homes. I'm sure some of them reported these calls back to the White House. Finally, Bartlett called me in. Having checked me out, he said I was probably the only journalist besides Bob Woodward who could do the book regardless. Based on his recommendation, Bush himself approved cooperation. But should a writer whose view of the president is a positive one face so many hurdles?
Besides the buttoned-down press policy, Bush's refusal to exploit his personal life has meant that the public never glimpses what he is really like. When Bush invited his Yale class of 1968 to a reunion at the White House in May 2003, seven of his Yale friends and their wives stayed overnight at the White House. The guests illustrated the diversity of Bush's friends. One of them, lawyer Roland W. Betts, originally was a Democrat who married Lois Phifer, an African-American teacher Betts met when he was an assistant principal at a public school in central Harlem. Donald Etra, an Orthodox Jew, is a liberal Democrat and lawyer in Los Angeles who opposes many of the provisions of the Patriot Act. Another overnight guest, Muhammed Saleh, a Timex vice president, is a Muslem who was born in Jordan.
If Bill Clinton had hosted such a diverse group of friends as overnight guests, he would have called a prime time press conference. Clinton never failed to take the opportunity to parade his friend Vernon Jordan before the TV cameras. But Bush considers his private life private. He detests the idea of exploiting his friendships or private moments for political advantage. So the identities of his overnight guests — along with other vignettes that could be used to advantage—never appear in the media.
Those vignettes include touching or uplifting moments in the Oval Office. Susan Buckland, the associate director of the White House's Domestic Policy Council in charge of disability issues, is deaf. When she briefs the president, she reads his lips. The Clinton White House would have called in the press for a photo-op every time Buckland briefed the president. Yet again, the Bush White House has never told the media about her.
Bush's attitude goes back to the fact that, in many ways, he is an anti-politician. He did not seek office to win popularity or Chris Matthews' approval. He ran to achieve long-term fundamental change that would leave the country and the world a better, safer place. Bush is not particularly interested in his place in history either. Like any good CEO, he simply wants results. He views challenges as opportunities. And he is aware of how transitory opinion polls can be. When Harry Truman left office, his approval rating stood at 25 percent. Yet today, because of his firm approach to national security, Truman — whom the press portrayed as a simpleton — is viewed as one of the great presidents.
Still, as Bush's poll numbers began to drop last November, he and his advisers began to recognize that, while his press policy was based on high-minded principles, it simply would not wash in this media-driven age. Without a higher approval level, Bush was in danger of losing his effectiveness. Reporters are human, and even if they are not pushing a liberal agenda, they will take it out on Bush if the White House does not return their calls and does not feed them tidbits for their stories. Senator John McCain, in contrast, has enjoyed good press because he gives the press access.
"The impression that he's arrogant probably comes from knowing what he wants to do and doing it," said Bush's friend and former Yale roommate Collister "Terry" Johnson, Jr. "He is a very unpretentious, self-deprecating person. But when he makes up his mind to do something, he considers the pros and cons and advice, and once he decides, he does it. It took fewer than two months to decide he wanted to marry Laura. So when he goes ahead and does it, and people say, ‘Wait a minute! You have to think about that,' that's perceived as arrogance. But he's already listened to those arguments," Johnson said. "So Bush is decisive, but he's decisive both ways. If changes need to be made, as in the press policy, he makes them. He was tremendously loyal to Harriet Miers, but he saw the handwriting on the wall and made that decision to go in another direction with the Supreme Court nomination."
Bringing in Tony Snow as press secretary was the most visible sign of the change in press policy. Because they know that Snow is one of them and they respect him, snarling reporters have become tamed.
"Tony neither dislikes nor distrusts reporters," said Carl M. Cannon, White House correspondent for the National Journal. "This frees him up to listen to the question, parry it if necessary, and actually give a reasonably responsive answer — at least as responsive as anyone ever gets in the White House spokesman job."
"I've been a reporter 27 years," Snow told me. "I know how it works. I don't see an ocean of enemies out there in the press room."
Snow has given reporters the kind of behind-the-scenes material that they crave. "The facts are on our side," Snow said. "I try to get as many of them before them so they can use them in their tool kit."
Beyond the appointment of Snow, Bush began holding more press conferences and even off-the-record meetings with reporters. With a tip of the hat to Oprah, he confessed in a press conference that he could have used more diplomatic language when he said in July 2003, "Bring 'em on," referring to those who would attack American forces in Iraq. On MSNBC, Norah O'Donnell swooned to Chris Matthews: ". . . for him to be so open, so open tonight suggests a reflectiveness, suggests a man in his second term who's willing perhaps to change, who is willing to again seek reconciliation."
As another example of the change, the White House gave Newsweek a tidbit about Bush's Mexican-born personal housekeeper, Maria Galvan, and the fact that Bush encouraged her to become a U.S. citizen. More unattributed quotes from senior White House officials have begun slipping into stories as well.
"You can't tune them out and go to them only when you need them and expect you'll get the kind of coverage you want," said Brad Blakeman, a former Bush aide and a friend of Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman.
To be sure, the antipathy of the mainstream media to Bush has not faded. After U.S. forces killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the headline over the lead story in The Wall Street Journal was, "Zarqawi's Death, Completion of Cabinet Raise Hopes in Iraq." The headline over the lead story in the Washington Post was, "After Zarqawi, No Clear Path in Weary Iraq."
But reporters are happy to be manipulated. In return for inside information, they will think twice before engaging in Bush-bashing.
Editor's note:
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