Executive Branch Essay, Research Paper
The executive branch of our government is like a chameleon. To a startling degree it
reflects the character and personality of the President. Clark M. Clifford, 1972
Page 189.
Ford was not a natural administrator, but he a was an experienced political professional.
His practice was to steer clear of jurisdictional rivalries, avoid having confidants within
his cabinet, have private sources of advice outside the cabinet, leave “management and
program implementation to the department heads,: and encourage dissent when he was
making up his mind, but reserve the final decisions for himself. Page 120
Your motives will help maintain a positive outlook
Your speaking style and body language can be a liability. As was for Ford, who hit his
head while debarking from a helicopter and thereafter late-night television comedians
portrayed him as a bumbling incompetent. Page 120
Organizational Capacity —When we turn to the internal face of presidential leadership,
Eisenhower deserves the closest of attention. No other chief executive has entered the
White House with his organizational experience, and none has put comparable effort into
structuring his presidency. Eisenhower gave careful thought to finding the right
incumbents for the right roles. Once his aides were in place, he observed their
performance carefully, adjusting their responsibilities accordingly. Page 55
Public Communication —Of all of Eisenhower’s qualities, his political communication
style has least to command it to future chief executives. The preexisting public support
the popular IKE carried over into the White House made it unnecessary for him to sell
himself; his propensity to get results by indirection reduced his interest in public
persuasion; and his wartime achievements left him with no need to use his presidency to
establish a place in history. Page 54
Eisenhower was enormously popular with the American people from the period of his
service as supreme allied commander in Europe in World War II to his death in 1969, but
it was long held by students of American politics that his performance as chief executive
was largely a nonperformance. It was widely assumed that the policies of the Eisenhower
administration were made not by the amiable IKE but by his less-then-amiable secretary
of state, John Foster Dulles, and his stony-faced White House chief of staff, Sherman
Adams. Page 44
At U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, Eisenhower graduated sixty-first in
a class of 164. (so you don’t have to be smart to be president). Page 45
One facet of Roosevelt’s public leadership was his fireside chats–the low-key, almost
conversational radio broadcasts through which he explained his policies. In contrast with
presidents who inundate the nation with words, Roosevelt rationed his broadcasts. Page
16-17.
Master of Maneuver— No other president has been more politically proficient than
FDR,… with a legendary political network, and charm that could melt glaciers. Page 17.
(same as Clinton).
Emotional Intelligence— The politically gifted, emotionally challenged William
Jefferson Clinton provides yet another indication of the fundamental importance of
emotional intelligence in the modern presidency. Clinton’s political gifts enabled him
to thwart the Republican effort to remove him from office, but his psychic shortcoming
were debilitation. Assertions about the impact of an incumbent or recent president are
necessarily provisional, but Clinton seems certain to be recognized for moving the
Democratic party to the center of the political spectrum and for many incremental policy
departures. Yet he is also likely to be remembered as a politically talented
underachiever,… Page 188.
Nixon —His strengths included great intelligence, unbounded willingness to invest effort
in advancing his purposes, and an encyclopedic knowledge of politics. He had a shrewd
sense of power relations, keen insight into the psychology of others, and an instinctive
capacity to discern the possibilities for action in particular situations. He delighted in
making bold political moves and had a fascination with international affairs. Page 99
Nixon’s weaknesses arose from his deep-seated anger and feelings of persecution.
Much of his iron self-discipline went into masking his hostile tendencies, but they
periodically erupted, particularly when he was in the company of like-minded aides. He
also had a set of qualities that made him an anomaly in the world of politics: he was
highly introverted and socially awkward.. Page 99
Public Communication—Nixon was a “far from natural public speaker”. Page
106
Organizational Capacity— In the realm of organization, the Nixon White House provides
evidence of how staff arrangements need to be tailored to the occupant of the Oval
Office.
Page 106.
Political Skill— Nixon’s readiness to devote his waking hours to his job. Page 107.
Jimmy Carter— Was not a give and take kind of President as was needed in
Washington.
His approval ratings were at 39%, just before his feat of personally negotiating a peace
agreement between Israel and Egypt in 1978. Carter invited Sadat and Israeli prime
minister Menachem Begin to meet with him at Camp David in a last-ditch effort at
reconciliation.
Carter proved to be an ideal negotiator. He displayed none of his usual reluctance
to compromise. Page 137
He was managing his own White House staff, until after he demanded resignations from
his cabinet, and then naming Hamilton Jordan is chief of staff. Page 139
An early source of Carter’s difficulties was a controversy in the summer of 1977
over whether Carter’s friend and budget director, Bert Lance, had engaged in shady
banking practices in Georgia before joining the administration. Page 136
More damaging than specific events was the increasingly problematic economy,
which alternated between bursts of inflation and slowdowns in production throughout
Carter’s term.
Page 136
“…a president rarely goes unpunished for economic distress that occurs on his
watch”.
Page 137
A president who studied the Carter experience would be alert to the dangers of
raising unrealistic expectations, failing to build bridges to Capitol Hill, and overloading
the national policy agenda. One who ignored Carter’s failures would risk repeating them,
which is precisely what President Bill Clinton did in his 1993 effort to reform the
national health care system. Clinton too commissioned a task force that had a
controversial head (his wife), met in secret, and did not consult with Congress. Page
141
Cognitive Style—Carter was better at the “specific than the general”. He lacked the
capacity of an Eisenhower to get at the heart of a problem or the ability of a Nixon to set
long- run goals. Page 143
Emotional Intelligence —For all of his self-composure, Jimmy Carter falls in the
category of chief executives whose emotional susceptibilities complicate their public
actions. Page 142
What Carter did have in common with Johnson and Nixon was an emotionally
driven limitation in his ability to get the most out of what otherwise were highly
impressive abilities.
Page 143.
Ronald Reagan was the son of an alcoholic, but “that did not stop him from
growing up with a rosy disposition”. As an adult he had a number of traits that are
common in children of alcoholics, including discomfort with conflict, remoteness in
personal relationships, and a tendency to put a rosy gloss on harsh realities. Page 146 &
147
Reagan’s political style was molded by his enthusiasm for FDR, his union
experience, and his background as actor. He took Roosevelt’s use of the presidential
pulpit as the prototype for his own political leadership. His experience as a lobar leader
helped shape the bargainingPage147 Reagan has been labeled “The Great
Communicator”. Because of one single broadcast of a fund- raising appeal, Reagan
brought in a cascade of contributions. Republicans formed an organization dedicated to
advancing his political future. He speaks with an ease and fluency that is derived from
his years as a public speaker. Because of that ease, California businessmen urged him to
run for Governor in 1966, and he did. Page 148
Reagan’s leadership had a distinct pattern that helps explain how he could have
had such a great historical impact despite his remoteness from the specifics of politics and
policy. First, because he had strong general convictions, Reagan was able to set his
administration’s overall priorities. He placed the defense buildup and his economic
program ahead of everything else. Second, he was tactically flexible, showing no regret
when he had to adjust to political opposition or to changed circumstances. Third, he was
a good negotiator, setting his demands higher than the minimum he would accept, and
accepting what he could get. Fourth, he made decisions easily and promptly. Page 150
and 151.
Public Communication —He was the first White House occupant who had been a career
public communicator before entering politics. His aides were masters at the atmospherics
of presidential communication, consistently providing television with irresistible images
that dominated the evening news. Page 155
Reagan was not well endowed with logical abilities, he was gifted at interpersonal
relations and strategic use of verbal and body language. These are traits that are more
common with actors than politicians. Reagan succeeded in turning them to good political
effect. Page 157
George Bush—Like Roosevelt, he was the product of a privileged upbringing that
instilled in him the ideal of public service. Page 160
Like other vice presidents, Bush cultivated the impression that he was a force in the
administration in which he served, but when questions were raised about whether he had
played a part in the Iran-contra affair, he insisted that he had been “out of the loop”.
Page 163
It may be viewed that Bush seemed almost without interest in domestic policy because of
the Gulf War all over the news, but that impression is misleading. He presided over two
major domestic policy reforms: an extensive revision of the Clean Air Act and the
passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Page 168
There was one politically costly domestic theme that did run through the Bush
presidency. I followed from his categorical no new taxes pledge in the 1988 campaign.
In 1990, he agreed to support a tax increase. Bush worsened matters with a dismissive
comment when reporters asked him about his change of position during one of his
morning jogs. Pointing to his buttocks, he tossed off the throwaway line, “Read my
hips.” Page 168
For bush to lean over backwards in order to avoid Reaganesque oratory, he deprived his
presidency of the teaching function that enabled presidents such as Roosevelt, Kennedy,
and Reagan to frame public perceptions, place their administrations in a favorable light,
and buffer themselves from negative developments. Page 169
Organizational Capacity—Kennedy coordinated his own White House. Kennedy
excelled at team building and at rallying his aides.
Public Communication—Kennedy’s approach to public communication is the eloquence
of his oratory and his intelligent and stylish performance in press conferences.
“Kennedy’s public performance and the attractive ambiance of his presidency won him
impressive levels of public approval” Page 70
Political Skill—Kennedy was never a Capitol Hill insider, but he came from a highly
political family and was a political professional with more than a dozen years of
legislative experience. He surrounded himself with politically experienced aides. What
is missing in Kennedy’s leadership is skill harnessed to a larger view of public policy…
Page 71
Kennedy’s reputation today is that of a presidential playboy, yet he spent many weekends
with his family in Cape Cod. He was a quick study and a speed reader who did confine
his reading to official memoranda. Page 72
According to Kennedy’s friend LeMoyne Billings, Kennedy treated “each day as if it
were his last, demanding of life constant intensity, adventure, and pleasure,” because he
had repeatedly come close to death in the war and in surgery and believed that he would
die at an early age from Addison’s disease. Page 72
Kennedy provides a reminder that a president’s actions are a function not only of the
intensity of his passions, but also of his capacity to channel them and prevent them from
confounding his official responsibilities. Page 73
Vision—Kennedy had little in the way of an overreaching perspective. He lacked grand
aspirations and was limited in what he could accomplish by the balance of forces in
Congress.
Page 72
Vision—Harry S. Truman was fundamentally reactive. Many presidents were
not “event-making leaders”. Page 41.
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