What Barack Obama Should Learn From Dick Cheney

Barack Obama should keep his smile and not adopt the scowl that Vice President Richard Cheney often deployed to tenderize his victims, but he should pay careful attention to the way that Cheney animated hundreds of followers to move the Cheney agenda across the national security bureaucracy.

If one were to score "influence" within the G.W. Bush administration, Cheney would get top prize -- higher than G.W. Bush himself.

No one knows how the incumbent President Bush makes decisions. He's not consistent. He holds his cards close -- and sometimes tilts one way, sometimes another. Swagger is the defining characteristic of Bush's decisions -- not necessarily logic, or at least not a logical line that I can discern.

Condoleezza Rice has a few followers who do understand her approach to problems -- but she never worked to build a significant following.

Colin Powell, who advised caution and a review of every scenario in responding to a serious challenges, tended to matter when he was in the room -- and not, when he wasn't.

But as I have written previously and as Barton Gellman chronicles in his important new book Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency, Cheney succeeded in not only getting people loyal and beholden to him appointed throughout the vast wings of the country's national security and intelligence bureaucracies, he and his close team of David Addington, Scooter Libby and John Hannah conveyed a template for approaching the world and agitating for an expansion of Executive Branch authority in comparison to other branches of government.

Cheneyism is disdainful of international institutions like the UN, viewed Europe and other states essentially as supplicants of American power, pushed hard the "unitary executive" notion of presidential authority, reinstituted the secrecy regime to levels greater than Reagan's CIA chief Bill Casey, promoted taking the gloves off" in American demonstrations of power abroad and in the interrogation room, endorsed torture and viewed the Geneva Accords as rules for the weak, despised regulation of business and industry -- particularly the oil, forestry and steel industries.

There are many other dimensions to Cheneyism, but what is important is that his followers understood how Cheney thought and how he would respond to a problem or policy issues.

Dick Cheney has been the most powerful actor in the Bush administration because Cheney didn't have to tell people hierarchically or by Rumsfeld-style "snow flake memos" what to do or how to think. They knew. And if they didn't, Cheney might call and simply ask a loaded question of a bureaucrat -- even a person very far down the pecking order of an agency or department -- as to why he or she hadn't thought of an alternative way [the Cheney way] of doing something.

Now to think about the new team moving into 1600 Pennsylvania.

According to some reports, Barack Obama seems to think that his intellectual, policy formulation and speechwriting skills are better than those around him -- or so goes that narrative in a recent New Yorker article by Ryan Lizza:

Obama, who is not without an ego, regarded himself as just as gifted as his top strategists in the art and practice of politics. Patrick Gaspard, the campaign's political director, said that when, in early 2007, he interviewed for a job with Obama and Plouffe, Obama said that he liked being surrounded by people who expressed strong opinions, but he also said, "I think that I'm a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that I'm gonna think I'm a better political director than my political director."

Obama may very well be as skilled and confident as this passage suggests -- but if he follows that line of logic too far -- he'll end up hamstrung with a huge bureaucracy that won't necessarily understand the "Obama Way".

Others might emerge in Obama's White House with more power than he does to motivate and animate others because they may be more successful at communicating and telegraphing how to approach complex problems and challenges. Of those who are rumored to possibly be in the first Obama cabinet, potential holdover Defense Secretary Robert Gates comes to mind.

At a New America Foundation economic policy event that featured the economic advisers to John McCain, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama, Obama's adviser Austan Goolsbee made the seemingly sensible suggestion that when confronting complex trade and economic treaties, Obama would weigh each one on its merits. His basic point was that trade deals -- even deals that seemingly promoted free trade -- were hundreds, sometimes thousands, of pages long. They were not all the same and Obama would support some and not others.

On one level, this suggests flexibility. On another, this possible management approach suggests a micro-focus on policy that Obama can't afford. Jimmy Carter was a compulsive micro-manager, and it severely handicapped his presidency. Goolsbee's comment also implies that Obama may not be ready to telegraph to his Cabinet Secretaries, Deputy Secretaries, and others the DNA of his generic decisionmaking approach.

To be as successful as Dick Cheney was in influencing action in government, Obama is going to need to telegraph the secrets of "Obama-ism" to his people.

If not, we'll have an ad hoc presidency, a reactive presidency, a micromanaged presidency, or a presidency hijacked by others who slyly follow Cheney's approach.

So keep the smile, President-elect Obama, but begin to think about how you clearly convey to your team criteria for decision-making and a guide for responses to complex, unexpected challenges.

I have learned a lot from watching how the Project for a New American Century became so successful and consequential in a remarkably short period of time.

Barack Obama -- who ran a very large, successful campaign operation that empowered many -- should in governing nonetheless look to Vice President Cheney's example to understand how a pro -- even one who so damaged the interests of the nation -- managed power and purpose while in office.

-- Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note

Comments

[jyoungsa]

I don't think most of the people posting here actually read the article. It correctly states that Cheney was a force for evil, but goes on to say that the reason he did evil things so effectively was that he made people understand his agenda and then allowed them to carry it out. To use a term I hate, he "leveraged" the scope of his leadership by communicating what he wanted as a set of principles that others could act upon. Whether you agree or disagree with the political ends, the approach worked.

Part of the reason we Democrats hate Cheney is that he was so freaking effective at the awful things he did. If Obama puts a similar style into action, his power as a force for good will be magnified; if he insists on being personally involved in every decision, the scope of his leadership will be limited. This is good advice for any leader.

[cyrano1]

Dead on! You gave a great distillation of the article.

I think most of us are pretty sure Obama is smart enough to pick people who are on the same page with him as well as dig into the details. The job I wouldn't want delegated to me is the eye-glazing prospect of having to wade through thousands of pages of bills and proposals in order to parse out their actual intent and possible side-effects (consequences) if passed.

[QWERTY007]

WOW!
Dick Cheney goes from Evil Incarnate to Role Model.

[dmsdzinr]

YES! Obama CAN learn from Dick Cheney, exactly WHAT NOT TO DO!

[bioluminescence]

The only lesson I hope we'll learn from Cheney is how to leave the scene gracefully and close the door quietly behind you.

[NotMcCain]

Dishonesty. Secrecy to the point of paranoia.

Disregard for the Constitution. Disdain for the American people.

Doing anything to help his corporate buddies get richer--even when thousands young men and women have to die in the effort.

No. There is absolutely NOTHING for Obama to learn from Cheney. He has destroyed our country and has no regrets about doing it.

[bethinCary]

One of the things I learned in a Stas & Prob class about quality control is to be a good,effective manager-you have to walk the floors and keep in touch with the workers..
GW tried to tout his Exec or CEO experience as having been the manager of a failed energy business (Harkin) and a baseball team owner..but someone who put himself above the fray of everyday matters..
He ran the Presidency the same way-(and into the ground with Cheney & neocons bad policy advice).
Cheney even had the audacity to flip the public off-telling reporters he didn't care about poll numbers of his approval ratings..the product of his own Washingtonian bubble-encased, wrong arrogance.

I think President -Elect Obama knows the distinction-having been a grassroots organizer-and the difference in his own managerial style compared to GW to get things done..
Obviously from the campaign he's run, to his winning the election--it's a strategy he himself knows well and has faith in and is successful at..

[jcheadsup]

Forget what Obama can learn from Cheney, and concentrate on what he can learn from us. Such as a government project I called SOLAR WIND BORDERS, or, SWB, which is to build power generating Wind Mills, and Solar Panels, to run the entire length of both our North and South boarders. Frankly I believe that a project such as SWB not only create jobs and clean renewable electric power, but would also help to secure our borders, (from both terrorist, and illegal immigration), simply because it would give us more then one good reason to be on our borders. SOLAR WIND BORDERS, one solution for multiple problems.

[AbrahamSadegh]

In the galaxy of past and present statesmen and public figures there must surely be many whom our President-elect could if necessary emulate than Richard Bruce Cheney who has had a direct hand in the disastrous policies of at least the last nearly eight years and whose priorities and concerns seem to apply primarily to a fraction of our society.

[daddysboy]

The exiting vice president was not a force for good in any way and has no characteristics that any respectable person should emulate. The general idea of focusing on specific goals and relying on distributed leadership is sound, but cheney used fear and intimidation to achieve group-think and that is totally unacceptable as a way to treat human beings. I am confident that Obama will engage all of the new administration quite effectively once he is in the office since his REAL talent has always been organizing people from a grass-roots level which is exactly what the new position will demand.

[TessyRenberg]

From what i understand Cheney repeatedly cornered representatives and got them to make decisions on scant distorted information and resultant fear.

Congress did not see themselves unified as an essential free standing branch in the tripod of government. They saw themselves as either on the presidents team or against, along with other caucus groups within the family.

So lesson i would see from it is to stay in a group and talk to each other. Reinforce one another and remember congress duty to defend the constitution, represent the constituents. Cecks and balances must be restored.

[WilliamL]

Although the snarl is def. something NOONE needs to exercise, the ear to ear grin as if from a toothpaste commericial, has already gotten old. It has always seems a bit excessive and more than a bit rediculous.

I can bet that it will not be too long before the weight of that smile is replaced with a truer reflection of the gravity of the situation being faced by this country, the vast majority of the citizens, and esp. those who have been on endless rotations in the middle-east.

Sooner than later, I hope he puts on a face that is more appropriate to what is going on. He needs to save that smile for his wife and children as he will need it once he begins to wade into the sewage that has been created in the past, going on, eight years.

[justice4juveniles]

I would never characterize Obama's smile as a grin. There is not much cynicism or sarcasim coming from that beautiful, natural, genuine smile. And, it never gets old. It sounds like you're carrying a bit of a grudge. Toothpaste commercial? How stupid.

[CostaDelBarto]

Effectiveness in getting an agenda implemented is not the same thing as good governance and the neocons are the proof.

[aris53m]

Obama should learn that we do not make a country flat as a pie and we get our own companies to re-build it. Its....how can I say it? Conflict of interest?

[samuelhendricks]

.

Armchair shrinkery:

Unlike the rest of the entire Bush crowd, which seems to have been driven by desperate egos in need of validation (c.f.: Clinton), Cheney and only Cheney appears to act in the interest of some force beyond himself, as if he were simply the messenger for a truth that -- even if we are incapable of understanding the need for mass murder -- we must understand.

This behavior is probably why the concept of Satan was invented.

Just a lousy shot from Wyoming with a perverse sense of history.

Obama also has a strange vibe of ego detatchment, but in a much better way. He don't need no lesson from Dick.
.

[Helmsey]

The only example that Cheney has set, is what not to do in a position of power. Obama needs to take the high road, not the incredibly low one set by the VP.