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

[anelder]

There is a time tested observation that fits. Often our strongest and best traits can be our weakest areas. Hopefully Obama is aware of this.

I'm reading his books and hope to find this nugget of knowledge within.

[eschiesser]

I feel like everyone is missing the point of this article...­.

[notconfindtweenhatnboots]

Yes, they are. I initially expected to be able to respond to this article that Cheney's style of politics has been studyed for centuries, because every savy politician has studied "The Prince".

However, this article is much better than that. It warns against Obama taking on too much and not telegraphing his vision to his people. Reagan was a better known example of a President who didn't try to do it all, but delegated very well. Contrast Reagan's style to Carter, and you can see why one administration prospered while the other one floundered.

[PATina]

A lot of people got stuck on the word Cheney. I think the article would have been better received if he just outlined a general theory based on Cheney's style.

[WmC]

My guess is Cheney was so influential because he inspired fear. Everyone knew Cheney would carry a grudge to the grave and would retaliate whenever he was crossed. I'm not sure Obama has the same vengeful spirit in him that would be required to get subordinates to toe the line in the way Cheney was able to.

[donttasemebro]

You get pople to tow the line by enforcing the law and holding them to their oaths to uphold the Constitution.

[silentknight65]

Cheney the puppetmaster is the closest thing the USA has ever come to a fascist dictator. He (and Bush) should have been impeached years ago!!!!!

[CBS]

Totally agree. And there are no lessons to be learned from him.

[saxmaniac]

Agree, but there are lessons to be learned. First, when a subordinate tries to take over, he/she should be fired on the spot. Then tried for any number of crimes. Had GW the cojones, Cheney would have not bee a factor. Of course that assumes that GW even knew or cared what Cheney was doing, and that's where the problem is.

[mtflyer]

SO RIGHT! Thanks to a gutless Congress this has NOT happened. The "leadership" in the House, namely Nancy Pelosi promised that if she got 50,000 letters urging impeachement she would do something. Way more than that were sent and nothing was done. She plainly lied to the public and should be voted out as Speaker. I am a lifelong Democrat but I am the first to admit that we need to do some housecleaning in our own party before we can start removing the rest of the vermin infesting the Federal government. Pelosi, Reid, and Lieberman need to go!

[jps1369]

Steve, you make some good points here about the detrimental effects of micromanagement, and the efficiency with which Dick Cheney asserted his "Cheney-ism".

However, I must say that it is dangerous to advise anyone to look to Dick Cheney's methods as exemplary of anything other than dictatorial; under Cheney, things were done his way out of manipulation and fear, and although an effective means of pushing one's agenda, such methods are cancerous to the rest of the government, society, and most importantly democracy.

In the months leading up to November 4th's general election, I found myself following the presidential race very closely, and one topic that came up constantly, was the success of the Obama campaign, which was in almost every case, attributed to the campaigns constant empowerment of it's staffers and volunteers. Even so, it was made clear that Barack Obama was undoubtedly in charge.

I think Barack Obama will do quite well maintaining his own methods. The trust he's bestowed upon those he knows he can trust will be much more productive than the fear pushed by Cheney. As long as the transition process goes well, and Cheney's influence is sufficiently diminished following January 20th, I think we'll be in good hands.

[rmacspen]

I understand the idea of 'giving the devil his due'. Cheney is amazingly adroit at wielding power. But the lessons should be carefully drawn, and indeed, were Cheney not an extremist, many, possibly most of his 'getting things done' methods would have been non-starters. When secrecy is the watchword for everything you do, ummm that's a problem here in 'merica, right?!

[northstar11]

cheney had/has contempt for pretty much every person and rule he ever encountered.

right now he is under guidance from the courts to preserve records.
i think he will view that order with contempt and preserve those records he thinks we should see.
the rest will be shredded "by mistake naturally".

[Kristen777]

But remember, the neo-cons are the ones who came up with the practice of making people sign of "loyalty oaths" too. . . .

I don't think so . . . .

[K-Dog76]

Neocons came up with loyalty oaths... they've been around for thousands of years.

[paulfree17]

The loyalty oath should be toward the constitutution and the country.

There were too many people in the Bush / Cheney administration that put loyalty to the administration ahead of the constitution. (See Scooter Liibby). If Obama insists that everyone in his administration is loyal to the constitition then he will have a very successful administration.

[arethusa]

The best thing Obama could do would be to replace with all deliberate haste agency and department political appointees from the Bush administration. Cheney got his people into all the departments and agencies, and they were remarkably effective in silencing or replacing staff they deemed potentially unloyal (even when they were wrong). The purges of the civil service have been essentially illegal, I believe, because the effort has consistently been to politicize everything--even at small agencies like the NEH.

[K-Dog76]

arethusa, I think you contradict yourself

[PATina]

I think I get what you are trying to say... and I think it would have come across better if you had left Cheney out of it... and just put it out as a generic theory.

Basically, you think tit would be best if Obama allowed his people to "learn" his thought processes so that when they have to make decisions on their own... they will do it his way... instead of doing it their own way which coutd damage the Obama brand. It would also provide a seamless, consistent way of governing.

[Steve Clemons - Huffpost Blogger]

I think that Cheney telegraphed to staff and others throughout the government how he approached problems and what he would do in various parts of government. This was interesting to see happen. I have commented enough in print about my concern about Cheney's goals - but his methods in government deserve study. Some suspend thinking at the mere mention of "Cheney" and would rather blast the comparison - -but I think it's important for Obama to find away not to be ad hoc in his responses and not to position himself the way he did in the New Yorker article by Ryian Lizza...

[ConcernedAboutRFuture]

I believe his method was ruling with FEAR....an­d consequence to the disloyal. I do not, however, want to see that in President Obama.

You may argue that this is somewhat respectabl­e....but ruling with fear is NOT for the 21st century...­. let's leave it in the past.

[realpolitic]

Mr. Clemons, Democrats are just not by nature as ideological as Republicans. Cheney could accomplish so much because he surrounded himself with ideological zealots who believed in the primary executive, unilateralism, and had as much a disdain for checks and balances as he. For example, John Woo wrote memos saying the president has unlimited powers in time of warfare. Rumsfield, whom Cheney recommended for the job, organized an Office of Special Plans under Doug Feith that came up with all sorts of bogus "intelligence" about Saddam's weapon's capabiities. The whole house of cards depended on ideological zealots and a president who delegated himself out of any responsibilities. Cheney did use the system very well as when he would attempt to de-fund an agency investigating him.

What does this constituti­on-bending modus of operandi have to do with Obama? The Ryan Lizza article you point to describes a very efficiently run campaign where Obama himself says he will emerge "intact" after the campaign, meaning he would not sell out to any base as McCain felt he had to do. The article you point to does not paint Obama as a Machiavellian, but as a very smart, gifted politician with sound judgement and integrity.

[RoughSketch]

Why leave Cheney out of it? If we do that, then we run the risk of making the worst mistake possible: not learning from history. Everyone has something to teach.

You must wonder why the Bush Administration was so powerful for so long. It was a success insofar as it got whatever it wanted. There is much to be learned from this.

[PATina]

My point is... I think just said that Obama should telegraph his process to his subordinat­es... more people would have understood and agreed w/ his article.

Instead... at the mention of Dick Cheney... most commenters jumped on the defensive and didn't get his message.

[Chironomid]

That was a really long and complicated way to say "Obama will need to delegate some authority".

[Steve Clemons - Huffpost Blogger]

Obama needs to avoid Jimmy Carter's mistakes in management. . .and he needs to dissect and understand how Cheney moved policy more than any others in the Bush White House. It was because he didn't need to micromanage them and these followers understood Cheney's approach to issues better than they understood Bush.

best, Steve Clemons

[AnRoistac]

Quite right. Cheney's policies and methods are reprehensible, but he knows the pathways of power in the Federal Government. Case in point, as Gellman recounts: Cheney stopped the presses at the Government Printing Office on 1/20/2000. His reason? Regulations don't become law until they appear in the FEDERAL REGISTER. This made undoing many of Clinton's end-of-term executive orders a cinch to stop. Obama could do worse than study the way Cheney bent the government to his will.

[realpolitic]

Nothing in Obama's campaign or his past has shown a tendency to micromanage. in fact, Obama likes people around him with calm dispositions so he can avoid micromanaging. Cheney's approach was effective, but there are other effective approaches, such as moral suasion. Also, Obama will surround himself with those who know the system well. They have already found a way to quickly undue many of the Executive Orders that Bush is signing before he leaves office that will have the effect of harming the environment and loosening consumer protection laws.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/08/AR2008110801856.html?hpid=topnews

[ceasespin]

FixNewsNow.org

[RedDogBear]

Why in the world would Obama model himself in any way after Cheney? Yes, its true Cheney managed to fill the vacume that was George Bush's leadership and got people to be loyal to him. So What? To begin with, Obama doesn't have to "angle" for power. He has it. Cheney's style of managing power was more or less a model for how not to do it. He was closed, secretive, and surrounded himself with yes men who would follow orders, not people with intelligence and vision who would challenge him with alternate points of view. I suspect that this column was pretty much just an excuse for the author to plug his book on Cheney. For that I would like to recommend a much better book that I just finished: Your Government Failed You by Richard Clarke. Clarke is no liberal. He was part of the Reagan and Bush I administrations. But his book is an excellent description of how the basic concepts of good government have been ignored the last 8 years (and longer) and why and how we need to return to them. He has excellent high level ideas, examples from previous administrations, and concrete ideas. And the only place Cheny is referenced is as a model for how NOT to do things.

[Steve Clemons - Huffpost Blogger]

I didn't write the book on Cheney -- the Pulitzer Prize winning writer Barton Gellman did.

Sorry you can't see my argument. Cheney deployed power in ways that are important to understand. You are focused on Cheney's objectives, which were awful from any point of view -- but his methods are something else. best, steve clemons

[starboymikey]

Steve, perhaps what you're saying is that it is useful to be able to empathize with your enemy. As that old villain Robert McNamara pointed out in the great documentary "The Fog of War", empathy is not the same thing as sympathy. To empathize with your enemy is to understand his motives and methods, not necessarily to agree with them. The ability to empathize with your enemy is an important tool in being able to defeat him. If you can't understand what your enemy wants, why he wants it and how he sets about trying to get it, you are handicapping yourself and, in a sense, fighting blind.

Although I loathe practically everything Cheney stands for, I do agree that understanding what he was trying to do and how he went about doing it is necessary to understanding his success. If we allow our contempt for the man force us to avert our eyes from him, we do little more than bury our heads in the sand.

Having read "The Audacity of Hope" I have gotten a bit of insight into smart a politician Barack Obama is. Although he may not talk about it directly, I'm pretty certain Obama has studied the Bush administration and Dick Cheney in particular very closely.

[RedDogBear]

Sorry, that's not what I meant. Its not just that Cheney's objectives were bad but the manner that he "deployed power" was as well. You say "To be as successful as Dick Cheney... Obama is going to need to telegraph the secrets of "Obama-ism" to his people." You also mention Cheney calling some analyst and asking him a loaded question as a good examples of leadership. To me these are examples of what is so bad about Cheney's style. He doesn't encourage discussion or free and honest debate. Instead he surrounds himself with yes men who will be able to pick up his "mental telegraphy" and always agree. Its what gave us disasters like the decision to invade Iraq. Cheney would brow beat low level analysts who disagreed so that it soon became clear that providing honest analysis was a career limiting move. Cheney says "all the intelligence said that Iraq had WMD" but in fact he manipulated the system so that he stopped getting information that contradicted what he already wanted to hear. If you look at history, real leaders, people such as Lincoln, FDR, even General Patton, ENCOURAGED their subordinates to disagree and dissent.

[realpolitic]

But what do Cheney's methods, which hardly anyone would say respects the constitution, have to do with Obama?

[katlade]

This is off topic but has anyone noticed that the last few times Cheney has spoken in public,yesterday for Veteran's Day and a few weeks ago to endorse John McCain ,he looks thinner and both times was coughing. Is something up with that?

[DestinationsUnknown]

Who cares? Why would you even watch someone , not to mention on Veteran's Day, who dodged the draft FIVE TIMES ? What was that anyway?

[PATina]

Wow... is that like... why would you sit on a board w/ an unrepentant terrorist???

I swear some of you are a mirror image of Sarah Palin fans.

[JoeAmerican]

Sorry, this article was pointless. Cheney had power because his followers are sheep. There is nothing to learn from his "leadership" style. The Republican party has met such a rapid decline because no one bothered to stand up and be a loan voice of opposition. Instead they followed this administration right over the cliff.

Besides, you could substitute any authoritarian leader practically in this article and make the same arguments.

[DestinationsUnknown]

I agree 100%! Useless ! Why in the world would anyone follow the last 8 yrs of the idiots that just mouthed what they were told? What is incredible is the movie 'Body of War' ...(Check out the Senate floor excerpts..­..amazing) That was l all the proof anyone needed to see what BLIND SHEEP they all were. Quite embarrassing actually.

[RoughSketch]

I think this opinion is far too simplistic. He was able to keep thousands of people under his control. That is something to be learned from, and something to be feared at the same time. I think you should delve a bit deeper. Being dismissive to education and flippant about learning from past mistakes is exactly what drove the Republicans "off the cliff".

[Steve Clemons - Huffpost Blogger]

I disagree. Read the Barton Gellman book on Cheney some time and come back and chat.

best regards,

Steve Clemons