[Mb-civic] The OutsidersBy DAVID GERGEN

[Michael Butler]

The New York Times
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April 23, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
The Outsiders
By DAVID GERGEN

Cambridge, Mass.

YOU probably remember this old joke. Question: How many psychiatrists does
it take to change a light bulb? Answer: Only one, but the light bulb has to
want to change. It's a punch line that comes to mind these days as President
Bush fights the darkness by rearranging his team.

Mr. Bush is the eighth straight president, stretching back to Lyndon
Johnson, who has tried to rescue his administration at a low moment by
shaking up his staff. It has rarely worked, and on the few occasions when it
has, the two crucial factors have been that the president has acted in time
and, critically, has wanted to make fundamental changes.

We have not yet seen the end of the current reshuffling and should not
underestimate Josh Bolten, the extremely capable new chief of staff. But
these changes probably come too late, and so far, Mr. Bush seems to be
acting only reluctantly, while remaining firmly opposed to instituting
fundamental change.

President Johnson also acted half-heartedly and at the eleventh hour, as the
Vietnam War dragged on late in his presidency. He dispatched his defense
secretary, Robert McNamara, to the World Bank and brought in a trusted
outside heavyweight, Clark Clifford, who studied the war and decided it
ought to be wound down. But there was too little time left, and President
Johnson, a captive of his own thinking, as Stephen Hess has written, made
only modest changes in policy. A few months later, he withdrew from his race
for re-election.

I was a young member of the White House staff when the Watergate break-in
was reported in the summer of 1971. I continue to believe that if President
Richard Nixon had quickly come clean, overhauled his team and asked for
public forgiveness, he would have still won re-election in 1972 and might
have become a respected president. But instead he refused to change. He
waited until 1973 to oust his chief of staff, H. R. Haldeman, and advisers
like John Ehrlichman and John Dean. Even then, he was just tossing morsels
to the wolves at the door. Some leaders are perhaps incapable of changing
their core character and beliefs. That's a thought that gives pause today.

For one president, reshuffling his team actually backfired. Persuaded by his
pollster, Pat Caddell, and in the face of skyrocketing gas prices and
sagging poll numbers, President Jimmy Carter retreated to Camp David in the
summer of 1979 for 10 excruciating days to reflect on his troubles with the
help of prominent leaders from outside his administration. He then came down
from the mountain to deliver his famous "crisis of confidence" speech, also
known as the "malaise speech," and propose bold new energy plans.

The public at first received the speech well, and President Carter's
approval ratings improved. But the polls went into reverse a few days later,
when he fired half his cabinet. Sensing that the president had lost control
of his team and was desperate, the public gave him some of the lowest poll
numbers of any president in modern times. Karl Rove has no doubt taken note.

Shaking up a team clearly worked, though, for President Ronald Reagan in
1986, when his administration was devastated by the Iran-contra scandal.
Until then, President Reagan had struck a deep chord of trust with the
public; even people who didn't like his policies thought they could put
their faith in him and liked him personally. The Iran-contra affair
challenged that image with its suggestion of scandal and duplicity. The
imbroglio sent his approval ratings plummeting into the 40's and even
brought rumblings about impeachment.

President Reagan's response to that situation could serve the current
administration as a model of recovery. Not only did Mr. Reagan bring in an
outstanding new team of outsiders ‹ people like Howard Baker, Frank
Carlucci, Ken Duberstein and Colin Powell ‹ but he also swiftly changed the
way he did business. Counseled by David Abshire, his special adviser on
Iran-Contra affairs, and others, he opened White House files to scrutiny,
waived executive privilege so that Congress could interrogate anybody it
liked, reached out seriously to Democrats and changed the tone in
Washington. The road thereafter was not always smooth, but President Reagan
went on to achieve many of his goals at home and abroad, leaving office with
an approval rating in the 60's.

President Clinton, too, was a leader who could change when things veered off
course. I was a part of one of the Clinton shake-ups, joining the
administration as his White House counselor when he was in trouble in the
middle of his first year in office. Six months later, he had climbed out of
the ditch and was on his way again.

It wasn't what I or others on staff did that ultimately made the difference.
Rather, it was Mr. Clinton himself, with the support of his wife, Hillary.
He acted early enough that he still had a reservoir of good will, and he
made a genuine effort to alter the way he functioned.

Mr. Bush should have embraced the Reagan model of recovery last fall, when
many urged it in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the indictment of I.
Lewis Libby. He had a decent chance to rebuild his presidency at that time.
But he refused to change anything, choosing instead to "hang in" with the
same policies, politics and personnel. Half a year has now passed, allowing
the attitudes of those who were losing faith then to crystallize and harden.

The current shuffle is coming extremely late for a recovery ‹ too late,
probably ‹ and so far, the administration has not brought in any outside
heavyweights. The timing and nature of the shake-up signals that Mr. Bush's
primary interest is in better management and marketing. Those will help, but
they almost certainly will not be enough to rescue his presidency from its
low approval ratings and loss of public confidence.

Mr. Bush has to want to change. He has to want to change policies like those
on Iraq, energy and taxes; practices like secrecy; and politics like those
that cater only to his base. Is he a leader whose resolve will ultimately
become self-defeating stubbornness, or is he capable of flexibility, like
his hero President Reagan? Much rides on the answer.

David Gergen is a professor of public service and director of the Center for
Public Leadership at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. He was a
White House adviser to four presidents.