Like everyone else, I hope that President Obama pursues policies close to my heart. However, this post does not touch on those.
What follows would apply regardless of who had won the November election.
If I had the president's ear, I'd say something like this:
Congratulations, sir. You’ve got the job.
And as someone who was born when Truman was president, I’ve got something too – a favor to ask. Avoid the blunders your predecessors, Democrats and Republicans alike, have found irresistible.
First, minimize the number of political appointees to government bureaucracies. Often knowing zero about what they oversee, they foster inefficiency and error. Every department has able and experienced men and women; find and promote them.
Next, here are three essential appointments:
A contrarian-in-chief, to provide you a steady stream of informed beyond-the-Beltway opposition to the views of your intelligence director, cabinet members, etc. – and to continually identify and question the assumptions that underlie every policy.
A historian-in-chief, to educate you on the centuries-old traditions and beliefs of peoples around the world who affect our foreign policy and thus our domestic well-being.
A reminder-in-chief, to keep nudging you on vital mega-issues – such as modernizing, maintaining, and securing the power grid – that politicians tend to put off until a crisis hits.
When you or some of your aides screw up, admit it – immediately. When Congress asks for documents, turn them over (with a few extras thrown in) ahead of schedule. Insist that advisors (especially close friends) take leave of absence without pay while they clear their names.
Stay in touch with every-day reality to inoculate yourself against the virus politicus, the presidential strain of which is deadly. Infected officials behave in ways that every 10-year-old knows to be wrong and stupid. In that connection:
When you travel the country, drop in to a local bar for a beer, visit the employee lounge of a discount department store. Listen to the unvarnished complaints and worries of struggling men and women. Beats heck out of a focus group.
Basketball is your game, but if on occasion you must submit to the Scottish obsession, do so at public nine-hole courses where there’s more dirt than grass. Blue-collar duffers could teach you how to escape more than one kind of tough lie.
Get your well-earned rest, but take relatively few vacations (a lot of us can't afford any, just now). And when you do get away, choose spots that don’t reek of exclusivity. R&R with security does not require imitating the lifestyles of the obscenely rich. (Your recent Hawaiian interlude shakes my confidence a bit regarding that and the previous point. Since, however, you weren’t yet officially president, you merit a mulligan.)
Limit press secretary news briefings. The spokesperson is 1) presenting information that the White House Web site could provide in greater depth, 2) fibbing, 3) going through painful contortions to say nothing (a la Robert Gibbs when "answering" Helen Thomas last week), or 4) genuinely out of the loop and therefore with no reason to be at the podium.
To the extent possible, skip the photo-ops, which generally consist of parroting boiler-plate. I’d feel a lot better knowing that our leader was devoting extra time to reading books about the daunting challengers we face.
Eliminate most press conferences, where the m.o. is usually to pre-pick questioners to guarantee softballs. Instead: Once a month, sit for an hour of live tv during which you discuss a single topic with a few of the best scholars, bloggers, and journalists in the country.
If, during such a discussion, or on any other occasion, you don’t know the answer to something, say so. The sky won’t fall. Do a little homework and provide the answer a day or two later.
Prohibit aides from granting face-time with you – or arranging a sleep-over in the Lincoln bedroom – in exchange for campaign donations.
Introduce genuine bipartisanship. For every issue, thoughtful experts from various points on the political spectrum could agree on an initial policy proposal you could send to the Hill almost immediately.
Electoral reform, electoral reform, electoral reform. The longer we delay doing everything possible to enable the maximum number of citizens to vote – and have their votes accurately counted – the longer we compromise our strongest selling point around the world: democracy.
And oh: Remove "High Noon" and "Air Force One" from the White House film library. Stock up on Billy Wilder.