The Great Ingratiator

...Taylor Branch, Baltimore, MD...

...It is true that Bush has worked hard to create just that impression, and he has succeeded to a remarkable degree, judging by the poll results Edwards cites...

...We use humans...

...Managing Editor: vacant...

...Much the same point can be made about the abortive midsummer Kremlin coup, which enhanced the president’s reputation as some sort of latter-day Metternich...

...Fred Stanback Jr., Salisbury, NC...

...Come on...

...Similarly, Sinclair, in analyzing Bush’s frustrations with Capitol Hill, seeks to rebut Bush’s critics by emphasizing what she calls “contextual factors,” chiefly the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate...

...Charles Peters, Washington, DC...

...9. Not applicable...

...Bush hedged his one time or another...

...A president who doesn’t ‘do domestic...

...Though Quirk concedes that part of the problem rests with divided government, he argues that Bush’s record reflects as well “his own limitations of style and strategy, his failure to establish a legislative agenda, his willingness to promote least-commondenominator arguments, and above all, his penchant for rigidity and rhetorical excess, especially on taxes...

...Indeed, though he will never be The Great Communicator, Bush can certainly be hailed as The Great Ingratiator...

...7. Owner: The Washington Monthly Co., an unincorporated joint venture between The Washington Monthly Corporation and The Washington Monthly Limited Partnership, of which The Washington Monthly Publishing Corporation is sole general partner...

...A nation that allows its social problems to mount,” they write, “may find its claim to moral leadership and the attractiveness of its ideals to be increasingly questioned by other people around the world...

...Alexander Ewing, Millbrook, Ny, James Fallows, Washington, DC...

...As a result, he obligated himself to propose more in the way of domestic programs than he has chosen to offer...

...Robert Shogan covers national politics for the Los Angeles Times and is the author of The Riddle of Power: Presidential Leadership From Truman to Bush...

...D. Free distribution by mail, carrier or other means...

...William Schulz, Phoenix, AZ...

...Joseph Cole, Lyndhurst, OH...

...Phil Keisling, Portland, OR Roger S. Kuhn, Bethesda, MD...

...Owners of 1 percent or more of shares of The Washington Monthly Limited Partnership: Preston Brown, Washington, DC...

...One finds a vision on the global stage...

...Hugh Sidey, Potomac, MD...

...You know, you’re the frontrunner now,” I reminded him...

...B. Annual subscription price: $35.00...

...Estate of Carol Trueblood, Washington, DC...

...Nor is that any gentleman whom Bush put in charge of his White House...

...Edgar Kaiser Jr., Femie, British Columbia, Canada...

...Unfortunately, Bush’s exploitation of racial politics is scarcely addressed in this book...

...To their credit, Berman and Jentleson give the president low marks first for coddling Saddam and then for failing to warn him off before he invaded Kuwait, concluding: “This is a crisis that could renegades briefly seized Dower...

...Their reasoning goes something like this: Because of the huge federal budget deficit and the division of power and responsibility between the Republican White House and the Democratic Congress, the 1988 campaign, Rockman writes, was “devoid of policy ideas” and dominated by “symbols and innuendoes...

...The most widely noted example was his “Read my hips” rejoinder to questions about his broken promise to oppose tax increases...

...Some contributors buy into this idea heavily...

...Paul Quirk, whose chapter on domestic policy is understandably the shortest in the book, concludes that Bush “arguably had the least domestic policy achievement in his first two years in office of any president since the twenties...

...I don’t have to stand here and defend the campaign of 1988,” Bush replied...

...John Spencer, Middlebury, VT...

...The fault is not one of personal frailties, ineptitude, and disreputable motives, as the media often suggests,” she argues, “but of structures, incentives, and conflicting policy goals...

...But the fact is, many people who voted for George Bush in 1988 did so in part because he gave them reason to believe he would strive to cure those ills and so improve their lives...

...That’s a handsome coat,” I said...

...Finally, and most importantly, the authors remind “We don’t bother with animals anymore,yy he said...

...Myth 3 Bush is doing as well as could be expected, given the conditions he has had to face...

...G. Total: (32,577) 36,000...

...25 cloth...

...When the rightist sacrificed to make it...

...Race crops up only briefly, in references to the ugliness of the 1988 campaign and, rather benignly, in the discussion of the ill-fated 1990 civil rights legislation...

...In reality, have been avoided...

...To those looking for social programs as a cure for some of the maladies affecting American society, I suggest they devote their energies to electing Democratic presidents,” Rockman advises...

...Gene Gordon, Bethesda, MD...

...Statement of Ownership, Management and Circulation (Required by 39 U.S.C...

...Not all her colleagues agree...

...Those unfilled promises helped him carry 40 states...

...Inc., New York, NY...

...All entities at 1611 Connecticut Ave...

...From these pages, three minimalist myths take shape as most important in rationalizing Bush’s stewardship...

...For all the heavy-handed symbolism about the flag and Willie Horton, Bush said enough about improving education, protecting the environment, and fostering social betterment to persuade voters that he saw a bigger need for government to play a role in their lives than Reagan did...

...Owners of 1 percent or more of stock in The Washington Monthly Publishing Corporation: Alfred C. Clark, New York, NY Joseph D. Crowley, New Haven, CT...

...That is John Sununu, who, when he was in what his boss might have described as deep doo-doo, turned on the Jews...

...Julien Phillips, San Mateo, CA...

...Another instance, in its way just as brash, was his response after the 1989 state and local elections to the widely heard contention that the negativism marring that campaign was a product of the nastiness that had been the hallmark of his own drive for the presidency in 1988...

...NW, Washington, DC 20009...

...As for Bush himself, it is hard to square the classic Tory’s reverence for social harmony with his willingness to manipulate racial tensionsduring the campaign by his use of the infamous Willie Horton commercial and now during his presidency by his drumbeat reiteration of the socalled quota issue...

...5. Complete mailing address of the headquarters of general business oftices of the publisher: same...

...Thus, Rockman writes, Bush’s leadership style “tends to blend into a set of political circumstances that offer him slim pickings...

...Nice Guy myth got started...

...Tom Peters, Palo Alto, CA...

...I’ve got Big Mo...

...Suzannah Lessard, New York, Ny, Estate of Peter Lisagor, Arlington, VA...

...A. Whitney Ellsworth, New York, NY...

...People are going to want to know what you stand for...

...3685) 1. A. Title of publication: The Washington Monthly...

...The question of whether Saddam Hussein’s threat to U.S...

...B. Paid circulation: 1. Sales through dealers and carriers, street vendors, and counter sales: (6,627) 7,018...

...Owners of 1 percent or more of stock of The Washington Monthly Corporation: Timothy J. Adams, Washington, DC...

...2. Date of filing: October 1, 1991...

...Since he came to the White House we have all heard Bush display the same cavalierness in more serious contexts...

...PKL Co...

...We don’t bother with animals anymore,” he said...

...The second flaw in the “Bush is doing as well as could be expected” argument is that it overstates the political obstacles confronting him...

...As I got to know Bush better I came to realize that beneath that well-bred veneer lurked a broad streak of arrogance...

...samples, complimentary, and other free copies: (1,431) 1.21 1. E. Total distribution: (29,228) 33,703...

...Ann Peretz, Cambridge, MA...

...CirCampbell, S.J., Bert A. Rockman, eds...

...In another time a chief executive making such an admission would have risked being jeered out of town...

...Carole Lee Smith, Salem, OR...

...Editor, Charles Peters, 1611 Connecticut Ave...

...I’d be perfectly prepared to do it, but I was elected...

...I’m just going to keep going,” he replied...

...So he was...

...As for Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, which are commonly regarded as the central achievements not just of Bush’s foreign policy but also of his presidency, the authors fail to critically examine the assumptions on which the policies that led to the war were based...

...When nothing was called for it was done well...

...But the reader has a right to expect more from such a scholarly study than judgments taken from polls...

...Philip M. Stem, Washington, DC...

...E Copies not distributed: 1. Office use, left over, unaccounted, spoiled after printing: (722) 2,162...

...He adds that “it is not difficult to suppose that another president . . . could have accomplished more than Bush did...

...Its impact is to lower standards, shrink expectations, diminish accountability, and convert the political landscape into a wasteland barren of purpose or belief...

...Sidney B. Sachs, Washington, DC...

...More precisely, a team of 11 political scientists have examined the pieces of a presidency the whole of which barely equals the sum of its parts...

...Joseph Rosenfield, Des Moines, IA...

...But in this minimalist era, Bush’s division of presidential labor was accorded the ultimate in solemnization-a Time magazine cover story heralding the president as “Men of the Year...

...This analysis has at least two basic defects...

...These myths reflect the minimalist outlook that in the post-Reagan era has come to dominate evaluations not just of Bush but of our entire political system...

...opposition by dispatching Ambassador Robert Strauss, the mikado of expediency, to Moscow and ting off grain credits...

...He is warm, sincere, relaxed, and secure . . . he is a person most people like...

...The Bush who dealt with reporters exuded charm and civility, never failing to grant an interview request or return a phone call...

...What poor animal was sacrificed to make it?’ Bush never blinked an eye...

...2. Return from news agents: (2,627) 135...

...The outcome left Bush in the White House, without a mandate, facing a Congress still firmly controlled by Democrats...

...But they offer no eviby holding back from cut- “We use humans...

...they scold him for the calus of the reality that foreign and domestic policy are inextricably linked, a reality that Bush and his admirers prefer not to recognize...

...Furthermore, the authors seem to suggest that Bush’s adventures in the Gulf represent something of a turning point in his thinking, a step towards formulating a coherent global vision...

...It was over this terrain that the last presidential campaign was waged, pitting one candidate who designated himself champion of a competence he could not demonstrate against another whose best-remembered phrase was the ultimately hollow injunction to read his lips...

...Lydia R. Sullivan...

...The chapter also refutes the more fundamental fallacy that the president’s burdensome domestic responsibilities can be neatly severed from his more gratifying role as diplomat-in-chief, as if through some sort of lobotomy...

...Chatham, $16.95 paper...

...On a personal level, it is easy to see how the Mr...

...6. Names and complete addresses of publisher, editor, and managing editor: Publisher, Lydia R. Sullivan, 161 1 Connecticut Ave...

...Just so...

...Glowing with confidence, Bush seemed convinced he was all but inaugurated...

...This myth, which is at the heart of the minimalist case, seems to have been accepted by several contributors...

...security really required the massive onslaught unleashed against his country is never addressed...

...They Bush’s back- “That’s a handsome coat,” I document his inability to ing of Mikhail Gorbachev offer one cleat reason for left the Soviet president said...

...2. Mail subscription: (21,170) 25,474...

...8. Known bondholders, mortgagees, and other security holders owning or holding 1 percent or more of total amount of bonds, mortgages, or other securities: Marline Resources Company, 645 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10022...

...NW, Washington, DC 20009...

...The truth is that in both foreign and domestic policy, Bush has never had a clear sense of direction and never particularly needed one...

...in a . . . mostly pastel time...

...Coeditor Campbell adds a measure of balance by pointing out that Bush’s conduct in the 1988 campaign (“one of the ugliest in memory”) showed the significant dark side of the president’s character...

...Fostered by the antigovernment, antipolitics rhetoric of Reagan and the haplessness of the Democratic opposition, the minimalist creed makes a virtue out of the limitations of political leadership...

...Warren Buffett, Omaha, NE...

...The Bush Presidency: First Appraisals...

...But, they point out, prior to the Gulf war, Bush’s responses “tended to be characterized as more reactive than proactive, more udrzft than imaginative” [their emphasis...

...One of this book’s strongest chapters, “The PostCold War World,” by foreign policy specialists Larry Berman and Bruce Jentleson, serves to debunk the myth that Bush’s diplomatic endeavors are informed by the imagination and purpose so conspicuous by their absence from his domestic policies...

...Myth 1 . . :. The bifurcated presidency: Bush’s strength in foreign policy, it is alleged, offsets and arguably even transcends his weakness as a domestic leader...

...Russell Baker, Leesburg, VA...

...Despite Bush’s rhetoric early in his presidency about the need for American leadership to face the challenges of a changing world, the authors write, “no Bush doctrine or grand design existed for meeting the collective security needs of a new world order...

...NW, Washington, DC 20009...

...Unforeseen events-notably the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the October 1989 coup against Manuel Noriega-ffered Bush rich opportunities for leadership...

...Bush looked puzzled...

...They are entitled to expect greater value from his leadership than they have so far received...

...The latter candidate emerged victorious as the prototypical politician of the minimalist era-in the words of coeditor Bert Rockman, “a pastel political personality...

...Polls, after all, are based on fleeting impressions derived from mass media all too easily manipulated by the president and his advisors...

...Soon after the 1980 election, as I went through the reception line at a party at the vice-presidential residence, I noticed Bush was wearing a striking suede blazer...

...Murray Kempton, New York, NY...

...3. Frequency of issue: monthly except combined JanuarylFebruary and July/August...

...Other contributors not only accept Bush as an upstanding personality, they endow him with a set of ideological beliefs to match...

...3. A. Number of issues published annually: 10...

...As it turned out, the momentum ran out that year, but the same principle of substituting personal energy for ideas did carry him where he wanted to go in 1988...

...This myth is intended to disguise the absence of any coherent theme or policy framework, foreign or domestic...

...A. Total number of copies printed: (32,577) 36,000...

...Bush “certainly did not want to be the third president in history . . . to veto a civil rights bill,” writes Barbara Sinclair in her chapter on Bush and Congress...

...Bush’s objective was to exculpate Nixon’s criminality on the grounds that Democrats did it too-not the sort of behavior one would expect from a high-minded Tory...

...Joseph Freitas Jr., San Francisco, CA...

...fications he put forward at dence to show that the president’s talk of “a new world order” amounted to anything more than an attempt to rationalize his swinging a big stick in the Mideast...

...First, it ignores the real promises Bush made during the 1988 campaign...

...Matthew Nemerson, New Haven, CT...

...Thus Rockman, in his chapter on Bush’s leadership style, describes him as “an old fashioned Tory” whose “style of operation is fundamentally boardroom politics and brokerage among ‘proper gentlemen.’ ” Similarly, another contributor defines Bush as “an American Tory, looking for harmony, social and otherwise...

...Yet it was this same Bush who, at the onset of Watergate, launched a smear campaign against a longtime Democratic operative on Capitol Hill, whom he accused on the flimsiest of evidence of having conducted electronic snooping on Republicans years before...

...But the gentlemanly Tory image is contravened by the behavior of the politician and his chief subordinates...

...Myth 2 . Bush is a nice guy who finished first in 1988-a conservative, yes, but one with a caring conscience and a commitment to noblesse oblige...

...4. Complete mailing address of known office of publication: 1611 Connecticut Ave...

...I lous disregard that characterized his muddled handling of the rebellious Kurds in the aftermath of the war...

...Robert Hellawell, Demarest, NJ...

...The Great Ingratiator How George Bush fools us all by Robert Shogan t is only fitting that the first book-length assessIm ent* of George Bush’s tenure in the Oval Office has been propagated by committee...

...And thanks to the minimalists, he has so far not had to defend his presidency very vigorously either...

...A Tale of Two Bushes,” read the headline...

...C. Total paid andor requested circulation: (27,797) 32,492...

...Last October, when he was up to his neck in the budget deficit and losing ground in the polls, Bush remarked on how he reveled in the challenges of foreign policy, adding glumly: “On the domestic side, here I am with Democratic majorities . . . having to try to persuade them to do what I think is best...

...And it’s complicated...

...James C. Thomson Jr., Cambridge, MA...

...The Elizabeth E. Chilton Marital Trust, Charleston, WV...

...And Bush never blinked an eye...

...I remember encountering him on the morning of his first great national political triumph-his upset over Reagan in the 1980 Iowa Republican caucuses...

...Extent and nature of circulation: (average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months) actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date...

...George Bush has a congenial personality,” writes George Edwards in his chapter on “The Public Presidency...

...the other still displays none at home...

...New Haven Terminal, New Haven, CT...

...What poor animal was the war, ticking off no fewand his perestroika vulner- er than eight different justiable...

...If ever there was a moment when little initiative-taking was exactly the right position to take, that moment was when Bush came into office,” Rockman writes...

...Estate of Carol Trueblood, Washington, DC...

...Stuart W. Thayer, New York, Ny, Howard W. Young, Washington, DC...

...In the process they have provided a range of informed and sometimes clashing perspectives for examining the myths that underlie the conventional wisdom about Bush’s White House leadership...

...To argue otherwise, to offer “contextual factors” and the absence of a mandate as excuses for nonfeasance in office, is to give up on evaluating Bush’s performance and grant him a free ride for the rest of his presidency...

...I shared that view myself when I first met Bush nearly 20 years ago, when he was Richard Nixon’s handpicked choice to run the Republican National Committee...

...Richard L. Ottinger, Washington, DC...

...I certify that the statements made by me above are correct and complete...

...John Rothchild, Miami, n, Eleanor Rovere, Tarrytown, NY...

...Morton Mandel, Cleveland, OH...

...Only as the putsch collapsed did Bush publicly recognize Boris Yeltsin’s importance as a rallying point for the forces of incipient Soviet democracy...

...B. Publication number: 704640...

...No one has done more to promote this notion of schizoid leadership than Bush himself, who with artful artlessness, as Colin Campbell points out, “took the words out of many observers’ mouths by styling himself as a foreign-as against domesticpolicy president...

...Kanawha Banking and Trust, Trustee of John D. Rockefeller IV, Charleston, WV, Fiona Beck, Washington, DC...

...That was no gentleman Bush hired to run his campaign against Michael Dukakis-that was the late Lee Atwater, who, when the campaign was in trouble, turned it against blacks...

...They succeeded in generating “a spate of articles” that argued, as one journalist wrote, that Bush had converted himself from “pit bull” to “statesman far removed from the fray of the campaign...

...But judging from Bush’s post-veto statements and his harangues against the 1991 legislation, which have outraged Democrats and embarrassed some in his own party, it seems clear that a veto-and the chance to inflame the quota issue-is exactly what Bush did want...

...Nancy M. Folger, Washington, DC...

...NW, Washington, DC 20009...

...Surely this is how Bush would like others to see him...

...In his chapter on “The White House and the Cabinet” Campbell adds, “Well aware that the campaign had tarnished his image, the ‘spin doctors’ went to work in an attempt to show that it had not reflected the true George Bush...