MBA president's success leaves Dems out in cold

The first snowstorm of the season covered Washington on Thursday with an uncharacteristic coat of innocence. Despite its workaholic veneer, this city regards a few inches of snow as a welcome liberation from the heavens. This early premonition of winter brought with it the beguiling notion that it is possible to postpone adult responsibilities since this is, after all, a snow day.

The weather underlines the reality that this December is a time of waiting. War with Iraq looms, yet there is little to do as we wait for the president's response to the seemingly inevitable provocation from Baghdad. Within the snow-capped White House, speechwriters are already working on early drafts of President Bush's State of the Union Address next month. But for outsiders, patience is required as we wait to see how this often-underestimated president will interpret his mandate from the congressional elections.

Democrats, too, are caught in the waiting game. The next six weeks or so should reveal the identity of the party's candidates for the coming presidential race. Will Al Gore try to even the score in '04 with the president Democrats deplore? Will Tom Daschle make his dash for the White House? Trying to divine the answers is like staring in frustration at a pile of gaily-wrapped Christmas presents, knowing they will remain unopened until the proper moment.

For all of Washington's snow-blown beauty, an icy layer of partisan anger lurks below the surface. The new Congress is certain to raise the decibel level on Capitol Hill with bitter ideological clashes between conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats. Both parties have a dwindling number of let's-cut-a-deal moderates. Only a few mavericks, like GOP Sen. John McCain of Arizona, cling to the old-fashioned belief that legislating is predicated on compromise.

Bitter distrust of the rival party is not confined to Congress. In an overtly political speech Tuesday to the Democratic Leadership Council in New York, Bill Clinton lambasted the "increasingly right-wing and bellicose conservative press." Yes, the vast right-wing conspiracy remains a centerpiece of Democratic faith. As Clinton put it, "They have a destruction machine. We don't have a destruction machine."

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich might beg to differ.

Clinton's words reflected the widespread Democratic belief that most Republicans are not only wrong, but also dangerously cynical. Republicans, too, cannot resist the urge to demonize their political opponents. Long before Monica Lewinsky ensnared a president, Republicans spoke of Clinton with the same tone of bitter contempt. It is embarrassing to remember how many prominent Republicans swapped outlandish conspiracy theories after the 1993 suicide of Clinton aide Vince Foster. Something unhealthy in our political system causes each president to be portrayed in the most vicious and derisive terms.

These days, Democrats cannot seem to get beyond the notion that the president is an inarticulate lightweight. At best, they depict Bush as an amiable puppet running his seven-minute miles while Dick Cheney runs the country. In politics, as in war, the cardinal rule is to know your enemy. By that standard, the Democrats have paid a high price for their lack of interest in viewing Bush in anything other than cartoonish terms. As the Democrats bind their wounds after their recent electoral setbacks, they have theories to explain everything — except Bush's success.

Few Democrats have faced up to the reality that Bush and his fellow Republicans know how to manage the government. Stephen Hess, a scholar of the presidency at the Brookings Institution, says, "This is the best-run White House since Eisenhower." As Hess notes in a new edition of his book Organizing the Presidency, Bush "imposed his own ideas about running an executive office by making structural changes reflecting his priorities, goals and general approach to governing."

One of Hess' major examples is the creation of the Office of Strategic Initiatives under the direction of Bush's political guru, Karl Rove. The standard Democratic complaint about Rove is that his West Wing office reflects the unseemly contamination of policy with politics. But a senior veteran of the Clinton White House, who does not want to be quoted praising Bush, argues that it is naive to believe that any successful president can keep politics at arms length. Better to work out the politics of an issue in the White House than to depend on the advice of pollsters and consultants ushered into the Oval Office for weekly meetings.

Scant attention was paid during the 2000 campaign to Bush's MBA degree from Harvard. Bush did not emphasize his stint at Harvard because dwelling on it would have undermined his carefully cultivated pedigree as an anti-elitist Texan.

In hindsight, it is telling that Bush did not panic and purge his senior staff after losing the New Hampshire primary. Nor did the GOP nominee undermine the authority of Rove and his team after Gore surged ahead in the polls after the Democratic Convention.

Loyalty, as Bush knows, is a two-way street. Our first MBA president grasps basic truths about how praise and simple thank-yous help build a cohesive team. He understands that 18-hour days should not be seen as a badge of honor among staffers, but rather should be viewed as a symptom of a chaotic White House.

Democrats, a congenitally rambunctious party, are not inclined to appreciate the virtues of a clean-desk White House. But riding high as he nears the halfway mark of his term, Bush has demonstrated that order and discipline are key ingredients in a successful presidency.

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