Reading John Dean’s latest column about George Bush is frightening. He argues plausibly that Bush is a loose cannon who has not come near to shooting his last bolt out of his locker. He argues that Bush may be planning a nuclear strike against Iran in a desperate attempt to revive his sliding popularity. He bases his new belief on a psychological analysis of all the presidents done by Political Scientist James Dave Barber.
Barber analyzed all of the presidents based on psychological characteristics and was able to group them into several categories. He evaluated them based on how active they were towards their job as well as their attitudes towards the job. He found that presidents like Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy were both active and positive towards their job. Not coincidentally, they were two of our most effective presidents. People like Ronald Reagan were Passive/Positive – they did not do a lot of work, but had a positive attitude towards their job. The scary part comes with the Active/Negative Presidents – they are the ones most likely to be among our worst presidents. Bush, Herbert Hoover, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Woodrow Wilson are among such presidents.
Not one single one of these presidents has left the White House in good shape. Nixon resigned in disgrace, Wilson’s grandiose dream of a League of Nations led to a landslide defeat in the 1920 election, Hoover refused to allow any kind of government intervention during the Depression, and Johnson continued to escalate the war in Vietnam in the face of mounting opposition. For Dean, Bush’s bizzare defense of Donald Rumsfeld is a perfect example:
Yet Bush’s defense of Rumsfeld was entirely substance-free. Bush simply told reporters in the Rose Garden that Rumsfeld would stay because “I’m the decider and I decide what’s best.” He sounded much like a parent telling children how things would be: “I’m the Daddy, that’s why.”
This, indeed, is how Bush sees the presidency, and it is a point of view that will cause him trouble.
Bush has never understood what presidential scholar Richard Neustadt discovered many years ago: In a democracy, the only real power the presidency commands is the power to persuade. Presidents have their bully pulpit, and the full attention of the news media, 24/7. In addition, they are given the benefit of the doubt when they go to the American people to ask for their support. But as effective as this power can be, it can be equally devastating when it languishes unused – or when a president pretends not to need to use it, as Bush has done.
Apparently, Bush does not realize that to lead he must continually renew his approval with the public. He is not, as he thinks, the decider. The public is the decider.
Bush is following the classic mistaken pattern of active/negative presidents: As Barber explained, they issue order after order, without public support, until they eventually dissipate the real powers they have — until “nothing [is] left but the shell of the office.” Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon all followed this pattern.
In addition, Active/Negative presidents are risk-takers – they cannot be bothered with the real challenges of governing, so they take colossal risks, such as Bush’s decision to keep Rumsfeld or his invasion of Iraq. Dean argues that it is therefore reasonable to expect an October surprise – such as a nuclear strike of Iran. Other possibilities include the dismissal of Cheney or the securing of a united front against Iran.
This all depends on the individual circumstances of Bush’s situation. His presidency, like no other, is governed by PR and spin. A plurality of Americans would support an attack on Iran, but that support has dropped since January. Key voices, like Tom Friedman, who supported Bush’s attack on Iraq, have flat-out refused to support a similar attack on Iran, citing Rumsfeld. Senator Harry Reid has also come out against an attack on Iran; this is totally different from Daschle and Gephardt, who wrote key pieces of the Iraq War resolution.
A lot also depends on Bush I. We know that he is infuriated at his son’s unilateralism. It could well be that he could undermine his son’s presidency by blackmailing him into an Internationalist approach if he is not already. We know that the elder Bush considered himself first and foremost a statesman who specialized in building international coalitions. We also know that Tony Blair has flat-out refused to support an air strike on Iran, even as he demands a united front against Iran.
The elder Bush is a CIA man who was doubtless infuriated by his son’s leak of Plame’s name to the press. He has publicly stated in the past that he has no respect for people that do this sort of thing. Therefore, I suggest that he could threaten to reveal inconvenient secrets about his son’s past unless he follows his agenda. That would explain the reduction of Rove’s role in the White House, the dismissal of Scott McClellan, the demand of the new chief of staff that everybody in Bush’s cabinet think long and hard about whether they wanted to continue, the reduction of Rumsfeld’s role.
I suggest that Bush is plotting against Cheney. Given the fact that the White House is totally governed by PR and spin, it could well be that Bush sees Cheney as a major liability to be gotten rid of at all costs. Insight, the magazine of the Moonie Times, is reporting that Cheney and Rumsfeld are about to be shown the door after being shut out of major policy discussions; only Rove could have reported these details to them.
Therefore, I see Bush as plotting to get rid of Cheney and Rumsfeld and deciding between Guliani and McCain as his new Vice President. We know that McCain asked all his supporters to vote for Bush in a recent straw poll. We also know that McCain is kissing and making up with the religious right. Therefore, I suggest that Bush is pursuing a combination of creating a united diplomatic front against Iran, forcing them to back down or isolate themselves, and plotting against Cheney, who could “resign” for “health reasons,” to be replaced by McCain.
However, a nuclear strike of Iran might still be on the table, given the fact that Bush is a big risk-taker. If his numbers continue to slide, it is possible that he might decide that he would have nothing to lose by such a strike.
