The Man Who Wasn’t There 3

I have noted the general dismay among both Republicans (expected) and Democrats (not so much) over the President's aloofness. He doesn't stick around after the photo shoots. He has done very little to cultivate personal relationships with key members of Congress. Allow me to repeat a quote from the New York Times:

This week, for example, Mr. Obama is ensconced in the protective bubble of the Secret Service. With him are his closest outside-the-Beltway-friends, including Eric Whitaker, a Chicago doctor, and two of Mr. Obama's Hawaii friends from Punahou School: Mike Ramos, a businessman, and Robert Titcomb, a commercial fisherman whom Mr. Obama has stuck by despite his arrest in April on suspicion of soliciting a prostitute. Mr. Obama bolted from Washington last Friday barely an hour after he had signed legislation extending the payroll tax cut after a grinding fight with House Republicans whose result is widely viewed as a big win for him. His relationship with Washington insiders is described by members of both parties as "remote," "distant" and "perfunctory."

That seems like a big problem for any presidency. How can a president provide leadership when he is never around? You might think, however, that he cannot be equally aloof within his own administration. You'd be wrong.

Ryan Lizza has a must read piece, "The Obama Memos", in The New Yorker. Lizza is no friend to Republicans and accordingly he strives, with rather limited success, to tell a story of a President frustrated by an intransigent opposition party. However, he is too good a reporter not to tell the much more interesting and disturbing story that he has at his disposal. It concerns the way that Barack Obama does his job.

Each night, an Obama aide hands the President a binder of documents to review. After his wife goes to bed, at around ten, Obama works in his study, the Treaty Room, on the second floor of the White House residence. President Bush preferred oral briefings; Obama likes his advice in writing. He marks up the decision memos and briefing materials with notes and questions in his neat cursive handwriting. In the morning, each document is returned to his staff secretary. She dates and stamps it—"Back from the OVAL"—and often e-mails an index of the President's handwritten notes to the relevant senior staff and their assistants. A single Presidential comment might change a legislative strategy, kill the proposal of a well-meaning adviser, or initiate a bureaucratic process to answer a Presidential question.

Apparently, the President begins his work day after his wife goes to bed at ten. Lizza does not tell us when the President retires. I am sure that President Bush "preferred oral briefings." I am pretty sure that every other man who occupied the Oval Office preferred oral briefings. One advantage of oral briefings is that you can ask questions. Another is that you can monitor and maintain relationships with members of your team. President Obama is not interested in any of that.

Lizza provides a wealth of examples. Let this one suffice. The Administration had to decide how Democrats would move the healthcare legislation. Here is how that decision was made.

There were two ways for the Senate to approach Obama's health-care plan: the normal process, which required sixty votes to pass the bill, or a shortcut known as "reconciliation," which required only a simple majority and would bypass a possible filibuster. Baucus and several other key Senate Democrats opposed reconciliation, and Republicans decried its use on such major legislation as a partisan power grab. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, complained that using reconciliation would "make it absolutely clear" that Obama and the Democrats in Congress "intend to carry out all of their plans on a purely partisan basis."

On April 10th, Obama's aides sent him a memo asking him to decide the issue. The White House could still fashion a bipartisan bill, but it was important to have the fifty-one-vote option as a backup plan, in case they weren't able to win any Republican support and faced a filibuster. They recommended that he "insist on reconciliation instructions for health care." Below this language, Obama was offered three options: "Agree," "Disagree," "Let's Discuss." The President placed a check mark on the line next to "Agree."

The President is as aloof within his own administration as he is generally. He governs by checking boxes and making brief notes "in his neat cursive handwriting."

I cannot argue any longer that the President provides no leadership. He provides leadership by means of written notes that make a twit look prolix when, that is, he is not merely checking boxes.

This is our man. He could govern from a more remote position only if he were to move his quarters to Newt's moon base. He leads, as Lizza has written before, "from behind." Now we have an idea of how far behind that is.

Comments

[Donald Pay]

Pffff. Really? I bet you test everyone at all times orally and don't require students read or write anything. I notice you write this blog rather than video tape it. Clearly that says something about your leadership style. Not only that, it shows you how removed you are from reality, as removed as, how do you put it, Newt's moon base. And it shows something quite "other" about you, even though you're not black and "Muslim" and don't have a birth certificate that's authentic.

I notice you did minimal questioning of Pete Carrels on your show, and it is supposedly oral communication. Didn't know your stuff?

[larry kurtz]

@NPRinskeep Steve Inskeep, "Romney stump speech: Obama doesn't understand US economy. ABC/WaPo poll: Obama understands people's econ problems better than Romney, 52-37."

[Mark Anderson]

Yes, Romney would be much more forthcoming.

[D.E. Bishop]

Interesting article. I wonder about this:

"His relationship with Washington insiders is described by members of both parties as "remote," "distant" and "perfunctory."

Should he have a close relationship to Washington Insiders? Isn't that usually considered a negative? Isn't it better that he hear from a doctor, a businessman, and a fisherman? Real people?

It's odd that meeting with the latter is described as "ensconced in the protective bubble of the Secret Service." Meeting with Washington Insiders sounds much more Bubble-ish. In addition, where should he go that he would not be "ensconced in the protective bubble of the Secret Service." Isn't that the whole point?

You say it bothers you that Obama leaves a written trail of his decisions. And that he allows his staff to do their work without hanging over their shoulders. Why do you think the only time Obama works is at the very end of the day? Apparently, that is the time that he works on the binder of documents.

I would like to know a lot more about how he directs and works with the staff, than what one reporter relates. It's quite likely there is much more to it.

Your post reads like a lot of spin. I'll hold out for more info.

[Dave]

Petty Ken... Really petty...

[Ken Blanchard]

D.E.B.: thanks for the comment. The Lizza article provides a rare glimpse inside the White House. What is shows is that the President governs late at night, all by himself. Contrary to Dave's comment, it is not petty to point that out.

Forming relationships with insiders is an essential part of a President's job. He is he ultimate insider. The leaders and key members of Congress are also insiders. That's where governance happens: "inside" the government. He needs to establish relationships with the people who move bills in the House and Senate. How else can he provide leadership? Maybe the answer is that he largely does not.

I have pointed out this peculiar characteristic of Obama in a series of posts over the last several years. Obama taught for twelve years at Chicago Law, but no one there ever seemed to get to know him. He never attended the roundtables at the University Faculty Club where some of the best legal minds in the nation presented their thoughts and research. Of course, he had no research of his own to present. He never published a single piece of scholarship. Despite that stint as a teacher of Constitutional Law, no one has any idea what his views are, which is very rare for a professor.

You have plenty of information to go on.

[Ken Blanchard]

Donald: I am flattered that you consider me as a model against which the President of the United States may be favorably compared. I would note that, unlike the current President, I actually talk to my colleagues and they have some idea of what I think. On the rare occasions when I actually have some influence over a policy, it happens when a number of people have gathered around a table to converse and not in the dead of night. I never thought to be considered worthy of the Presidency, but since you are willing to lower the bar to the level above, even I can compete.

[Donald Pay]

What I see in all these articles (James Fallows has one in The Atlantic) is you have a lot of the self-selected elite insiders leaking their whining about not having enough access or not getting enough strokes. These are people who think they are "the entitled," who imagine they deserve more of the President's time, and who's self esteem depends on the President fawning on them ("Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job).

Actually, the people who have the most influence over policy are people who can research and write, not those who sit around a table thinking they are saying something profound.

[D.E. Bishop]

Ken, thank you for your courteous response. You said:

"Forming relationships with insiders is an essential part of a President's job." Okay. You decry Obama is "elite, removed, aloof." Yet he is also roundly criticized for being in a bubble, and not relating to people. Tell me if I understand this correctly:

The president should develop close relationships with DC insiders and power brokers, but not be in a bubble.

That's sounds really contradictory to me. Aren't those insiders and power brokers a big part of the bubble? And aren't the people on the street outside of the bubble? Is there a specific balance that a president should achieve? 45% in the bubble, 45% out of the bubble, 10% his own private life?

It sounds like a setup to me. Lose/lose for Obama.

I'm just asking . . . .

[Bill Fleming]

D.E.B., Now that KB can't peddle his doom and gloom about the economy he's having to test ever more esoteric arguments as to why Obama shouldn't be given a second term. This one is his lamest lament yet. It sounds like Gingrich wining because he had to sit in the back of Clinton's plane. Awww. Sad. And here all those GOPers have been so nice to the guy. Hilarious.

[Ken Blanchard]

Bill: I have been making this argument for a long time. I once accused you of being opposed to fiscal responsibility. You reacted with indignation. Your comment above confirms my point.

D.E.B.: This doesn't seem to me to be all that hard. It's NOT talking to people that puts you in a bubble. It's TALKING to people that gets you out. Presidents are supposed to talk to important people. That is simply part of the job. He is supposed to talk to foreign leaders. He is supposed to talk to members of Congress and especially the leadership. As far as one can tell, he has no personal relationship with any member of Congress. I ask again: how else can he move legislation?

I have drawn on information from a number of sources, all of them in good standing on the Left. Lizza and Hunt leave no doubt that the President is about as isolated as it is possible for a man to be. As I have shown, in detail, this has been his pattern all his adult life. He went to Harvard Law school and taught at Chicago, but he didn't do anything at either place, so far as one can tell. There is a great scandal here. Unfortunately it will go unrecognized and uncorrected, for the President will never lack for enablers.

[larry kurtz]

Bill is right, Ken; you are merely schooling your readers in your typical red state mantra.

President Obama has a young family and revels in his daughters activities. Hanging out with a bunch of wonks on a daily basis gets very old very quickly. This President is at least as involved with executing the duties of his office as any have been.

Don't give up, Ken: choose life, your mother did.

[Donald Pay]

Talking to people in the bubble gets you nowhere. It keeps you in the bubble.

The problem with you, KB, is you want to have it every way. You have blogged negatively when Obama talks to real people (the 99 percent) rather than to the Orange Man or the Tennessee Rattler, or the elitist corporate crowd. I asked you once for your list of the people Obama needed to consult. So far you haven't provided one. You have a problem when Obama talks to people you don't approve of, and you have a problem when he reads. So, until you can provide a list of the KB-approved people for the President to talk to, just move on.

[D.E. Bishop]

Sorry KB, but there is just not a case to be made here. Obama has faults and issues that I'd like him to address, but this "Bubble-Time" stuff just doesn't hold up.

I want Obama to be more aggressive on the fairness issue, and I want him to go to single-payer health care. I want him to be more confrontational in response to false and distorted Repub attacks. I want him to be braver, and stick his neck out more. I know those things aren't what will get him re-elected, but in addition to being a realist, I have a strong streak of idealism.

I want Obama to get us out of the damn wars! On the other hand, I do want Clinton to continue her strong condemnation and diplomatic efforts against the undemocratic and dictatorial despots.

Obama's "Bubble-Time" is not very important in the scheme of big issues facing the great U.S.of A.

[Peaga]

Found hope I found the book and started again. I just fiinhsed the section on Health Care. I disagree with Sen. Obama there. I think the largest savings would result from getting the private insurance companies out of the business. The government administers Medicare at a much lower overhead.On the other hand (with a nod to the Senator) some solutions are effective, but politically impossible.