Dr. Potomac's Memo: Special Post-Christmas Double-Bumper Edition


Is W Better than Reagan?
Shortly after 9/11, I took note as a whisper went up among Bush Administration political appointees that described the Boss as "better than Reagan." Better than the Gipper? On what basis could one possibly compare President Misunderestimated with the Great Communicator?

So, for the past several weeks, I have treated myself to a careful reading of Lou Cannon's, President Reagan: the Role of a Lifetime. (For the gentle readers not familiar with Cannon, he is a reporter who followed Reagan's career from his early campaign for governor of California, his presidential bids in 1968 and 1976 through his presidential terms.) It turns out that all W's men just might be right, and I'll tell you why.

Reagan's great strengths - his optimism, his ability to connect with the public, his ideological clarity, especially concerning the role of government and the communist threat -- are universally acknowledged, even by long-time adversaries. The core of these strengths is that, in Cannon's phrase, Reagan "carried American within him." In his beliefs, life and work, Reagan literally embodied all that Americans believe is good about their country. This foundation gave him the ability to firmly and consistently call for a limited government that fulfilled its primary mission to protect the lives and freedoms of its citizens.

W. has clearly absorbed the ideological lessons of the Reagan era: tax cuts to prime the economy and limit the expansion of government; a strong national defense deployed to protect American lives and interests. Reagan and W., like the hedgehog, know the big things that must be done to keep American strong and free.

So, what makes W. better? A single word, I think, that W. would have meditated on extensively at Harvard Business School: management. Lou Cannon's Reagan is a man extremely ill at ease with management. He refused to adjudicate stark policy disagreements between his senior advisors. Rather than choose between the Weinberger and Schultz views of the world, Reagan, tried to find a compromise between them leading to debacles like Lebanon.

We haven't seen anything like that under W's leadership. State and Defense snipe, certainly, but in the final analysis, W. lines up with the Rumsfeld view of the world and Powell falls in line. Reliable sources tell me this President spends an extraordinary amount of time on personnel decisions precisely because he recognizes that his choices of senior officials are his best, and at times only, opportunity to shape the policy of his Administration. Finally, W. insists at all times on results. The Government Performance and Accountability Act of the Clinton Administration is getting a real work-out in the Bush Administration. A bureaucracy used to justifying itself by process alone is being forced to produce tangible, measurable and verifiable results. Frankly, it is difficult conceiving of the Gipper, who in his heart despised government, caring much about either its inputs or its products. W. has decided that if Americans are going to pay this much for government they are jolly well going to get something in return.


The Promise of Dean
I am reaching a Zen-like state of serenity about next year's elections and it is more than just the sizzling economy, galloping stock market, and photos of Saddam Hussein's dental check ups. No, the really great news is the sure eye and steady aim Dr. Dean has demonstrated in blasting way half the toes on both feet.

This week the country has been treated to an exposition on religion a la Dean. On Sunday, the Washington Post reported that Dean would be speaking more about his religious faith. He explained, in those raspy, Deanian tones that are condescending even, one suspects, when he reads aloud from the backs of soup cans, that he would be descending from the Olympian heights of New England to share his religious views with the nation, and especially the rubes of the South. (One could almost hear the low moan rise across Dixie, "Oh, GAWD, here he comes again.") Not content to leave bad enough alone, on Wednesday, the Governor averred as how these very same religious beliefs, about which he has such strong, quiet, manly feelings, have led him to support civil unions for gays. Hmmm.

It requires examination to determine how the political strategy of Wednesday Dean disembowels that of Sunday Dean. Sunday Dean was, apparently, trying to reposition himself among whatever white evangelicals are still voting in the South Carolina Democratic primary. He may also have been looking down the road to November when he would need a slice of the "soft" evangelicals of the Midwest - the ones who voted for Clinton, and you know who you are - to carry, say, Missouri.

Now, let us suspend our disbelief momentarily and assume for the moment that a sustained, year-long effort by Dean to persuade evangelicals of his deep religious convictions would dull the senses of enough of the white evangelical vote to make him competitive in the border states and the Midwest. Governor Flub-a-Dub eviscerated his own strategy by revealing to those evangelicals on Wednesday a theology flexible enough to sanction homosexual relationships ("From a religious point of view," says Dean, "if God had thought homosexuality is a sin, he would not have created gay people"). The only conclusion to be drawn from this is that Dean shares the Washington Post's view that evangelicals are "poorly educated and easily led." You can be sure these voters will return the compliment when the opportunity arises.

As for me, it is heaven, nirvana, really, to see to see cultural arrogance, religious ignorance and an astonishing absence of self-discipline creating such a political washout for Democrats. Dean is poised, if that is the word, to bring on an electoral college disaster for his party and hand over a number of Senate seats in the process. The election can't come too soon.