Perspectives on the Legacy of George W. Bush [1 ed.] 9781443803007, 9781443801348

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Perspectives on the Legacy of George W. Bush

Perspectives on the Legacy of George W. Bush

Edited by

Michael Orlov Grossman and Ronald Eric Matthews Jr.

Perspectives on the Legacy of George W. Bush, Edited by Michael Orlov Grossman and Ronald Eric Matthews Jr. This book first published 2009 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2009 by Michael Orlov Grossman and Ronald Eric Matthews Jr. and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-0134-8, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-0134-8

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Tables.............................................................................................vii List of Diagrams .........................................................................................ix Preface ........................................................................................................xi Chapter One.................................................................................................1 Introduction Michael Orlov Grossman, Ronald Eric Matthews, Jr. and William Cunion Chapter Two ..............................................................................................10 The Effects of Leadership Style on the Bush Presidency Will Miller Chapter Three ............................................................................................31 The Post-Rhetorical Legacy of George W. Bush Jennifer R. Mercieca and Justin S. Vaughn Chapter Four..............................................................................................53 George W. Bush’s Signing Statements: Advancing the Imperial Presidency? Harry C. “Neil” Strine IV Chapter Five ..............................................................................................72 Bush’s New Nationalism: The Life and Death of New Federalism Michael W. Hail Chapter Six ................................................................................................96 President Bush’s Legacy on Social Security Christian E. Weller and Amanda M. Logan Chapter Seven..........................................................................................120 Faith in Foreign Policy: Evangelical Realism, Not Neo-conservatism in the Presidency of George W. Bush Glen M.E. Duerr

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Chapter Eight...........................................................................................137 On the ‘Freedom Agenda’ and the George W. Bush Legacy: A Philosophical Inquiry Shane J. Ralston Chapter Nine............................................................................................152 The Crusader: George W. Bush and the American Empire in the Persian Gulf Marc J. O’Reilly Chapter Ten .............................................................................................161 Beyond the Bush Doctrine Steven W. Hook Contributors and Symposium Participants ..............................................178 Index........................................................................................................182

LIST OF TABLES

TABLE 4-1: Percentage of Signing Statements Finding at Least One Provision of Law Unconstitutional............................................................ 66 TABLE 4-2: Number of Signing Statements Dealing with Domestic and Foreign (Defense) Policy Provisions by Presidents Bill Clinton & George W. Bush .................................................................................... 66 TABLE 4-3: Number of Signing Statements Finding Domestic and Foreign (Defense) Policy Provisions Unconstitutional/Unenforced (or Saving Construction by Presidents Bill Clinton & George W. Bush).. 67 TABLE 5-1: Presidential Ronald Reagan Executive Orders on Federalism and IGR ..................................................................................................... 77 TABLE 5-2: Reagan Task Force on Regulatory Relief 1981.................... 79 TABLE 5-3: Fundamental Federalism Principles...................................... 80 TABLE 5-4: Bush Administration OMB Policy Commitments to New Federalism..................................................................................... 83 TABLE 5-5: Skowronek’s Recurrent Structures of Authority .................. 88 TABLE 6-1: Distribution of Social Security Beneficiaries in 2003 .......... 98 TABLE 6-2: Coverage Ratios for Different Forms of Retirement Wealth .. 99 TABLE 6-3: Retirement Wealth in 2001................................................. 101 TABLE 6-4: Changes in Retirement Wealth for Middle Three Quintiles, 1989 to 2001 ........................................................................... 102 TABLE 7-1: Where Evangelical Realism fits in the IR literature ........... 129

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TABLE 7-2: Evangelical Realism as compared to other forms of Realism................................................................................................ 131 TABLE 10-1: Beyond the Bush Doctrine: Alternative Grand Strategies .. 171

LIST OF DIAGRAMS

Diagram 5-1: Federal Grant $$ as % Direct Spending .............................. 85 Diagram 5-2: Federal Grant $$ as % State and Local $$ .......................... 85 Diagram 5-3: Measuring Federalism EOs and Vetoes .............................. 87 Diagram 6-1: Retirement Wealth, by Demographics, 1998..................... 100 Diagram 6-2: Taxable Payroll and Trust Fund Exhaustion Date............. 105 Diagram 6-3: Trust Fund Balances, with Different Shares of Covered Earnings Taxed ..................................................................... 106

PREFACE

Across the board, the presidency of George W. Bush raises questions that both invite challenges to political scientists and pique the general interest. On March 1, 2008, just days away from Super Tuesday, more than 100 political scientists, college students and presidential scholars assembled at Mount Union College not to debate the upcoming primary season—which very well may have been the topic of many of the conversations—but to discuss the leadership and legacy of President George W. Bush. For many, it seemed to be premature. For others, it couldn’t come soon enough. But no one was surprised by the controversy as the legacy of President Bush was deliberated. As Campbell, Rockman and Rudalevige (2008, preface) point out: “President Bush has left big footprints in the sands of time that may not easily be erased,” and from that vantage point, this text seeks to examine not the grains of sand but the footprints themselves— that undoubtedly will be remembered for decades to come. This is truly not an easy task. President Bush himself noted “that trying to write the history of this administration before it’s even over” is futile at best, and with that notion we would somewhat concur. History may yet rewrite the legacy of this president, and the events his administration set into motion will certainly continue to develop. But to fail to begin to assess his presidency and the legacy that will follow may very well be a bigger miscarriage of justice than doing nothing at all. As we begin this assessment, we would like to acknowledge the work and help of many people and groups. To begin with, it is necessary to note the contribution of all the participants in the symposium on the legacy of George W. Bush. While we could not include all of the papers presented, their participation is appreciated, and they are noted in the back of this book. We would also like to acknowledge the support of Mount Union College, especially Dr. William Cunion, Chairman of the Political Science Department, Dean Patricia Draves and President Richard Giese for their support, the Mount Union College Department of Political Science, for helping to organize the symposium, and the Ralph and Mary Regula Center for Public Service for the financial backing for the symposium.

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Most importantly, we want to note the contribution of all the volunteer students who helped with organizing this symposium. We would be amiss if we did not recognize the wonderful contributions of Amber Jaeb, our outstanding undergraduate assistant at Mount Union College. Her work ethic and dedication to the project have made all our jobs easier and rewarding. Finally to Liza and Sharon, our spouses and confidants, your patience throughout this project with us is the attribute that legacies are truly made of.

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION MICHAEL ORLOV GROSSMAN, RONALD ERIC MATTHEWS, JR. AND WILLIAM CUNION

Opinions of George W. Bush and his presidency seem to exist only at the extremes. From the contentious outcome of the 2000 election, to the attacks on September 11, to the ongoing War in Iraq, to the efforts to transform major domestic policies, and culminating with the elections of 2004 and 2006, it is little wonder that the name George W. Bush tends not to evoke lukewarm opinion. During his time in office he obtained the highest approval ratings of any sitting president, but also the lowest. President Bush has been a lightning rod for controversy from the inception of his administration. From perceived weapons of mass destruction to his “born-again” Protestant evangelical references and from contentious nominations to the judiciary and the executive branch, President Bush has carved out his own place in history, albeit his legacy may not be what he wanted it to be. Scholars and other observers of the Bush Presidency have been similarly divided. Future historians will surely focus most of their attention on the Bush legacy in the area of foreign policy. Bush was generally praised for his actions after September 11th, when he responded with a war against al Qaeda in Afghanistan. But he has been widely criticized for launching a war in Iraq based on dubious intelligence. His approach has been unilateral and unapologetic, driving supporters and critics into opposite corners. He has advanced aggressive anti-terrorism measures here in the United States, as well, most notably, the USA Patriot Act, passed only a few weeks following the attacks. Domestically, the President has also been equally bold and just as controversial. Has the No Child Left Behind Act helped to increase the accountability of public schools, or has it harmed public education by

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placing excessive burdens on teachers? Were his tax cuts the key to economic growth, or did they add irresponsibly to the national debt, and increase economic inequality in the process? Was his attempt to reform Social Security a farsighted effort to promote the public good, or a foolish idea that risked the nation’s most popular government program? His public leadership has also been noteworthy in many respects. Scholars of the presidency have argued that “going public” is the key to successful presidential leadership. Bush has employed some of the techniques of that strategy, including the use of emotionally charged rhetoric such as the term “Axis of Evil.” On the other hand, Bush’s overall style is much less public than most of his immediate predecessors, preferring to engineer narrow congressional victories by maintaining party discipline. So attempting to assess and determine his legacy it a daunting task to say the least. So where do we begin? It may be necessary to ask ourselves two foundational questions as we begin just as those who have examined and authored other texts on presidential legacies (Campbell, Rockman and Rudalevige 2008): What exactly is a President’s legacy and who interprets it?

Legacy Utilizing the definition of Rockman (2008), a presidential legacy is “something durable left by an administration that others will benefit by or have to deal with as a set of problems well into the future (326). It can be positive and/or negative, somewhat controversial or somewhat nonexistent to outsiders but every president leaves something behind, whether intentional or not. A classic example of this is the economic policies of Hebert Hoover handed off to Franklin D. Roosevelt. In the election of 1928, the country was enjoying high levels of economic prosperity and optimism, leading to a landslide for Hoover over the Democrat candidate Al Smith. However with the onset of the Great Depression, Hoover made several tactical mistakes that would not only define his legacy but thrust Roosevelt into the spotlight. Hoover deeply believed in the Efficiency Movement arguing that all aspects of the economy, society and government were riddled with waste and inefficiency. Everything would be better if experts identified the problems and fixed them. This position came under strict scrutiny as soup lines became longer, food banks became crowded and banks failed. Hoover tried to combat the Depression with volunteer efforts and government action, none of which produced economic recovery quickly enough during his term. The consensus among



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historians is that Hoover's defeat in 1932 had more to do with his inability to end the economic crisis in a quick efficient manner than it did his concerns for long-term solutions for other social issues such as prohibition. His legacy was dropped into the lap of Franklin Roosevelt as he set out to create a legacy of his own. Franklin Roosevelt used Hoover’s misfortunes to create the New Deal programs and many argue that it is those programs, not Roosevelt’s handling of World War II that he is most remembered for. However, as Rockman (2008) notes, “big achievements do not necessarily translate into legacies, especially if political fortunes reverse themselves”. Such is the case with President George H.W. Bush who enjoyed perhaps the highest presidential approval ratings in the history of the United States following Desert Storm in 1991 only to see them evaporate quickly leading up to his 1992 electoral defeat. Known for his famous proclamation of “read my lips, no new taxes” which was followed by a tax increase, President Bush was never able to shake the statement and his legacy has more to do with his sudden reversal on the tax issue than his Desert Storm success. Legacies can also be defined not by what the president does or doesn’t do but by external events that they have no control over. Both President Johnson’s were handed the presidency following the assassinations of their predecessors. Lincoln had to deal with the slavery issue and the succession of states from the Union from the onset. George W. Bush never saw 9-11 coming and the same can be said for Roosevelt and Pearl Harbor. Thus, we can conclude that a presidential legacy is complicated and complex, often taking a life of its own fueled by external and internal forces left to interpretation of the masses.

Interpretation We often say that history tells a story but in truth, it is people that write the histories and people by their very nature have conflicting views. Ask people to name the greatest president and you will get pretty much the same answer: Lincoln, Washington, Roosevelt or Jefferson. Ask them to name the worst president and for many they have to view it within the context of the present. And in so doing they look to “long-standing coalitions that help to institutionalize outcomes or make them difficult to reverse” (Rockman 2008, 329). Franklin Roosevelt will be remembered for the creation of Social Security, Lyndon Johnson for Food Stamps, and Woodrow Wilson for increased emphasis in public administration. But as important as long standing coalitions are to the legacy of a President, so

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too, is the increased role of the President in building, sustaining or attempting to weaken the coalition. The ability or inability of a president to exert his executive power on a specific institution goes a long way in the development of a legacy. George W. Bush’s ability to engage in a series of executive orders and/or decisions through key administrative and cabinet positions, such as John Ashcroft as Attorney General, helped to define his first term. As Skowronek (1997) and others have noted, changes are powered by political coalitions and if these coalitions solidify, the changes are likely to become institutionalized (Rockman 2008). Whether intentional or not, President George W. Bush has worked incredibly hard to create and institutionalize his legacy using a plethora of domestic and international policies. From No Child Left Behind and efforts to reform social security to the war on terror, typified by a stated policy of preemption and regime change, to the expansion of presidential power through the use of signing statements and a much observed increase in secrecy, George W. Bush actively sought to leave his mark on America’s political landscape and to transform the world. Yet, as the contributors to this volume illustrate, his legacy remains, at best, mixed. Domestically, his agenda while initially showing much promise, with the passage of No Child Left Behind and tax cuts, soon stalled and collapsed with the failure of social security reform and the disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina. In foreign policy, his efforts at transforming the Middle East became mired in Iraq and unraveled in Afghanistan, and the much heralded Bush Doctrine (see Gaddis 2002) has been discredited. Yet, his greatest impact may be on the institution of the presidency, where he has, undoubtedly expanded the imperial presidency, increasing the power of the executive office.

Structure of the Book The contributors to this volume examine George W. Bush’s legacy in domestic policy, foreign policy, and on the institution of the presidency. While George W. Bush worked to influence all three areas, the sheer volume of policies and presidential directives, would make a truly thorough review difficult. With this limitation in mind, the editors of this book sought to compile an examination of a broad range of policies, that while still limited, would provide a strong argument for the legacy left behind by this president. While certain topics are left out, such as education reform and No Child Left Behind, the authors cover a broad range of issues. Some topics will be quite familiar to most people as a result of the wide coverage given to them in the news media and in



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political debates such as social security reform, the use of signing statements, and the Bush Doctrine. At the same time, many of the topics covered are fairly esoteric, focusing on Bush’s federalism and his interpretation of the “Freedom Agenda”. Together, these chapters provide a clear picture of the very mixed legacy of the Bush presidency. Arguably, the administration of George W. Bush had one of the greatest long-term impacts on the institution of the presidency. Will Miller examines George W. Bush’s personality and leadership style, noting that President Bush is often thought of as being a CEO and not a world leader. Miller notes that while President Bush is one with a strong character, this strong character and leadership style can also be his Achilles heel. Miller concludes that Bush’s determination can lead to chaos and confusion and that the inner voices in his mind can become delusional. His legacy, according to Miller, may not be the decisions that he made but the idiosyncrasies behind those decisions. Jennifer Mercieca and Justin Vaughn’s chapter marks an attempt to situate Bush’s rhetorical legacy within an on-going paradigmatic shift away from the era of the rhetorical presidency and into a new era, one that they define as the post-rhetorical presidency. Building upon theoretical foundations supplied in Jeffrey Tulis’s (1987) seminal text, The Rhetorical Presidency, their central contention is that, if the rhetorical presidency was about using communication to mobilize public support and achieve policy and political goals, the post-rhetorical presidency is about using presidential speech and other communicative tools to distract and stymie the mass public. Conceptually, the post-rhetorical presidency refers communication strategies designed to confuse public opinion, prevent citizen action, and frustrate citizen deliberation. Mercieca and Vaughn examine post-rhetorical patterns in three key areas Bush’s presidential communication: his public speeches, his relationship with the press, and the increased practice of accompanying legislation with signing statements, a practice that Karlyn Kohrs Campbell and Kathleen Hall Jamieson (2008) have referred to as a de facto item veto. Acknowledging the controversial nature of Bush’s rhetorical approach, they argue that Bush’s experience will both enable and constrain the rhetoric of future presidents. They note in particular that despite widespread opposition to the apparent disingenuousness of Bush’s rhetoric and a mass public more wary of presidential deception, future presidents will follow similar patterns of communication because the same external forces that shaped Bush and his immediate predecessors’ relationships with the public— growing public expectations, ambition, and technological change—lie in store for the them, as well.

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Harry C. “Neil” Strine examines the use of signing statements within the Bush administration comparing George W. Bush to Bill Clinton and other former presidents arguing that he references virtually the same inherent executive authority exercised by his predecessors. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (1973) referred to this as the Imperial Presidency. After coding all presidential signing statements from the George W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations, Strine concludes that President George W. Bush has claimed constitutional authority more often than President Clinton to either ignore laws passed by Congress or substitute saving language in the statute to make the law constitutional, thus sustaining the Imperial Presidency. Turning to domestic politics, President Bush’s legacy is less clear. While policies such as No Child Left behind and the tax cuts implemented early in his administration will certainly outlive his tenure and their impact will be long debated, other efforts will certainly not survive beyond his administration. Michael W. Hail examines his domestic policy of new federalism, comparing it with the preceding presidencies of Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, and Clinton across a range of formal executive powers utilizing a regulatory model and a historical, comparative methodology. Focusing on the use of some of the central tools of executive federalism: regulatory policy, public management of the grantin-aid programs, vetoes, executive orders, and presidential rhetoric, Hail evaluates Bush’s federalism with a comparative policy framework that examines the powers of the presidency to articulate policies of federalism: vetoes, executive orders, regulatory enactments, and the powers of the rhetorical presidency. Hail concludes that that George W. Bush represents the end of the devolution revolution and the beginning of a period of new nationalism for federalism and intergovernmental relations. He further argues that Bush’s transitional federalism represents a silent paradigmatic shift in public dialogue rather than a re-alignment and ultimately, Bush leaves the next era of federalism relatively undefined even if more nationalist in character. Turning to the debacle that was the effort to reform social security, Weller shows how after President Bush won a second term in 2004, he decided to use his political capital to push for an ambitious reform of Social Security, in particular, to establish a system of private accounts within the existing social insurance system. The intense national Social Security debate lasted for much of 2005 highlighted two separate visions for Social Security’s future as either insurance or investment program, centered on Social Security’s long-term solvency and on the lack of retirement wealth for many Americans. President Bush’s proposal failed



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because its basic economic flaws were ignored by President Bush himself and because the public did not support the conversion from insurance to investment program and the included benefit cuts. The discussion over Social Security privatization in 2005 laid the ground for the subsequent retirement debate during the 2008 presidential campaign. Although he promised to undertake a more humble foreign policy, without a doubt George W. Bush’s greatest impact has been on the foreign policy of the United States. Whether it is the “war on terror” or the war in Iraq, this president has worked hard to paint himself as a “war president”, tying most of his legacy to a foreign policy that sought to transform the Middle East and ensure American hegemony for the foreseeable future. Yet as the contributors in this section argue, his contribution to the nature of America’s future foreign policy will be limited, focusing mostly, as Steven Hook seems to argue, on correcting this administration’s policies. Hook notes that one of the key legacies of the Bush Doctrine has been the nation’s isolation in the international community, and that any future administration will be faced with the task of remedying this central byproduct of Bush’s foreign policy. He identifies a variety of alternative grand strategy that may be adopted by any future White House, and concludes that a policy of liberal internationalism is both the most likely and most advantageous course, one that better exploits the “soft power” of the United States and will begin the process of correcting the damage done to US standing in the world. Under the administration of George W. Bush, a new term came into the American foreign policy lexicon: neoconservative. Driven by an unwavering belief that individual liberty is a moral absolute and that US power can, and should, be used to promote a more stable international order based on the spread of democracy, neo-conservatives have been blamed for the unilateral turn in US foreign policy, the invasion of Iraq, and international isolation of the United States. Glen Duerr examines the long-term impact of neoconservatism on US foreign policy, arguing that the decision, to overthrow Saddam Hussein, rid the country of weapons of mass destruction and democratize Iraq, may long be considered the truest test of neo-conservative foreign policy; yet, this theory does not fully explain Bush or his administration. He argues that Bush, himself, is not a neo-conservative but rather an evangelical realist and that the only reason why neo-conservatives were allowed to operate in the administration was because they aligned with Bush’s evangelical views on foreign policy. While noting that neo-conservatism has been discredited and will likely not survive the Bush administration, evangelical realism will, and it is in

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this vein that the legacy of George W. Bush should be remembered, and properly categorized. In a theoretical analysis of Bush’s “freedom agenda”, Shane J. Ralston connects Bush’s vision to the ideas of two philosophers: Isaiah Berlin’s notion of positive-negative liberty and John Dewey’s concept of freedom as a function of culture. He notes that the legacy of George W. Bush will probably be associated with the President’s infallibly certain style of visionary leadership and his specific vision of a ‘Freedom Agenda’. According to this vision, the United States must spread democracy to all people who desire liberty and vanquish those tyrants and terrorists who despise it. Freedom is universally valued, and the United States is everywhere perceived as freedom’s protector and purveyor. So, the mission of the Freedom Agenda is to guard existing freedoms as well as spread the democratic political system to those countries lacking comparable freedoms. His central claim is that when compared with the ideas of Berlin and Dewey, the Freedom Agenda is a faulty construct, both conceptually and practically, for understanding America’s role in global affairs. The Freedom Agenda proves to be neither conservative nor universal. Nevertheless, it constitutes an essential element of George W. Bush’s legacy, a vision of American purpose in a threatening and divisive world. Moving to a more substantive examination of Bush’s foreign policy in the Middle East, Marc J. O’Reilly examines U.S. policy toward the Persian Gulf in the last eight years, examining America’s efforts to maintain a formal empire in the region. He argues that by ordering an invasion of Iraq in March 2003, a crusading Bush sought to overthrow an American as well as family nemesis, Saddam Hussein. Bush succeeded, but the ensuing U.S. occupation proved agonizing, as Iraq exploded into ethno-sectarian conflict. As the Iraq occupation deteriorated, the United States was faced with a classic imperial quandary, which jeopardized the U.S. informal empire in the Arabian Peninsula. With Iran emboldened by repeated American blunders in Iraq, global disapproval of U.S. foreign policy, and skyrocketing oil prices, Bush desperately tried to reverse his country's fortunes in the Gulf. Fortunately for him, the "surge" he authorized in early 2007 helped stem Iraqi violence and appreciably improved the American position in Iraq and the region. Although Washington’s informal empire in the region remains intact, its future hinges on the uncertain outcome of the U.S. misadventure in Mesopotamia.



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Conclusion By all accounts, the Bush Presidency has been highly consequential, and interest in analyzing and evaluating his decisions and policies is to be expected. The main objective of this collection is not to criticize excessively but rather to provide an even-handed, scholarly examination of the current administration as it leaves office, and to explore some of the impact of the Bush presidency on America and the world. In the end, history will decide what legacy George W. Bush will leave behind. Iraq may yet become a Jeffersonian democracy on the Persian Gulf and a model for other Middle Eastern states, Bush’s social security reform efforts may prove prescient, and his “freedom agenda” may yet be seen as guiding a truly visionary foreign policy. But for now, we must conclude his legacy remains at best mixed.

References Campbell, Colin and Bert Rockman and Andrew Rudalevige. 2008. The George W. Bush Legacy. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press. Gaddis, John Lewis: 56. "“A Grand Strategy of Transformation,”." Foreign Policy, 133: 50-57. Rockman, Bert A. 2008. "The Legacy of the George W. Bush PresidencyA Revolutionary Presidency?" in The George W. Bush Legacy Colin Campbell, Bert Rockman and Andrew Rudalevige (eds). Washington, D.C.: CQ Press. Skowronek, Stephen. 1997. The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to Bill Clinton. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. Tulis, Jeffrey K. 1987. The Rhetorical Presidency. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Campbell, Karlyn Kohrs, and Kathleen Hall Jamieson. 2008. Presidents Creating the Presidency: Deeds Done in Words. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Schlesinger, Jr. Arthur M. 1973. The Imperial Presidency. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

 

CHAPTER TWO THE EFFECTS OF LEADERSHIP STYLE ON THE BUSH PRESIDENCY WILL MILLER

I. Introduction Teaching an undergraduate level American Presidency and Congress class has led me to find that many undergraduate students typically speak of a president in one of three ways: with great pride and support, with unabashed hatred, or with a complete ignorance to having any opinion. Thus, at the beginning of the current semester, while discussing the class’ opinion on the Bush presidency, I was pleasantly surprised by the response of a particular student. This student, undoubtedly an above average performer with an innate ability to clearly reason, explained that while he personally was disgusted by many of the actions taken by the Bush administration, he never felt that Bush acted out of anything but what he perceived to be the best interests of our nation. A proclaimed anti-Bush liberal, the student further expanded by saying that he truly believed Bush loves this country and merely does what he feels is in its best interests. In modern day politics, the fact is that few political elites or pundits seem to take the time to remember this simple lesson: that whether an individual agrees with the political actions of an elected official or not, that the elected official continually acts in the manner s/he perceives to be best for the nation. The case of Bush is clearly no different. When researching, only one book or article emerged that shared my student’s sentiment. James Hoopes (2008, 5) points out that “for all [he] know[s], George Bush, is, at heart, as decent a person as many of us.” While one can easily dismiss the War in Iraq, the War on Terror, the income tax refunds, and his response to Hurricane Katrina as politically motivated, it is imperative to remember that the proper intent did exist, even if we personally do not agree with it. Clearly, it is more imperative to policymakers to examine the outcomes and impacts of whatever course of action

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a leader takes. Yet for academics and citizens, there is no reason to simply neglect the intention of any given action. Presidents, as leaders with elaborate information mechanisms surrounding them, should be held to higher levels of prospect that good intentions will lead to good outcomes, but to merely assume such an ending can lead to shattered expectations. Different variables unquestionably affect the ability of a president to be publicly seen as doing what s/he feels is truly right and just. The remainder of this paper will focus on examining how leadership style can present the decisions and actions of a president in a way that leads undergraduate students of a dramatically opposing view to believe that leaders like Bush do what they feel is best for the country they love.

II. Presidential Leadership: A Common Context Fred Greenstein, in the late 1960s, outlined a number of situations under which personal factors have the potential to influence presidential behavior (Greenstein 1969). In short, Greenstein saw a number of areas in which the individual could influence the presidency. For the purposes of this paper, Greenstein’s model will serve as a building block on which to analyze Bush’s leadership style. Greenstein begins by noting that personal attributes are likely to have an impact when the environment can potentially be restructured (Greenstein 1969, 42-44). By restructuring the environment, Greenstein is speaking to the idea of altering the context that they face. The process of structuring the White House staff is a perfect example. A president like Reagan preferred to delegate responsibility, while someone like Nixon chose to maintain strict control over every facet of operations. The second point brought forth by Greenstein is that an actor’s location is important in determining whether personal attributes and leadership characteristics will be important (Greenstein 1969, 44-45). By sitting atop the executive branch, the president has a tremendous amount of power at his dispersal. Further, the ambiguity of Article II allows for vast interpretations and the potential for increased power. Greenstein next moves to the point that individual presidents can have different levels of impact based on the strengths and weaknesses of the person (Greenstein 1969, 45-46). The key to this point is that each president will have different strengths and weaknesses. For example, while Clinton possessed a sharp intellect, Reagan possessed a tremendous understanding of rhetoric. Each president will have his own skill set with varying degrees of strengths and weaknesses unique to the leader’s background, educational training, and previous job experience. Lastly, Greenstein notes that more ambiguous circumstances tend to evolve into

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opportunities for the individual to showcase personal attributes (Greenstein 1969, 50-51). New situations are the most likely to lead to ambiguity. The events after September 11th show how a new situation, never experienced in politics before, can lead to a president being given the support to do whatever s/he deems necessary to protect the nation. Bush was given elaborate powers merely because America was looking for him to provide leadership in a novel state of affairs. Greenstein consequently presents a theoretical framework from which to judge whether an individual president has the requisite circumstances present in which to leave a personal legacy on the office. For Bush, many can argue that the doors were open for his leadership style to shine through and directly shape the events of his presidency. What Greenstein assures, unlike some other leadership scholars, is that the individual plays a large role in leadership style. Rather than casting prototypical groupings of leadership styles, Greenstein instead shows how different contexts bring forth the possibility of an individual leader having a major impact on the presidency. According to Barber’s typology, Bush would most likely be an active-positive president. He shows obvious self-esteem, invests significant positive energy in discharging his duties, and obviously enjoys serving as president. Following previous research, the keys to examining leadership are a leader’s need for control and a leader’s sensitivity to context. Is the president power hungry or does s/he understand his/her place in the political arena? Does s/he operate in a manner appropriate for the particular context or merely act as s/he wishes without paying due diligence to external situations? Such questions allow us to determine in many ways the leadership style of a particular leader. The leadership style of a president will play an important role in determining their administration’s decision-making process. Leadership style is defined in this paper as “a way of conducting the entire decision-making process, from considering alternative policies, through deciding among them and having them executed, to assessing policy outcomes” (Weinstein 2004). Much research has been conducted to show that leadership characteristics of individual leaders have a great impact on styles of management, use of advisers, foreign policy decision-making, and crisis response (Preston and ‘t Hart 1999; Preston and Hermann 2004; Dyson and Preston 2006). The degree of control or direct involvement that an individual desires within the policy process has been repeatedly shown to be directly related to their need for power (Winter 1973; McClelland 1975; Hermann 1980; House 1990). Those individuals who desire large amounts of power typically want to be directly involved in policy-making, oftentimes

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holding most, if not all, of the control. They tend to strongly push for their own personal agendas and to frame issues. They possess a fixed inner circle of advisers and rarely delegate important decisions to subordinates (Preston and ‘t Hart 1999; Preston 2001). A perfect example of such a leader would be Richard Nixon, who we will address in more detail later. When considering sensitivity to context, leadership scholars have repeatedly noted that some presidents value diverse advice while others merely collect only that which is likely to adhere with their own personal views (George 1980; Hess 1988; Preston 2001; Taysi and Preston 2001). As Preston (2001) found, presidents with high cognitive complexity tended to engage in broad information search routines, which sough alternative points of view, varied information, and multiple options. These leaders also were less likely to see policies in black-and-white terms or employ simplistic analogies when making a case for a given policy. While such an approach comes with many strengths, it also involves far less decisive, more deliberative decision-making and leadership. For the purposes of this paper, we will be focusing heavily on crisis management. In many ways, the Bush presidency can be broken down into time series that exist between major crises. September 11th, the War in Iraq and Hurricane Katrina have all occurred under his watch. Sustained and balanced leadership is the key to preventing, preparing for, and responding to these crises (Boin et al. 2005). The research on crisis leadership tends to focus on how leaders cope with stress, determine appropriate strategic and operational decisions under difficult situations, how they coordinate inter-organizational response networks, and handle dealing with the media (Flin 1996; Ulmer et al. 2007). Ultimately, the key finding in previous research has been that each president comes into office with a personal background and history that ultimately shapes the kind of leader they become. The context of the political system at the time of election works either to enhance a leader’s predisposed understanding of leadership or to stifle the manner in which one had hoped to lead. How a leader handles the context they inherit will ultimately shape the assessment of their leadership abilities.

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III. The Bush Leadership Style A cursory look at the Bush leadership style recalls to mind two different leadership styles that have become infamous in presidential studies for the crises that emerged under their rule. In terms of personality, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan were about as different as two could be. Nixon’s character and intense fear of defeat directly led to the events of Watergate. Nixon resented the “Eastern establishment elite,” intellectuals in general, the media, the Democratic National Party, the democratically controlled Congress, the bureaucracy of career civil servants, think tanks, antiwar protesters, and civil rights activists (Pfiffner 2003, 425). Giving these enemies greater powers than they previously possessed, Nixon set himself up to inevitably fall. His obsession bordered on psychotic and his fear led him to throw away the presidency. Reagan, on the other hand, did not resent "the establishment" or fear his political enemies in the same manner as Nixon. His personal motives and predispositions did, however, contribute to the Iran-Contra affairs that seriously tarnished his presidential image. Trusting his top officials, Reagan found it relatively easy to delegate power (Pfiffner 2003, 428429). Even in matters of major state and foreign policy, the president would trust his aides to handle the situation and carry out his preset objectives. In many ways Reagan was Machiavellian, adhering to strong political convictions and rarely considering the implications of the actions necessary to carry them out. Consequently, Iran-Contra occurred under his watch, but he was able to avoid implicating himself by claiming he was unaware of exactly what was being done in his name. The explanation was completely plausible given his leadership style. The fact is that Bush, unlike other many other presidents, combines elements of both previous leaders in his personal management style. Bush seeks to control all of the big picture ideas that exist within his administration—yet he fails to follow Nixon’s micromanaging control style of detail. Further, he does not fear political enemies, as God is on his side. Thus, Bush seeks to only control the big picture by choice, not out of a sense of impeding doom or fear. At the same time, Bush has no problem delegating authority to subordinates as he has in many cases recruited these individuals to his administration. Unlike Reagan, however, Bush maintains enough oversight and offers sufficient guidance to assure he knows what is being done in his name. Whereas Reagan, in retrospect, appears to have been far too trusting with his administration and Nixon not nearly trusting enough, Bush appears to ride the fence between the two styles. His hybrid model of leadership has unquestionably been blamed by

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enemies for some of the outcomes of his administration, but the style has not directly led to any presidential-level scandals comparable to Watergate or Iran-Contra. As James Pfiffner (2007, 6) points out, Americans tend not to “think of the president of the United States primarily as a public administrator.” Rather than administering, s/he is seen as the political leader of our country and the symbolic head of state. Ultimately, Bush has achieved numerous policy victories during his two terms as president; however, many of the successes have come through “secrecy, speed, and tight control” (Pfiffner 2007, 7). As he explained himself, Bush sees his job as setting the agenda, laying out the principles by which his administration operates, and delegating. He is not a textbook player, he is a guy player. David Gergen assessed the Bush leadership style by relating it to a W.H.D. Koerner painting entitled “A Charge to Keep” which hangs in the Oval Office. Bush describes the painting as a “horseman determinedly charging up what appears to be a steep and through trail. This is us” (Gergen 2003). Those who agree with Bush’s leadership theory see a “brave, daring leader riding fearlessly into the unknown, striking out against unseen enemies, pulling his team behind him” (Gergen 2003). On the other side of the coin, critics see “a lone, arrogant cowboy plunging recklessly ahead, paying little heed to danger, looking neither left nor right, listening to no voice other than his own” (Gergen 2003). Gergen’s use of the picture as the governing metaphor of Bush’s leadership style ultimately proves to be more useful than even he may have imagined. Views on Bush’s leadership have distinctly separated scholars and Americans alike. What is exemplary and groundbreaking to one appears to be draconian and risky to another. Many individuals agree on how Bush leads; where they fundamentally differ is on how they frame these actions. Most commentators agree that Bush is big on delegating, that he runs a tight ship, that he likes to decide quickly while not looking back, that he favors a short agenda of big things over a long agenda of small items, and that he is willing to push big, controversial policies before they have broad support (Gilbert 2003). To Bush, unquestionably, “the decision is the central presidential act” (Kettl 2003, 185). Decisions are a critical part of a president’s job; and their quality typically plays a large role in determining a president’s legacy (Rudalevige 2008). Where commentators have failed to reach agreement, however, is on the merits of such an approach to leadership. The Bush style has largely been assumed to either reap big rewards or cause large problems. The particular approach to each topic mentioned above ultimately determines its potential for success.

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Delegation can be wise when intelligent individuals who have the freedom to do what is necessary are planning a policy or disastrous when unqualified individuals take charge of national policies. Tight ships can be well-oiled machines, unless a leader micromanages to an extent that nothing gets accomplished. Quick decisions can lead to decisive, sound policies as long as the leader did not overly-suffice when gathering background information. Short agendas can benefit policy as long as important issues are not neglected merely because of their sheer volume. Lastly, leaders can push policies that lack popular support as long as they are eventually willing to admit defeat if the policy flops during implementation. Whether Bush’s approach has been a positive or negative in this regard remains largely debated. The Bush leadership style at its most fundamental roots combines a low need for personal control and involvement with the policy process with a low general sensitivity to context and a limited need for vast amounts of information when making decisions (Preston and Hermann 2004). Bush tends to delegate, express confidence, and ignore details. He has been labeled a “CEO President” by some and an “MBA President” by others. Such an image involves “a smartly dressed executive who lives by synchronized watch and day planner, who delegates tasks where appropriate, and who works out regularly, eats right and gets plenty of bed rest” (Oliphant 2003). His entire “pedigree conotates privilege—Andover, Yale, Harvard—yet his manners are decidedly populist” (Pike and Maltese 2008, 186). Scholars have suggested that his administration suffers from “groupthink” and that he serves as his own “yes man.” He is seen as delegating powers, expressing confidence, and happily ignoring details. He has “gathered a small circle of trusted advisers, listens to brief debates and then offers swift, gut-based solutions to problems” (Allen and Broder 2004). On a personal level, he is “gregarious, unpretentious, persistent, and highly adaptable…his interpersonal skills are outstanding” (Pika and Maltese 2008, 185). A corporation’s mission statement or corporate philosophy is almost always irrelevant compared to leadership philosophy and style—as evidenced by actual behavior (Kelly 2004). With the Bush White House we have found an ideologically driven administration with predetermined priorities. Consequently, what emerges is top-down, fractured communication and an environment in which problem solving is unable to occur without the leader’s consent and support. He focuses on the big issues, decides the major strategy questions and delegates the details (Gilbert 2003). Although a seemingly irrelevant example, Bush’s story regarding one of his first decisions in the White House is ultimately

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telling. Seeing his job as being not to get his hands dirty in the details, but instead to lead in the light of his values, Bush has detailed the story of his Oval Office rug. On one of his first days in the White House a staffer asked the president what kind of rug he would like. He explained that the questioner should ask Laura “because he didn’t do rugs” (Hoopes 2008, 6). He used this story to explain how his role is to use his core beliefs to guide big decisions. Allan Lichtman discusses the difference between foxes and hedgehogs when examining the goals of presidents. Foxes typically know lots of little things while hedgehogs know a few big things (Gilbert 2003). While Clinton was clearly a fox, Bush proves to be the classic hedgehog. The problem with Bush focusing on the big picture is that such visionary leadership typically neglects the policies and their implementation that put that vision into effect (Weinstein 2004). The ultimate success of the vision will depend on the operations that surround it. Bush builds his approach on teamwork. He develops a clear strategy and business plan. He is focused on a small agenda and does not waver from the policies he wishes to see implemented. He “builds a team, he makes them master the complexities, he has them frame the issues—and then he decides, firmly and without second thoughts” (Gilbert 2003). Compared to previous presidents who served during times of war— specifically Lyndon Johnson—Bush is not obsessed by the war. He does not spend long nights strategizing the next move for the military. Instead, he typically is out of the office by 5 and asleep by 10. The White House has set out to assure that Bush does not become the face of the war like LBJ did for Vietnam (Oliphant 2003). Gergen (2003) describes Bush as a “top-down, no-nonsense, decisive, macho leader who sets his eyes on the far horizon and doesn’t go wobbly getting there.” As Bruce Bartlett told Ron Suskind (2004), Bush “believes he’s on a mission from God. Absolute faith like that overwhelms a need for analysis. The whole thing about faith is to believe things for which there is no empirical evidence.” Bush’s administration and appointees largely consisted of like-minded individuals whose personal loyalty to the president was paramount over professional qualifications (Preston 2001; Tumulty et al. 2005). Such a setup led to many like-minded individuals that cover a narrow range of the intellectual spectrum determining the policy direction of our nation. Individuals cannot stay on the team without demonstrating loyalty to the man, loyalty to the mission, and loyalty to the message (Gergen 2003). Information would be gathered from numerous sources, but the results received were typically the same. The internal discipline of the Bush administration is admirable, yet it allows for limited debate. When Bush

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entered a room, “his staff rose to their feet with a snap that would have impressed a Prussian field general” (Frum 2003, 15). This system reduced the ability of the administration to actively and to accurately monitor the political environment for feedback or for further information (Allen 2005). Bush typically heard what he wanted to hear from those he valued and acted accordingly. Dissenting voices are effectively muffled. As Jackie Calmes explained, Bush “relies too much on like-minded advisers, too readily equates dissent with disloyalty and is too averse to admitting mistakes” (Calmes 2004). Yet, on the other hand, Bush’s approach led to the occurrence of “relatively little of the infighting, backbiting, and leaks…that were common to most other administrations” (Pfiffner 2004, 7). Part of this is because many of the staffers genuinely like Bush, but the other side of the coin is that Bush puts a high premium in loyalty and aggressively enforces discipline. Bush has been accused of existing in a bubble (Thomas and Wolffe 2005). When John Murtha made numerous attempts to reach out to Bush to discuss the war in Iraq, he was greeted by a form letter response from a deputy under secretary. Bush clearly has opted to ignore the Washington pundits, instead focusing on his own beliefs and agenda. Doing so has led Bush to be one of the most isolated presidents in modern history. Bush, unlike Clinton before him, sees no point is “endless, circular collegiate bull sessions” (Thomas and Wolffe 2005). There is no 360-degree leadership under Bush. He relies on his small circle of trust and typically sides with them in all policy debates. Bush prefers short conversations that provide a great explanation of the conclusions while not wasting too much time on the reasoning behind them. “He is brief. He uses simple words. He has a practiced steely resolve” (Oliphant 2003). Bush ultimately thinks in black versus white dichotomies with moral rhetoric typically framing all decisions. When looking at leadership and international relationships, Bush’s travel schedule has been calculated to involve as little contact as possible with countries he visits (Zakaria 2005). Bush’s father and Clinton had both forged deep relationships with foreign leaders. Both took time out of travel schedules to visit with the people of the nation, garnering reputations as hero as a consequence. With Bush, on the other hand, we find a leader who has “brief, scripted, and perfunctory” conversations with foreign leaders (Zakaria 2005). Bush rarely takes the opportunity to get foreign opinions or assessment of events. This turn towards an imperial style democracy leaves foreign leaders feeling that Bush talks and they listen. Rather than assisting in formulating American foreign policy, the international community has simply been informed by the Bush

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administration over the past eight years. Such style benefits America by intimidating and by allowing for decisive action to be taken quickly. However, it costs us valuable relationships and information sources. In an evermore interconnected world, it will be imperative that measures of imperialness are weighted against the wishes of the international community to at least be heard when American makes policy decisions. True management jargon would direct one to “listen, learn, help and lead,” not merely inform (Zakaria 2005). Continuing on the idea of management, Bush has been examined closely given that he is our first president with an MBA. As the first MBA president and a veteran of years in corporate life, “Bush has been more exposed than any of his White House predecessors to the cult of moral leadership” (Hoopes 2008, 5). To begin, it is imperative to discuss the differences between management and leadership. “Management is frequently associated with task focused responsibilities coordinated through hierarchical organizational structures while leadership focuses on energizing staff with a sense of direction and commitment through promotion of a collective sense of purpose” (Knights and Wilmott 2007). Business students, like Bush, learn to plan through SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats), yet many scholars believe Bush has forgotten his business past in this sense (Hoopes 2008, 5). Bush still utilizes the familiar command-and-control approach of the 1970s. However, such techniques are now considered antiquated by many business scholars. Rather than issuing orders or fiats, leaders should collaborate and engage in consensual leadership (Gergen 2003). While it proves to be an admitted caricature, the newer style (that emerged after Bush had gained his degree) emphasized allowing innovative ideas and information to flow from the bottom-up instead of always coming from the top-down. The best way to manage, according to the new philosophy, is to “deliberate, negotiate, collaborate, and then collaborate some more” (Gergen 2003). Bush epitomizes the type of leadership we often see from individuals like George Patton and Bobby Knight. Yet, instead of a company of troops on a battlefield or a team of five on a basketball court, Bush leads an entire nation of diverse interests on the world stage. Using the new style of management as a guidepost, it is not surprising that Bush has been targeted by many as a mediocre CEO. He has been accused of assigning tasks to subordinates without making sure they were capable of performing the task and considering the job done since he had delegated it (i.e. Michael Brown and Hurricane Katrina). He insists on wanting realistic alternatives and plans, but refuses to listen to individuals

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who could potentially assist in this endeavor (i.e. Tom Murtha and the Iraq War). He works hard, but typically only on subjects he has considerable experience. Bush characteristically fails to adapt after his initial policy assumptions turn out to be false. He has been accused of being unwilling to recognize bad news and of simply believing that his instincts are truly all he needs. Being resolute, as mentioned previously, serves as a tremendous asset when vision is accompanied by planning for adverse contingencies and calculated adjustments into response them (Weinstein 2004). However, when blindly done, the appearance of being resolute turns into an appearance of being rigid. Greenstein himself has explained that Bush’s leadership style “results in a vision that may be simplistic or insufficiently examined or something that undermines itself” (Allen and Broder 2004). Perhaps political satirist Stephen Colbert stated it best during his address at the White House Correspondence dinner in 2006 when stating that Bush is a man who “believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday.” Much presidential research questions the degree to which a president is to represent the public and respond to their wishes. The original intent of the Founding Fathers was for the president to serve as the national representative for the people. Members of the House were to represent the individual, Senators were to represent the states, and the president was to serve for the nation as an entity. Such expectations would involve a president feeling the need to at least respond to criticism and answer questions in a straightforward, timely manner. This has not proven to be the case with the Bush administration. As discussed above, Bush has been willing to move forward with policies before gaining support. The assumption proves to be that his ideas are correct and people will see that as they move ahead full-steam. However, Bush has explained that “[he] does not need to explain why [he] says things. That is the interesting thing about being president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to [him] why they say something, but [he] doesn’t feel [he] owe[s] anybody an explanation” (Allen and Broder 2004). Given that he largely depends on a narrow base, Bush has been accused of demonstrating the dangers of John F. Kennedy’s brand of personal leadership when practiced by an aggressive power seeker (Burns 2006). As Hugh Davis Graham explains, the Bush administrations prerogative for some secrecy “would make Nixon jealous in his grave” (Cannon 2002, 96) A former State Department official recalled White House meetings as a “little cabal” that “made decisions the bureaucracy did not know were being made” (Burns 2006). As Nixon and JFK had shown previously, Bush demonstrated that a closed decision-making process, which pays

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little attention to outside voices and alternative information, can often lead to misjudgments and potentially flawed execution. So the question becomes, what has Bush done in terms of leadership successfully over the past eight years? As Gergen (2003) notes, one reason that Bush’s leadership style has been viewed positively by some is that his “don’t mess with Texas approach goes down well in a country where NASCAR is the fastest-growing sport.” Bush’s bravado proves to be one of his strongest points. Americans are attracted to men “who walk like John Wayne, talk like Gary Cooper, and look like Tom Cruise on a flight deck” (Gergen 2003). Bush’s leadership has been not just eventful, but event making. He has successfully implemented much of his agenda. Unlike the era under Eisenhower, there is no complaint from the public or media about Bush not having a presidential program full of potential policy ideas. Further, Bush’s electoral strategy based on multilevel marketing and micro targeting has in many ways reshaped the electoral context for future contests. Carolyn Thompson and James Ware (2003) have provided the most supportive account of Bush’s leadership style yet to hit the market. In making a case for Bush’s style of choice, it is imperative to include a review of their work. Bush has two keys that Thompson and Ware (2003) identify as leading to his strong leadership: timeless principles and horse sense. By having leadership skills that have been tested throughout history and common sense, coupled with instincts, Bush is viewed as having “genius potential.” The fact is that Bush’s values are practically common knowledge. He values family, faith, and integrity (Thompson and Ware 2003, 8). Any person on the street would have a fair chance of identifying Bush’s values. This is not always the case, however. Clinton did not have easily identifiable deeply held beliefs, especially compared to the consistent feelings portrayed by Bush. As stated previously, Bush clearly believes his job “is to set the agenda, to articulate the vision, and to lead” (Thompson and Ware 2003, 33). Life is about the forest, not the trees to the president. He talks straight—using short sentences, positive words, strategic pauses, and storytelling to make points. Understanding that he possesses the trust of Americans, Bush has felt the need to constantly remind himself of the delicateness and sacredness surrounding such a bond. In order to assure the staff he desires to deliver on political promises, Bush actively recruits the right person for any given situation to the job and then leaves them alone to make decisions and perform. One individual has gone as far as to compare Bush with Tom Sawyer in terms of his likeability. He not only gets you to whitewash the fence for him, he makes you feel lucky for getting to do it (Thompson and Ware 2003, 150).

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Clearly then, positives do emerge from Bush’s style of leadership. How an individual judges Bush’s ultimate success in leading will likely be heavily influenced by partisan biases and how one views the outcomes of his major policies. Such methods for reaching a verdict on the merits of particular forms of leadership, however, are futile. Leadership needs to be judged in a nonpartisan manner with conclusions reached based on the effectiveness of a leader’s style in bringing about his own goals and agenda. In this regard, it is clear that Bush’s style works for him. He has remained consistent, sometimes almost to a fault. Returning to the overarching idea that Bush proves to fall in between Nixon and Reagan on the leadership scale, it is clear that he has traits that closely parallel both previous presidents. His leadership style has not necessarily led to a scandal close in scope to Watergate or Iran-Contra, but the buttoned-up culture of his White House has led to a reduced flow of information and planted the seeds of distrust. Particularly when examining the lead up to the War in Iraq, the Bush administration has been accused of spinning answers to questions from the media or, even worse, refusing to answer questions openly or candidly. Start with the fact that Bush, much like Reagan, believes in delegating responsibility. The difference, however, is that Bush monitors his team closely in most circumstances. If an individual was to step out of line, Bush would quickly pull in the reins. Given that God is on his side, Bush is not as concerned with political enemies as Richard Nixon was, yet Bush still stacks his advisory positions with individuals that are unlikely to speak out against him or question his decisions. Consequently, we can judge, on a cursory, non-scientific basis, that Bush’s hybrid theory of combining control of the big picture with substantial delegation of details to likeminded individuals can successfully lead to the implementation of the president’s agenda without leading to the accountability problems and institutional scandals that plagued previous administrations.

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IV. A Brief Katrina Case Study Now that we have devoted significant time to describing and analyzing the Bush leadership style in mostly abstract terms, it is necessary to provide a concrete example of Bush in action. Given the wide complexities and changing nature of the War in Iraq and War on Terrorism, the leadership decisions surrounding Hurricane Katrina prove to be a more easily defined case study. As a result of Bush’s leadership style, the pre-existing advisory arrangements and style of decision-making were ones where a substantial degree of policy formulation and implementation tasks were delegated to loyal subordinates without much—if any—direct presidential oversight (Kahn 2000; Berke 2001; Bruni 2002). In order to fully frame the Katrina context, it is important to remember that Bush had already faced a number of accountability episodes during his administration, including: the lack of WMDs in Iraq, ongoing investigations of White House aides for involvement in leaking Valerie Plame’s name, and the charges of misuse of intelligence to justify the war. Thus, when Americans began to judge the performance and behavior of the Bush administration in response to Katrina, we must realize that they did so in a context of an overall negative political climate. It should come as no surprise then that the overly optimistic responses by Bush and White House staffers about the situation in New Orleans were immediately refuted by media coverage of the situation and first hand accounts from rescue workers that were in the city (Thomas 2005). Previous political decisions made by the Bush administration made the president even more susceptible to blame. The Louisiana National Guard was almost fully deployed to Iraq and was consequently short-handed and incapable of appropriately responding as New Orleans fell victim to the devastating storm. The administration had slashed the budget for the Army Corps of Engineers to repair levees around New Orleans by half in the years leading up to Katrina. Only a year before Katrina, a Category 4 hurricane, hit New Orleans, the city had played host to a series of federal, state, and local leaders to show what would occur if a Category 3 storm ever hit the city. The results were that no level of government was prepared to handle such an occurrence and that the city would flood with potentially tens of thousands of citizens losing their lives. Yet when the devastating storm hit, everyone still appeared shocked when the levies broke and chaos ensued. Again, Bush’s leadership style of substantial delegation, limited active involvement, and emphasis on loyalty over expertise preset the roles of policy actors long before Katrina occurred. Michael Brown, director of FEMA, was shown to be a product of pure

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cronyism (Tumulty et al. 2005). Brown had no background in disaster management and his ineffectiveness quickly became evident as Katrina unfolded. The situation quickly grew worse for the administration as images emerged of citizens stuck on bridges and rooftops baking in the sun with no water, food, or medical attention. As stories from the Superdome emerged and looting began to run rampant, the media successfully “framed” the event as a fiasco in a way that no amount of administrative spin could undo. Although all levels of government dropped the ball in response to Katrina, the federal government—specifically FEMA, the Department of Homeland Security, and the White House—came under ever-increasing pressure to explain the lack of reaction. Bush immediately refused to establish an independent commission to investigate the federal response. Doing so would remove power from the administration—which largely consisted of loyalists as discussed previously. Given that Republicans as a whole would be held equally accountable as Bush’s administration, Congressional party members worked hard to maintain a tight grip on Katrina inquiries to prevent potentially damning information from emerging. The White House report largely deflected blame onto state and local leaders and lower-level administration officials such as Brown and Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff. Yet the media continued its own investigation and largely condemned the Bush administration for its numerous cases of cronyism and the effects of poorly qualified individuals being put in powerful situations. Such claims continued to undermine the White House’s efforts to avoid blame. Citing executive confidentiality, the Bush administration tried to further deflect blame by refusing to fully cooperate with committees. They typically did not supply key documents or allow top administration officials to testify. Senator Liebermann went as far as to say that “there has been a near total lack of cooperation that has made it impossible…for us to do the thorough investigation we have a responsibility to do” (Lipton 2006). Richard Ellis (1994) explains how presidents have a tendency to use subordinates as lightning rods to deflect blame. He observes that “the success of a lightning rod strategy is contingent on the degree to which people expect a president to be in command of a policy area” (Ellis 1994, 169). Consequently, it is difficult for a president to deflect blame when there is an expectation of involvement and control. Given that Katrina was a national emergency caused by a natural disaster and the American public was receiving vivid images of fellow citizens in absolute peril, the expectation was for our president to remedy the situation in an expeditious

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fashion. Further, since Bush built his entire White House staff on the premise of loyalty, he was far less willing to throw his staff under the proverbial bus as other leaders. Bush continued to defend “Brownie” even after it was apparent that he had not done a successful job until a wave of bipartisan criticism left the president no choice. While Brown and Chertoff were the main targets of congressional inquiries, Bush did take responsibility to the extent that the federal government did not fully do its job right. Most officials successfully resisted calls for resignation. Much like Nixon, Bush had surrounded himself with a series of fall men in hopes of ultimately isolating himself from any impact. Chertoff was chastised for failing to establish a clear chain of command and not appointing a solitary individual to spearhead the response (Neuman 2006). He was also viewed as being “detached from events and representative of the passive reaction and misjudgments of most of Bush’s top aides” (Hsu 2006). Brown’s testimony proved to be the most damaging to the White House as he criticized the response saying that the President was over-confident and that the administration knew far more than it had claimed about the potential destruction that could be caused by the storm long before it hit land (Ebrahim 2006). Ultimately, what the Katrina situation shows is how the Bush leadership style can fail to successfully work in times of crisis management for the betterment of the citizenry while successfully protecting the president. Leaders and their leadership styles play a critical role in how they approach crisis management and ultimately how vulnerable to blame they will be. Bush’s lack of personal engagement and substantial delegation to subordinates (ultimately inexperienced cronyism hires), combined with his lack of attention to the current political environment, slowed his response to the crisis. By the time anything was done, America had soured towards government’s ability to care for its citizens, specifically regarding the federal government’s willingness to care for the common person. Images had saturated American media of desperate citizens practically ignored despite pleas for government. When faced with the circumstances of Katrina, Bush’s leadership style was simply ill fated to the context he faced.

Concluding Thoughts Robert Draper (2007) provides a perfect story to demonstrate Bush’s leadership style. In his epilogue, Draper discusses the meeting between President Bush and the St. Louis Cardinals after the Cardinals World

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Series victory in 2006. The Cardinals had started the season in dominating fashion before enduring a prolonged midseason slide, barely qualifying for the postseason. Up seven games with two weeks to play, the Cardinals rounded out the regular season with a seven game losing streak. The team finished the year 83-78, the worst record ever for a World Series winner. As he addressed the team he explained that “when you’re on one of those losing streaks it’s easy to get down and to forget the goal…the sports pages were a little rough on you for a while there…you endure it, as the result of character and leadership” (Draper 2007, 409). Bush, however, had been sure since August that the Cardinals would win the World Series. After meeting with manager Tony LaRussa, Bush was convinced of the Cardinals outcome “because he [LaRussa] was. Because he believed it. And [Bush] appreciate[s] good leadership” (Draper 2007, 409). The story of the Cardinals’ season closely mirrors Bush’s time in office. There was a period of great hope and praise followed by a slight downturn, which quickly turned, into a complete collapse. Ultimately, however, the Cardinals moved forward and found momentum back on their side. For President Bush, the jury still remains out in deliberation on the final outcome. Francis Fukuyama (2006, 60-61) demonstrates how Bush may ultimately be judged: Great leadership often involves putting aside self-doubt, bucking conventional wisdom, and listening only to an inner voice that tells you the right thing to do. That is the essence of strong character. The problem is that bad leadership can also flow from these characteristics: steely determination can become stubbornness; the willingness to flout conventional wisdom can amount to a lack of common sense; the inner voice can become delusional.

George W. Bush “was an average student, a party guy, and a mediocre athlete” (Thompson and Ware 2003, 279). He took this mediocrity and became the president of the strongest nation in the world. While his leadership style has provided benefits and detriments alike during his tenure as president, the imperative fact is that he utilized a style that he felt would succeed. Bush “created a system that enabled him to extract desired information from a disciplined hierarchy” (Rudalevige 2008, 136). Much like my undergraduate student reminded us pages ago, Bush worked to better the country in a manner that he saw fit. Regardless of partisan views of policy outcomes, the decisions are based on good intentions and should be at least recalled as such. He was not Reagan or Nixon or Clinton or his father. He was George W. Bush, unwavering in values or

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resolve. Even when his leadership style did not work to his benefit, he remained consistent—at times to a fault. As Fukuyama pointed out, leaders like Bush can live and die by the same sword. Ultimately, each individual will interpret the Bush leadership legacy through their own lens. What is most important about the Bush style “is that it works for him” (Kettl 2003, 185). From his heart and from his core, “Bush deeply believes that he knows what is best, for himself, for the nation, and for the world” (Kettl 2003, 188).

References Allen, Mike. 2005. “Living Too Much in the Bubble?: A Bungled Initial Response to Katrina Exposed the Perils of a Rigid, Insular White House. Time, 11 September. Allen, Mike and David S. Broder. 2004. “Bush’s Leadership Style:Decisive or Simplistic?” The Washington Post, August 30. Page A01. Berke, Richard. 2001. “Jokes Remain, but Many Say Bush is Showing Signs of War’s Burden.” The New York Times, December 9. Boin, Arjen, Paul t’ Hart, Eric Stern, and Bengt Sundelius. 2005. The Politics of Crisis Management: Public Leadership under Pressure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bruni, Frank. 2002. Ambling into History: The Unlikely Odyssey of George W. Bush. New York: Harper Collins. Burns, James MacGregor. 2006. Running Alone: Presidential Leadership—JFK to Bush II. New York: Basic. Calmes, Jackie. 2004. “Questions of Leadership Style.” The Wall Street Journal, May 19. Section A, page 4. Cannon, Carl M. 2002. “For the Record.” National Journal 34 (2): 90-96. Draper, Robert. 2007. Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush. New York: Free Press. Dyson, Stephen B. and Thomas Preston. 2006. “Individual Characteristics of Leaders and the Use of Analogy in Foreign Policy Decision Making.” Political Psychology 27: 265-288. Ebrahim, Margaret. 2006. “Ex-FEMA Chief Says Bush was Overconfident.” March 1. < http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/print?id=1677116>. Ellis, Richard J. 1994. Presidential Lightning Rods: The Politics of Blame Avoidance. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press. Flin, Rhona. 1996. Sitting in the Hot Seat: Leaders and Teams for Critical Incident Management. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

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Frum, David. 2003. The Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George W. Bush. New York: Random House. George, Alexander L. 1980. Presidential Decision making in Foreign Policy. Boulder, CO: Westview. Gergen, David. 2003. “Stubborn Kind of Fellow.” Compass. Cambridge, MA: Center for Public Leadership, Harvard University. Gilbert, Craig. 2003. “What if Bush’s Style Flops?” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, March 9. Greenstein, Fred I. 1969. Personality and Politics: Problems of Evidence, Inference, and Conceptualization. Cambridge: Markham. Hermann, Margaret G. 1980. “Explaining Foreign Policy Behaviour Using Personal Characteristics of Political Leaders.” International Studies Quarterly 24: 7-46. Hess, Stephen. 1988. Organizing the Presidency. Washington, DC: Brookings. Hoopes, James. 2008. Hail to the CEO: The Failure of George W. Bush and the Cult of Moral Leadership. Westport, CT: Praeger. House, Robert J. 1990. “Power and Personality in Complex Organizations.” In Personality and Organizational Influence. Edited by Barry M. Shaw and L.L. Cummings. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Hsu, Spencer S. 2006. “Katrina Report Spreads Blame: Homeland Security, Chertoff Singled Out.” Washington Post, February 12. Kahn, Joseph. 2000. “Bush Filling Cabinet with Team of Power-Seasoned Executives.” The New York Times, December 31. Page Ai. Kelly, Charles M. “Who’s Out of the Loop?: In Bush White House, Leadership Style Works Against Communication.” OpEdNews. . Kettl, Donald F. 2003. Team Bush: Leadership Lessons from the Bush White House. New York: McGraw-Hill. Knights, David and Hugh Wilmott. Introducing Organizational Behaviour and Management. London: Thomson Learning, 2007. Lipton, Eric. 2006. “White House Declines to Provide Storm Papers.” The New York Times, January 24. McClelland, David C. 1975. Power: The Inner Experience. New York: Irvington. Neuman, Johanna. 2006. “GAO Puts Blame on Chertoff for Katrina Fiasco.” Baltimore Sun, February 2. Page 1. Oliphant, James. 2003. “Bush Leadership Style: Trust Me.” . Pfiffner, James P. 2007. “The First MBA President: George W. Bush as Public Administrator.” Public Administration Review 67 (1): 6-20.

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—. 2004. “Introduction: Assessing the Bush Presidency.” In Considering the Bush Presidency. Edited by Gary L. Gregg III and Mark J. Rozell. New York: Oxford University Press. —. 2003. “Three Crises of Character in the Modern Presidency.” In Understanding the Presidency. 3rd edition. Edited by James P. Pfiffner and Roger H. Davidson. New York: Longman. Preston, Thomas. 2001. The President and His Inner Circle: Leadership Style and the Advisory Process in Foreign Affairs. New York: Columbia University Press. Preston, Thomas and Paul ‘t Hart. 1999. “”Understanding and Evaluating Bureaucratic Politics: The Nexus between Political Leaders and Advisory Systems.” Political Psychology 20 (1): 49-98. Preston, Thomas and Margaret G. Hermann. 2004. “Presidential Leadership Style and the Foreign Policy Advisory Process.” In The Domestic Sources of American Foreign Policy: Insights and Evidence. 4th edition. Edited by Eugene R. Wittkopf and James M. McCormick. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. Rudalevige, Andrew. 2008. “The Decider: Issue Management and the Bush White House.” In The George W. Bush Legacy. Edited by Colin Campbell, Bert A. Rockman and Andrew Rudalevige. Washington, DC: CQ Press. Suskind, Ron. 2004. “Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush.” The New York Times, October 17. Taysi, Tanyel and Thomas Preston. 2001. “The Personality and Leadership Style of President Khatami: Implications for the Future of Iranian Political Reform.” In: Profiling Political Leaders: CrossCulturalStudies of Personality and Behavior. Edited by Ofer Feldman and Linda O. Valenty. Westport, CT: Praeger. Thomas, Evan. 2005. “How Bush Blew It.” Newsweek, September 19. Thomas, Evan and Richard Wolffe. 2005. “Bush in the Bubble.” Newsweek, December 19. Thompson, Carolyn B. and James W. Ware. 2003. The Leadership Genius of George W. Bush: 10 Commonsense Lessons from the Commander in Chief. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Tumulty, Karen, Mark Thompson, and Mike Allen. 2005. “How Many More Mike Browns are Out There?”. Time, October 3: 49-54. Ulmer, Robert R., Timothy L. Sellnow, and Matthew W. Seeger. 2007. Effective Crisis Communication: Moving from Crisis to Opportunity. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

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Weinstein, Michael A. 2004. “The Weakness in the White House: The President.” Power and Interest News Report. . Winter, David G. 1973. The Power Motive. New York: Free Press. Zakaria, Fareed. 2005. “An Imperial Presidency.” Newsweek, December 19.

CHAPTER THREE THE POST-RHETORICAL LEGACY OF GEORGE W. BUSH JENNIFER R. MERCIECA AND JUSTIN S. VAUGHN

On December 30, 2005 President George W. Bush was nearing the end of a weeklong vacation at his Crawford, Texas ranch. Late that afternoon he took time away from celebrating the holidays to sign 14 congressional bills into law. On that day, among other actions, President Bush authorized the federal government “to rehabilitate the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial”; authorized monies “to support relief and reconstruction efforts related to the hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico”; and authorized “provisions [to] reaffirm the values we share as a Nation and our commitment to the rule of law” by prohibiting “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” of “captured terrorists” either “at home or abroad.”1 The last bill specifically contained a ban on torture. The so-called McCain anti-torture legislation, named after Arizona Senator and former P.O.W. John McCain, was a bitter pill for the Bush Administration to swallow. President Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney and the rest of the Bush Administration had opposed the torture ban by arguing that such a ban tied the hands of America: it prevented President Bush from fully acting as Commander in Chief; it prevented the American military from fully interrogating potential sources; it prevented the American intelligence community from fully protecting American lives from terrorism. According to Boston Globe reporter Charlie Savage, “The White House tried hard to kill the McCain amendment. Cheney lobbied Congress to exempt the CIA from any interrogation limits, and Bush threatened to veto the bill, arguing that the executive branch has exclusive authority over war policy.”2 In short, the Bush Administration believed that the McCain anti-torture bill enabled the terrorists to attack America and they fought mightily against it. Nevertheless, as much as the Bush

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Administration believed that the torture ban would make America unsafe, members of the administration were unable to convince Congress or the American people that the president’s position was the right one. Polls showed that Americans overwhelmingly supported the torture ban and the ban easily passed Congress with bipartisan support. Defeated, President Bush threatened to veto the ban, but the legislation had enough support to override the president’s veto. Faced with imminent defeat, the Bush Administration capitulated and invited Senator McCain to the White House on December 15, 2005 to congratulate him on his “hard work” to ban the United States’ use of torture on enemy combatants on U.S. soil or overseas.3 Thus, with the Bush Administration’s December 15, 2005 public embrace of the torture ban, it was not surprising that President Bush would sign the ban into law on December 30, 2005. What was surprising, although little noticed at the time, was that a few hours after he privately signed the bill, President Bush quietly released a signing statement that instructed the Executive Branch that it “shall construe section 8104, relating to integration of foreign intelligence information, in a manner consistent with the President’s constitutional authority as Commander in Chief, including for the conduct of intelligence operations, and to supervise the unitary executive branch.” Bush’s signing statement also directed the Executive Branch to “construe sections 8106 and 8119 of the Act, which purport to prohibit the President from altering command and control relationships within the Armed Forces, as advisory, as any other construction would be inconsistent with the constitutional grant to the President of the authority of Commander in Chief.” Furthermore, President Bush’s signing statement directed the Executive Branch “to construe Title X in Division A of the Act, relating to detainees, in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief and consistent with the constitutional limitations on the judicial power.”4 In other words, President Bush directed his Executive Branch not to follow the torture ban if it encumbered his presidential prerogatives in any way or threatened his ability to control the actions of the “unitary executive branch,” which it certainly appeared to do.5 On December 30, 2005 President Bush had both signed the anti-torture ban into law and directed his Executive Branch not to follow it. Because Bush had already staged his big press opportunity with Senator McCain on December 15 and because he signed the bill late on a Friday afternoon during the holiday season, and because he released his signing statement even later on that Friday evening, very little attention was paid to the

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apparent contradiction. In fact, many news organizations did not get around to acknowledging that President Bush had signed any laws until December 31, 2005 and it seems that no one noticed the signing statement at all until January 2, 2006 when Georgetown Law Professor and former member of the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel Marty Lederman wrote about it on the blog Balkinization.6 Boston Globe reporter Charlie Savage picked up the story on January 4, 2006, but otherwise, President Bush’s reversal of the torture ban was not widely reported. We have dwelled on this example at such length because we believe that the story of how the Bush Administration handled Senator McCain’s torture ban functions as a synecdochal example of what Stephen J. Hartnett and Jennifer R. Mercieca (2007) have recently called the “postrhetorical presidency,” or the use of communication strategies designed to “confuse public opinion, prevent citizen action, and frustrate citizen deliberation.” The Bush Administration did not want the torture ban and when they failed to move public and congressional opinion in their favor, they put on a spectacle of capitulation for public consumption, staged a public signing yet then surreptitiously reversed the torture ban later that evening. In short, the story of the Bush Administration’s handling of the torture ban demonstrates precisely why we believe that the most noteworthy feature of the Bush presidency was in how he manifested the continuing evolution beyond the rhetorical presidency.

George W. Bush and the Post-Rhetorical Presidency Our concept of the post-rhetorical presidency builds upon Jeffrey Tulis’ (1987) seminal argument. Tulis argued that, beginning with the presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, Twentieth Century presidents began regularly attempting to circumvent the constitutional order by going over the heads of members of Congress and speaking about policy issues directly to the mass public. According to Tulis, presidents began to believe that speaking directly to the people would allow them to sell presidential agendas to the public with the expectation that a then-sold public would provide popular and electoral pressure to their legislative representatives (see also Kernell 1986). Our central theoretical contention is that, if the rhetorical presidency was about using communication to mobilize public support and achieve policy and political goals, then the post-rhetorical presidency is about using presidential speech and other communicative tools to distract and stymie the mass public. Conceptually, the post-rhetorical presidency refers to communication strategies designed to confuse public opinion, prevent

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citizen action, and frustrate citizen deliberation. This is fundamentally in opposition to Tulis’ account of the rhetorical presidency, where the president’s goals are first to facilitate public opinion formation and then to mobilize it. Instead, as Hartnett and Mercieca (2007, 600) note, “the occupant of the White House does not define reality but fantasy … does not energize citizens but numbs them … does not attempt to inform and teach but instead to dumb down and stupefy.” Hartnett and Mercieca’s argument dovetails nicely with recent evidence put forward by Lim (2008) concerning the decline in presidential articulation. Lim contends this switch to pathology of vacuous rhetoric” is guided by a desire both to seduce and obfuscate, simultaneously undermining public competence and discourse while enhancing the likelihood of presidential goal achievement. Clearly, the advent of this paradigmatic shift in presidential rhetorical practice is no accident. Rather, it is the combined function of political ambitions, public expectations, and technological change. The explosion of the mass media has left the nation awash in white noise, which pressures presidents to embrace rhetorical strategies designed not to enhance citizen understanding of policy debates, but rather to distract the mass public so that the chief executive can make decisions and policy without suffering the limitations of public sentiment. In particular, we believe that the communicative practices of the post-rhetorical presidency facilitate the Unitary Executive, as it distracts public attention from presidential power grabs. Yet, while these post-rhetorical practices enabled the Unitary Executive, the Bush Administration may have been merely responding to the evolution of the media machine, which has all but rendered a traditional rhetorical presidency approach useless. As George Edwards (2003) documents, presidents usually fail in their attempts to influence public opinion in a direct manner.7 For example, this was the case when George W. Bush unsuccessfully attempted an extremely well designed and implemented crusade to sell his plan for social security reform to the American people in 2005 (Edwards 2006). In fact, not only did Bush’s efforts fail to secure social security reform, his effort actually resulted in moving serious discussion of reform off the legislative agenda. As a result, faced with an impossible media-driven context, an inability to sell mainstream issues and a need to disguise controversial policy positions, recent presidents have moved beyond the 20th Century form of the rhetorical presidency to a new era of post-rhetorical communication. Although the roots of the post-rhetorical presidency can be found in his two most direct predecessors, the post-rhetorical strategy has crystallized in the actions of the George W. Bush Administration. In this essay, we

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examine the performance of the Bush Administration in three key areas of presidential communication: the president’s public speeches, the institutional role of the press secretary, and the increased practice of accompanying legislation with signing statements. We conclude with a discussion of Bush’s legacy in the rhetorical arena, offering speculation concerning the future of the post-rhetorical presidency and ways in which the rhetorical practices of Bush’s successors are either enabled or constrained by those of the 43rd president.

George W. Bush’s Rhetorical Style We believe that an objective assessment of President Bush’s rhetorical style reveals three prominent features of his discourse that are consistent with the broader theoretical underpinnings of the post-rhetorical presidency: Intentional Lies; Insider Talk; and, Heresthetic Trickery. President Bush is certainly not the first president to use any of these rhetorical strategies; President Nixon’s evasion of the Watergate investigation, President Reagan’s avoidance of Iran-Contra culpability, and President Clinton’s dissembling about the scandal surrounding the Lewinsky affair all spring to mind as examples of presidents employing many, if not all, of these rhetorical techniques. The differences between the rhetorical style of the “rhetorical presidency” and of the “postrhetorical presidency” are thus in frequency, degree, purpose, and context rather than in kind. We would stress that the main assumption of the “rhetorical presidency” is that presidents “go over the head” of Congress by speaking directly to the people and appealing to the people to support their policies. The “post-rhetorical presidency” perspective also argues that the president goes over the head of Congress by speaking directly to the people, but in this case the president does not appeal to the people to support administration policies so much as to stun and trick the people into a confused acquiescence. In short, the post-rhetorical president does not attempt to persuade the people so much as he attempts to control them. Inherent in our argument is a distinction—made repeatedly in Western culture since Plato at least—between noble and base forms of rhetoric: some rhetoric seeks to persuade audiences for the common good and some rhetoric seeks to manipulate audiences for the speaker’s personal advantage. In either case, we hope to be clear that we use the word “rhetoric” in its technical sense as a neutral tool of language that can be used for the benefit or the detriment of its audience. We believe, therefore, that an examination of the features of President Bush’s rhetorical style will

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demonstrate that his use of these three stylistic features demonstrates that the post-rhetorical presidency is detrimental to the health of the republic. First, President Bush used Intentional Lies—or, what Wayne Booth (2004) has recently called “rhetrickery, the art of producing misunderstanding,” which often allowed President Bush to pursue his favorite policies without reference to known facts. Throughout its time in office, the Bush Administration built a reputation for goal-oriented information processing, using data that supported its preferences and discarding information that did not. This practice led to the appearance of a disingenuous presidency, one where truth and accuracy took a backseat to ideological exactitude and strategic considerations. We purposefully note the apparent nature of these charges as it is incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to prove fully the merit of any allegation of deception. No one but the alleged deceiver knows in entirety the motivation and full measure of candor behind his or her statements. This is equally true for the communication efforts of the Bush Administration. As a result, we must rely upon the perception that fair-minded observers developed toward Bush and his administration elites. It is not difficult to discover quickly a perceptual pattern among these observers. The best example of Bush’s use of rhetrickery, and the resultant perception of deception and disingenuousness, was the buildup to the Iraq War. A general consensus concerning the “Bush Lied” meme has developed across many sectors of the political elite, and not just from those with ideological (i.e., liberal and progressive anti-war activists) or political (i.e., Democrats) or commercial (i.e., the increasingly tabloidoriented mainstream media establishment) axes to grind. Indeed, those corners with the least incentive to abandon objectivity–the academy, the professional bureaucracy, and the non-profit think-tank community– support the view of a Bush Administration fully engaged in the politics of Intentional Lies. First, professional political scientists have examined Bush’s level of honesty and found him lacking. For example, a leading presidency scholar, James Pfiffner (2004), authored a scientific study empirically evaluating the claims found in the popular press that Bush lied when leading the nation to war against Iraq. His essay examined three sets of statements by the Bush Administration concerning: first, the linkage between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attacks; second, the presence of nuclear weapons in Iraq; and, third, Hussein’s possession and ability to use chemical and biological weapons. The article concludes from the available public evidence that the president misled the nation in varying degrees, from severe deception with respect to the Hussein-al qaeda

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connection to a lower level of misleading rhetoric concerning Iraq’s nuclear capacity. As Pfiffner (2004, 45) notes, “Insofar as President Bush misled the Congress and the citizenry … he undermined the crucial trust upon which the nation depends.” Further evidence of Bush Administration rhetorical deception comes from the non-profit think tank quarter, where Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith from The Center for Public Integrity allege that key members of the Bush Administration, including the president, “made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001 about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.” By examining what the Bush Administration said “for public consumption against what was known, or should have been known, on a day-to-day basis” Lewis and Reading-Smith concluded that the Bush Administration’s “orchestrated campaign…led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.”8 Finally, similar charges of deception come from government entities such as the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Government Accountability Office (GAO). In June 2008 the Senate Intelligence Committee released a long-anticipated “Phase II” report that concluded Bush had used knowingly false Iraq-related intelligence to make the case for invasion to the world. Furthermore, the report contends that the administration quashed discussion of more reliable data that was not consistent with the case for war that Bush and other top aides preferred to make. In particular, the report indicates that the administration practiced deception concerning the linkage between Iraq and al Qaeda, statements by the president and vice president that Saddam Hussein was to give weapons of mass destruction to other terrorist groups, statements concerning post-war progress in Iraq, and administration mischaracterizations of the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, namely that it failed to acknowledge clear instances of inter-agency disagreement. Moreover, the same month the GAO released a report critiquing the veracity of Bush’s post-“surge” reports.9 Specifically, the GAO concluded that White House and Pentagon reports concerning the extent to which the U.S. military was being successful in achieving goals related to Iraqi reconstruction and security capabilities were overstated, sometimes wildly so. In sum, as it appears clear in retrospect, the rhetorical practices of the Bush Administration have led to the perception that President Bush knowingly, intentionally, and repeatedly misled the American people about whether or not Iraq aided al Qaeda, about whether or not Iraq had weapons of mass destruction between 2001 and 2003, and about the

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progress that nation was making in Iraq. Administration allies and other proponents of the war have been able to deflect allegations of deception in one instance or another, but the sheer preponderance of the evidence begins to paint a staggering portrait, even if full understanding of the matter may remain contained within the minds of Bush, Cheney, and other top advisors. As a result, the conclusion many neutral observers draw is that American citizens were denied the opportunity to assess reasonably whether or not Bush’s Iraq War plan was necessary or feasible. According to the assumptions of the rhetorical presidency President Bush would have tried to persuade the people to support the war against the best judgment of Congress, but in this case the Bush Administration did not attempt to persuade or convince the American people to support the war. Rather, the Bush Administration appeared to play “fast and loose” with evidence and information, repeatedly providing information to the American people, Congress, and the United Nations that was consistent with administration goals and withholding, if not suppressing, less strategically helpful information, thereby eclipsing fair deliberation and tricking the people into blind agreement. In short, manipulating the public to believe a president’s preferred version of reality is not the same thing as persuading the public to agree with a president’s policies. Further, President Bush’s use of Intentional Lies helped to facilitate the Unitary Executive by preventing the public and Congress from knowing enough information to question his administration’s policies. Second, President Bush used Insider Talk, or what is commonly referred to as “dog-whistle politics,” to promote insider policies and values.10 We can think of dog-whistle rhetoric as a style of discourse that frequently relies upon “secret” enthymemes, or enthymemes that are not shared by the general public, which allows rhetors to use seemingly innocuous tropes like “family values” as what Kenneth Burke (1969) would have called “eulogistic covering” for more controversial ideas and politics. In other words, when President Bush speaks to the American people he often is simultaneously directing covert messages to targeted segments within the citizenry, to those insiders who either already agree with his policies or who trust that Bush shares their worldview and will make decisions based upon promoting that worldview, without most of the audience being aware of it. For example, when President Bush called the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York City and Washington, D. C. “a day of fire” in his January 5, 2005 Second Inaugural Address, he was signaling to devout evangelical supporters with a solemn wink and a nod that he and they both knew that 9/11 had started the Apocalypse. Because Bush and those who could hear the pitch of his dog-whistle shared a

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common symbol system that most Americans did not quite register, he was able to talk directly to his constituency without alarming the rest of the nation. Similarly, during a debate with Senator John Kerry in the 2004 election, Bush made what seemed to be an odd negative reference to the Dred Scott decision. The phrase fell deaf on most ears, with the important exception of the pro-life advocates in the national audience, who have long connected the Nineteenth Century Supreme Court decision with an important Twentieth Century case: Roe vs. Wade. Thus, while the rhetorical president would seemingly want to appeal to more Americans, President Bush often sought to appeal to less, to appeal only to his audience of true believers. When President Bush used insider dog-whistles he did not seek to persuade the American people to support his policies. Rather, Bush attempted to speak directly to targeted components of his core constituency in a coded language that would escape the notice of most Americans. This had the effect of preventing many Americans from knowing his policies or forming reasonable opinions about his positions; thus, President Bush was able to stifle debate over his most controversial policies while simultaneously managing to reassure his base that he stood with them. Third, President Bush used Heresthetic Trickery—or, what William Riker (1986, 1996) has described as the staging of communication events to allow for the best rhetorical advantage, to eclipse or circumvent public dialogue and public opinion.11 Following a strategy of Heresthetic Trickery allows a president to sidestep creatively potential communication problems that presidents operating under the rhetorical presidency paradigm previously had to confront. For example, flagging popular support for a war might have been a problem for the rhetorical president who sought to persuade the people to agree with his policies, but the postrhetorical president need not worry about persuasion. The post-rhetorical president, instead, need only fly over to the Persian Gulf and make a speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln under a big banner that reads “Mission Accomplished” and then continue the war for another five years. Similarly, a policy context in which public opinion and congressional intent is united against the administration, such as was the case with Bush and the McCain torture legislation would have been a problem for the rhetorical president. In such a case, the rhetorical president might have tried to continue to convince Americans and Congress to change their minds, whereas the post-rhetorical president need only hold a press conference and congratulate Senator McCain for his hard work and patriotism and then quietly release a signing statement that night instructing the Executive Branch not to follow the letter of the law.

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Heresthetic strategies such as these allow the Unitary Executive (as Bush’s signing statement declared) to pursue their goals without having to persuade a skeptical, disinclined or inattentive public to support them. The post-rhetorical president does not seek to persuade Americans to agree with his policies. Rather, the post-rhetorical president uses heresthetic trickery to rule by fiat, not by persuasion. The rhetorical president hoped that by going over the heads of Congress and appealing directly to the people, that they would be enabled to convince the people to apply pressure on Congress and get their policies and programs passed. The post-rhetorical president disregards public opinion altogether. President Bush announced on April 18, 2006—amidst pressure that he should ask Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to step down—“I hear the voices, and I read the front page, and I know the speculation. But I'm the decider, and I decide what is best.”12 On April 19, 2007 President Bush explained his view of how public opinion affects his decision-making, “I came with a set of principles and I didn’t try to change my principles to make me popular…I’ve been in politics long enough to know that polls just go poof at times.” As recently as February 15, 2008, with his approval rating at a historic low of 19%, President Bush reportedly said, “Polls are nothing more than just like a poof of air…I hope by now people have learned that I'm not one of these guys that really gives a darn about elite opinion.’’13 Although Bush’s approval rating increased slightly following that specific poll, indicating it to be a statistical outlier, he spent the spring and summer of 2008 flirting with record levels of unpopularity. Indeed, a CNN/Opinion Research poll in late April of that year found Bush unpopular with 71% of the American public, the highest recorded since the advent of modern opinion polling; six weeks later, in mid-June, a L.A.Times/Bloomberg poll found the president’s unpopularity level at 73%.14 This anti-majoritarian attitude is not limited in the Bush White House to just the president. During a March 2008 interview with “Good Morning America” on the 5th anniversary of the Iraq Invasion, Vice President Dick Cheney replied to interviewer Martha Raddatz’s query about the 2/3 of the American public then opposed to the ongoing war with a question of his own: “So?” The surprised Raddatz responded, “So? You don’t care what the American people think?” Cheney’s response: “No. I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls.” Bush, and by extension his administration, has unchanging principles; Bush is the decider; he does not care if his policies are popular; polls, like magic, just go poof; public opinion polls only reveal elite opinions anyway. Changes in mass popular sentiment are simply fluctuations that

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can distract rather than democratic impulses to be considered, if not followed. In short, the post-rhetorical president has a very different orientation towards cultivating public opinion than the rhetorical president once did and that orientation allowed President Bush to act by fiat rather than by persuasion. When public deliberation is stunned, confused, and tricked by intentional lies, dog-whistle politics, and heresthetic trickery, the potential for fair and reasonable debate is sacrificed to the whims of the postrhetorical president. We acknowledge that public deliberation is rarely fair or reasonable, but when the possibility of public debate is eclipsed by a president who rules by fiat, the republic loses.

George W. Bush’s Press Relations The post-rhetorical tendencies of President Bush’s political speech continue over into his administration’s relationship with the press establishment. Throughout the Bush Administration’s tenure in office, the communication between the institutional office of the presidency and the mass media has been characterized by dishonesty and combativeness in both tone and structure. Simultaneously, the Bush White House’s press operations leadership has sought to validate and reward inherently subjective (and fake) right-wing journalists like Jeff Gannon and Mike Morris while creating an aggressive press organization designed to thwart investigative journalism and limit, rather than facilitate, information sharing between the executive and the mass public. From $240,000 payouts to commentator Armstrong Williams to promote the No Child Left Behind plan to the administration’s practice of pre-packaging news stories and sending them out to local news affiliates, the Bush Administration has sought out alternative ways to transmit information, often of dubious ethical quality and legality, as they attempt to block access to traditional mainstream media sources they view as biased and unhelpful.15 As a result, the institutional press operation under the Bush Administration has become a barrier to the press. Historically, the role of the press secretary has been to manage the information exchange between president and press that both parties require.16 As Marlin Fitzwater (1995, 4), press secretary to Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush, noted, “The press secretary stands between the opposing forces, explaining, cajoling, begging, sometimes pushing both sides toward a better understanding of each other.” The president needs to have information disseminated and the media needs to have information to report, as much

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to feed the public’s appetite for news on their national leader as to fill their moral responsibility of the watchdog in society. Naturally, all press secretaries are interested in garnering positive press coverage, but the way this has been traditionally pursued is by providing beneficial services to members of the media. As Edwards and Wayne (2006, 157) note, “These efforts include coordinating the news, holding press conferences, and providing a range of services such as formal briefings, interviews, photo opportunities, background sessions, travel accommodations, and daily handouts.” The press operation in the Bush White House has provided these services, but the mission has been decidedly less cooperative in nature than the middle-ground approach described by Fitzwater. Instead, the Bush Administration has put forward a series of press secretaries, each with the clear objective to stymie media investigation while disseminating pro-administration information. Ari Fleischer, Bush’s press secretary from 2001-2003, was reviled by members of the White House press corps for his combative approach, disingenuous responses, and efforts to protect rather than transmit important information about the actions of the administration. Fleisher himself has acknowledged the contentious relationship between the White House press corps and himself, attributing it to the nature of the position as press secretary. Quoted in Woody Klein’s (2008, 7) tome on the role of presidential press secretaries, All the Presidents’ Spokesman, Fleischer says, “The relationship between the press secretary and the press corps is designed to be a relationship that has some levels of tension built into it. It is the press’s job to ask anything about everything. I always do my best to give the fullest answers from the President that I possibly can.” How Fleisher was willing to provide those answers, however, was less clear and consistent than the preceding quote might indicate. Reporter Jonathan Chait of The New Republic referred to “a complex, arbitrary, and constantly shifting set of rules governing what questions [Fleisher could] answer.”17 While the press grumbled, President Bush praised Fleisher’s tight-lipped, evasive style, noting his press secretary “understands the fine line between the need to know and the need to say.”18 Perhaps ironically, Fleisher’s professional demise occurred as a result of information he did transmit, though possibly illegally and through leaks, rather than open communication. After receiving immunity from prosecution, Fleisher acknowledge his role in releasing former CIA officer Valerie Plame’s identity to reporters after learning it from Scooter Libby, former Chief of Staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Lewis was later convicted of obstruction of justice, perjury, and making false statements to

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federal investigators, although President Bush soon commuted his prison sentence. Fleisher’s replacement, Scott McClellan, had an equally ignominious tenure during his years of service from 2003 to 2006. In addition to holding a similarly conflictual relationship with the press, McClellan’s most notable task as press secretary was covering up the Plame leak. In a passage from his memoir, What Happened, McClellan (2008) acknowledges the lack of candor in his public exoneration of key Bush advisors involved in the cover-up, pointing the finger up the chain-ofcommand to figures including Karl Rove, Cheney, presidential chief-ofstaff Andrew Card, and seemingly President Bush himself. Although press releases issued after the publication of the excepts stressed that McClellan purposefully stopped short of stating directly that the president and/or his advisors ordered him to lie, McClellan’s admission that the position of press secretary was used to transmit information that was known to be false, at least to the president’s top aides if not the press secretary himself. Furthermore, as was the case with Fleischer, President Bush appeared to understand and appreciate the benefit of McClellan’s emphasis on stonewalling rather than information transmission. At a post-reelection party in 2004, Bush announced to the staff in attendance, “I especially want to thank Scott. I want to thank you for saying – nothing.”19 Following McClellan’s resignation in 2006, the Bush Administration adjusted its press relations strategy to something more akin to infotainment, with cable-ready press secretaries well adjusted to television lighting. From 2006 until the fall of 2007, long-time conservative radio and television staple Tony Snow served as press secretary. Though more polished and less aggressive than his two predecessors, combativeness and the legacy of the Plame scandal plagued Snow’s relationship with the press, particularly during hostile mid-summer (2007) exchanges concerning the president’s decision to commute Libby’s sentence. Indeed, after his death during the final summer of the George W. Bush presidency, Snow’s Associated Press obituary drew attention to his highly politicized interpretation of the position of press secretary. “As press secretary, Snow brought partisan zeal and the skills of a seasoned performer to the task of explaining and defending the president’s policies. During daily briefings, he challenged reporters, scolded them and questioned their motives as if he were starring in a TV show broadcast live from the West Wing.”20 Douglass Daniel, the author of the obituary, continued his commentary on Snow’s approach, noting “critics suggested Snow was turning the traditionally informational briefing into a personality-driven media event short on facts and long on confrontation.” As final evidence of Snow’s

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political rather than informational role, Daniel notes that, by Snow’s own admission, the former press secretary was the first in the position’s history to travel the country raising money for Republican Party politicians. After his resignation for health and family-related reasons, Snow was replaced by his deputy, Dana Perino. Although possibly the most cooperative and detail-oriented of the press secretaries during the Bush Administration, Perino, like her predecessors, views the press as the enemy, rather than a vital component of a thriving democratic system. As she was quoted saying in a 2007 Time magazine profile, “The relationship between the press secretary and the media is always going to be adversarial.”21 Thus, just as is the case with our discussion of President Bush’s rhetoric, the key themes of the Bush Administration’s press operations were hostility as a rule and deception as practice, even if the secretary too falls victim to the ruse. However, it is possible that a portrayal of the Bush Administration’s communicative practices as dishonest, combative, and strategically muddled is inaccurate. This would be possible because our argument assumes that the Bush Administration possesses a discernible agenda (e.g., facilitating and maintaining the Unitary Executive) and uses these post-rhetorical strategies to achieve said agenda. A counter possibility is that the administration possesses no such clear-cut goals, that the muddled rhetoric is an accurate portrayal of muddled policy preferences, and that the apparent deception is an unfortunate and accidental function of internal ideological and political chaos and uncertainty. We hold that this counter-possibility could not be further from the truth, and that an examination of presidential signing statements issued during the Bush Administration provides the evidence of the gap between the spoken words of the administration and the pertinent action.

George W. Bush and Signing Statements Stated simply, George W. Bush’s prolific use of signing statements as a basis to challenge legislation he signed into law provides prima facie evidence that the Bush Administration does indeed possess a discernible agenda. Presidential usage of signing statements in itself is not a fully controversial action; indeed, they have been used historically for rhetorical purposes (Kelley 2003). Additionally, an institutional legacy has been in place since the first post-Watergate presidents (Ford and Carter) of using signing statements as way to fight off congressional usurpation of presidential authority. Presidents have also long used signing statements to ensure that future judges knew what the president’s understanding of

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the newly signed law was and to communicate implementation preferences to executive agencies. In fact, presidents have used signing statements to communicate preferences and provide interpretive guidance on about 20% of signed bills (Kelley and Marshall 2006). The George W. Bush Administration, however, has institutionalized the signing statement function as part of the law-making process to a degree never before seen.22 In Presidents Creating the Presidency, Karlyn Kohrs Campbell and Kathleen Hall Jamieson (2008, 208) argue that the Bush Administration’s usage of signing statements represents a de facto item veto with no constitutional recourse, in effect a simultaneous “public embrace and private repudiation” of the law, if not the law-making process. Further, in a discussion of Bush’s 2006 signing statement related to Science, State, Justice, and Commerce appropriations, Campbell and Jamieson point out that Bush’s bare assertions of power and instructions to the bureaucracy to ignore certain passages without even noting what it is about the passages that he disagrees with amounts to Insider Talk. “Not detailing the nature of the questioned provisions suggests that Bush is writing for an audience that can fill in those blanks” (Campbell and Jamieson 2008, 206). Clearly, such an approach to signing statement is consistent with the post-rhetorical president. Further, as was evident in the example discussed in the introduction to this paper, as well as in numerous other instances, President Bush and his team of core advisers have made it administration policy to publicly express one policy position (or attitude toward a policy position) while reserving the right to act in a considerably more discreet and less transparent manner to undermine the substance of their public posturing. Unsurprisingly, the political fall-out of this strategy has been significant, extending even to the campaign trail in the 2008 presidential primary season, with all major candidates agreeing to be more restrained in their issuance of signing statements. Republican nominee Senator John McCain went so far as to commit to the position that, if elected president, he would never issue a signing statement that reserves the right to disregard parts of laws passed by Congress. Asked by a Washington Post reporter about even considering the issuance of a signing statement, McCain replied, “Never, never, never, never. If I disagree with a law that passed, I’ll veto it.” Unlike Senator McCain’s promised approach to presidential leadership, the Bush signing statement governing strategy shows that both distinct policy position taking and substantive understanding exist within the administration, even if post-rhetorical strategies are undertaken to hide them.

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George W. Bush’s Post-Rhetorical Legacy By combining a deceptive and confusing rhetoric with a hostile and occasionally disingenuous press operation and a penchant for issuing less transparent signing statements to achieve through alternative unilateral means what could not be achieved through cooperative inter-branch negotiation, we feel confident in our assessment that the George W. Bush administration marks a further step away from an old era and toward a new one, the era of the post-rhetorical presidency. The post-rhetorical presidency, as it exists in the Bush administration, exhibits communication strategies designed to confuse public opinion, prevent citizen action, and frustrate citizen deliberation. This marks a sea change from the conceptual underpinnings of Tulis’ (1987) rhetorical presidency. As we close, we should note that we cannot fault President Bush entirely for this development; roots of the post-rhetorical presidency lie in the rhetorical practices of his two immediate successors. Most recently, former President Bill Clinton’s dual emphases on spin (i.e., the heavily biased portrayal of objective reality in terms extraordinarily favorable to one’s subjective preferences) and triangulation (i.e., taking credit for one’s opponent’s ideas while inventing political distance between fellow partisan allies, thus insulating oneself from critical policy-based attacks) are consistent with the post-rhetorical characteristics of muddling differences between positions and dishonestly interpreting available information and policy developments. More personally to the current president, the vague and often banal rhetoric of George H.W. Bush reflects a different type of deception. The generalized, points-of-light-style rhetoric of Bush pere was as much the product of a general disdain for the overtly political (and thus crass and corrupt) nature of the rhetorical presidency (see Medhurst 2006) as it was his being a moderate-to-liberal Republican forced to run under the considerably more conservative banner and legacy of his own predecessor, Ronald Reagan. George W. Bush’s rhetorical approach is the natural continuation of the shared strategic guile of these presidents, however different the motivation may be. What does this hold for the future? What might the rhetorical legacy of George W. Bush be? As we have noted at points throughout this essay, George W. Bush was not the first post-rhetorical president. History may one day show that Bush most exemplified the new post-rhetorical era, though we contend that key elements of the post-rhetorical presidency will remain long after Bush’s departure from office. We hold this opinion because the external forces that ushered in the post-rhetorical era—the changing media environment, the increasing dominance by the president

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of the constitutional order, the rising expectations of presidential leadership from the mass public—all will persist and condition the experience and efforts of the Oval Office’s occupants for the foreseeable future. Indeed, the two major party nominees for the 2008 presidential election were what could be called post-rhetorical candidates. Both Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) and Senator John McCain (R-AZ) are politicians that emphasize image management over policy leadership. The battle for 2008 featured in Obama a newcomer to the national stage, surging on mass enthusiasm for a new style of leadership rather than support for the policy proposals he offered, and in McCain a partisan “maverick” with foreign policy credibility, not least because of his experience in North Vietnamese prison camps as a young soldier. Both campaigns focused extensively on the images and brands, going to great lengths to burnish their own while tarnishing their opponents. Developments in the news cycle were continually spun in ways to help themselves and hurt their opponents. None of this was new to the politics of presidential selection, but it did cement the certainty that the next president will be just as reliant on post-rhetorical ways of communicating rather than experience successful policy leadership through direct and sincere persuasion. Whether Bush’s successor will use those techniques to solve domestic problems or wage another war remains to be seen, and the virtue of their post-rhetorical practices will likely be determined by the values and preferences of the observer. All this, however, is not to say that the post-rhetorical presidency and, more importantly, Bush’s post-rhetorical successors will engage in communication practices and governing actions exactly as Bush did. As likely as the external factors are to continue, it is equally likely that perceived abuses and deceptions have heightened public sensitivity to future post-rhetorical strategic practices, some more than others. Just as the fall-out from the Clinton-Lewinsky affair included a greater wariness of political sex scandals (witness the numerous careers that have since been ended by news stories previously contained only within super-market tabloids), future president-watchers will be on greater guard against specific presidential actions. In particular, we believe Bush’s successors will face more vigilant opposition and greater levels of public skepticism concerning efforts to employ intelligence data as justification for proposed policy endeavors abroad. Similarly, we believe future presidents will be far less able to employ signing statements as alternative tools of presidential policy making. In sum, just as Bush emboldened advocates of a hyper-powerful, if not unitary, presidency, he also raised awareness of the potential dangers of it and, thus, helped create tensions in the latent

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opposition his successors will face as they proceed with the post-rhetorical strategies their predecessors developed and relied upon in an age that demanded presidential leadership even as the possibilities for it constricted. For all this, the extent to which the post-rhetorical presidency will prove a legacy Bush will pass on to his successors or one the fortyfourth president will leave behind remains unclear.

References Booth, Wayne C. 2004. The Rhetoric of Rhetoric: The Quest for Effective Communication. New York: Blackwell. Buncombe, Andrew. “Bush ‘planted fake news stories on American TV.’” The Independent. May 29, 2006. Burke, Kenneth. 1969. Rhetoric of Motives. Berkley: University of California Press. “Bush signs Patriot Act extension at ranch.” USA Today. December 30, 2005. Calabresi, Massimo. “Dana Perino and the Attack Dogs.” Time. October 18, 2007. Campbell, Karlyn Kohrs, and Kathleen Hall Jamieson. 2008. Presidents Creating the Presidency: Deeds Done in Words. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Chait, Jonathan. “Defense Secretary.” The New Republic. June 10, 2002. Daniel, Douglass K. “Cancer claims ex-Bush press secretary Tony Snow.” Associated Press. July 12, 2008. DeYoung, Karen. “GAO Report Faults Post-‘Surge’ Planning.” Washington Post. June 24, 2008. Edwards, George C. III. 2003. On Deaf Ears: The Limits of the Bully Pulpit. New Haven: Yale University Press. —. 2006. Governing by Campaigning: The Politics of the Bush Presidency. New York: Longman. Edwards, George C. III, and Stephen J. Wayne. 2006. Presidential Leadership: Politics and Policy Making, 7th ed. New York: Wadsworth. Fitzwater, Marlin. 1995. Call the Briefing. New York: Crown. Fritz, Ben, Bryan Keefer, and Brendan Nyhan. 2004. All the President’s Spin: George W. Bush, the Media, and the Truth. New York: Simon and Schuster. Hartnett, Stephen J., and Jennifer R. Mercieca. 2007. “A Discovered Dissembler Can Achieve Nothing Great”; or, Four Theses on the Death

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of Presidential Rhetoric in an Age of Empire,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 37: 599-619. Heilbrunn, Jacob. “Not My Fault.” New York Times. June 22, 2008. Kelley, Christopher. 2003. “The Unitary Executive and the Presidential Signing Statement.” Ph.D. Dissertation. Kelley, Christopher S. 2007. “Contextualizing the Signing Statement.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 37: 737-748. Kelley, Christopher S., and Bryan W. Marshall. 2006. “The Last Word: Presidential Power and the Role of Signing Statements.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 38: 248-267. Kernell, Samuel. 1986. Going Public: New Strategies of Presidential Leadership. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly. Klein, Woody. 2008. All the Presidents’ Spokesmen: Spinning the News – White House Press Secretaries from Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush. Westport, CT: Praeger. Kurtz, Howard. “Straight Man.” Washington Post Magazine. May 19, 2002. Lewis, Charles, and Mark Reading-Smith. “False Pretenses: Following 9/11, President Bush and Seven Top Officials of His Administration Waged a Carefully Orchestrated Campaign of Misinformation About the Threat Posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.” Center for Public Integrity. January 23, 2008. Lim, Elvin T. 2008. The Anti-Intellectual Presidency: The Decline of Presidential Rhetoric from George Washington to George W. Bush. Oxford: Oxford University Press. “McCain, Bush Agree on Torture Ban.” CNN. December 15, 2005. McClellan, Scott. 2008. What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception. New York: Public Affairs. Medhurst, Martin J., ed. 2006. The Rhetorical Presidency of George H.W. Bush. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press. Nelson, W. Dale. 1998. Who Speaks for the President?: The White House Press Secretary from Cleveland to Clinton. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Pfiffner, James P. 2004. “Did President Bush Mislead the Country in His Arguments for War with Iraq?” Presidential Studies Quarterly 34: 2546. “President Meets with McCain & Warner, Discusses Position on Interrogation.” www.whitehouse.gov. December 15, 2005. “President Signs House and Senate Resolutions.” www.whitehouse.gov. December 30, 2005.

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“President’s Statement on the Department of Defense, Emergency Supplemental Appropriations to Address Hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, and Pandemic Influenza Act, 2006.” www.whitehouse.gov. December 30, 2005. Riker, William H. 1986. The Art of Political Manipulation. New Haven: Yale University Press. —. 1996. The Strategy of Rhetoric: Campaigning for the American Constitution. New Haven: Yale University Press. Savage, Charlie. 2006. “Bush Could Bypass New Torture Ban, Waiver Right Is Reserved.” Boston Globe. January 4, 2006. Silva, Mark. “Bush: Polls like ‘poof of air,’ U.S. on the high ground.” Baltimore Sun. February 15, 2008. Tulis, Jeffrey K. 1987. The Rhetorical Presidency. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Yoo, John. 2005. The Powers of War and Peace: The Constitution and Foreign Affairs after 9/11. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. —. 2006. War by Other Means: An Insider’s Account of the War on Terrorism. New York: Grove/Atlantic. Zarefsky 2004. “Presidential Rhetoric and the Power of Definition.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 34: 607-620.

Notes 1

“President Signs House and Senate Resolutions,” December 30, 2005, available at: http://www.whitehouse.gov; “Bush signs Patriot Act extension at ranch,” USA Today online, December 30, 2005, available at: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-12-30-bush-patriotact_x.htm?POE=NEWISVA 2 Charlie Savage, “Bush Could Bypass New Torture Ban Waiver Right is Reserved,” Boston Globe, January 4, 2006, available at: http://boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/1/04/bush_could_bypass_ new_torture_ban/ 3 “President Meets with McCain & Warner, Discusses Position on Interrogation,” December 15, 2005, available at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/12/20051215-3.html; “McCain, Bush Agree on Torture Ban,” December 15, 2005, CNN, available at: http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/15/torture.bill/index.html 4 “President’s Statement on the Department of Defense, Emergency Supplemental Appropriations to Address Hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, and Pandemic Influenza Act, 2006,” December 30, 2005, available at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/12/print/20051230-8html

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According to Berkley Law Professor John Yoo, contributing author of the USA PATRIOT Act, alleged author of the memos endorsing torture in Guantanamo Bay and Abu-Ghraib, and defender of the theory of the unitary executive, President Bush is completely justified in his opinions of the use of Executive power. See: The Powers of War and Peace: The Constitution and Foreign Affairs after 9/11 (University of Chicago Press, 2005) and War by Other Means: An Insider's Account of the War on Terrorism (Grove/Atlantic 2006). 6 Marty Lederman, “So Much for the President’s Assent to the McCain Amendment,” Balkinization, January 2, 2006, available at: http://balin.blogspot.com/2006/01/so-much-for-presidents-assent-to.html 7 It is important to note that Edwards’s analysis of presidential opinion influence is limited to examining cause and effect relationships between presidential attempts to go public on an issue and subsequent movement in aggregate public attitudes toward the relevant issues. Zarefsky (2004) offers an alternative version of presidential influence in that he argues presidents may not move public opinion in a discernible way, but they do possess the power to define political reality. This is a compelling argument, though not one well suited to empirical verification. 8 See Lewis and Reading-Smith (2008). Available at: http://www.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/Default.aspx?src=home&context=overvie w&id=945 9 Karen DeYoung, “GAO Report Faults Post-‘Surge’ Planning,” Washington Post, June 24, 2008. 10 Ian Welsh, “Just a Comma: Dog Whistle Politics,” The Agonist, September 25, 2006. Available at: http://agonist.org/ian_welsh/20060925/just_a_comma_dog_whistle_politics 11 “The distinction between rhetoric and heresthetic is that rhetoric involves converting others by persuasive argument, whereas heresthetic involves structuring the situation so that others accept it willingly” (Riker 1996, 8; see also Riker 1986). 12 President Bush’s “I'm the decider” comment can be accessed at www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/04/18/rumsfeld/ 13 Mark Silva, “Bush: Polls like 'poof of air,' U.S. on the high ground,” Baltimore Sun Online, February 15, 2008. Available at: http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/politics/blog/2008/02/bush_polls_like_poof _of_air_us.html 14 http://www.pollingreport.com/BushJob.htm 15 These pre-packaged news programs, referred to as Video News Releases (NVRs), engendered investigation by the Federal Communications Commission. A study by the Center for Media and Democracy showed that at least 77 television stations across the country made use of the constructed VNR news broadcasts over a 10-month period. Andrew Buncombe, “Bush ‘planted fake news stories on American TV’”, The Independent, May 29, 2006. 16 See Nelson (1998) for an excellent history of the White House press secretary up until the George W. Bush administration.

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Jonathan Chait, “Defense Secretary,” The New Republic, June 10, 2002. Quote originally found in Fritz, Keefer, and Nyhan (2004). 18 Howard Kurtz, “Straight Man,” Washington Post Magazine, May 19, 2002. Quote originally found in Fritz, Keefer, and Nyhan (2004). 19 Jacob Heilbrunn, “’Not My Fault’”, New York Times, June 22, 2008. 20 Douglass K. Daniel, “Cancer claims ex-Bush press secretary, Tony Snow, Associated Press, July 12, 2008. 21 Massimo Calabresi, “Dana Perino and the Attack Dogs,” Time, October 18, 2007. 22 Kelley (2007) notes coverage that Bush has not issued more signing statements than other presidents, but has issued many more signing statement-based legal challenges. See also Campbell and Jamieson (2008, 195) for more on how Bush’s signing statements offer more consistently challenges to constitutionality.

CHAPTER FOUR GEORGE W. BUSH’S SIGNING STATEMENTS: ADVANCING THE IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY? HARRY C. “NEIL” STRINE IV

After signing the “National Defense Authorization Act for 2008” in January, 2008, President George W. Bush challenged what he saw as four unconstitutional restrictions on his powers as president of the United States in the legislation. One of the challenged provisions in the bill restricts the United States from using federal funds to build permanent military bases in Iraq. President Bush made the following assertion after signing the bill into law: Provisions of the act. . . purport to impose requirements that could inhibit the president’s ability to carry out his constitutional obligations to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, to protect national security, to supervise the executive branch, and to execute his authority as commander-in-chief. The executive branch shall construe such provisions in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the president (Savage 2008, A1).

Article 1, Section 7 of the U.S. Constitution plainly specifies that all enrolled bills are to be presented to the president for his signature or veto. If the president signs the bill, it automatically becomes law. If the president vetoes the measure, the bill dies unless 2/3 of the House of Representatives and 2/3 of the Senate vote to override the president’s veto. Within the past 25 years, or so, this constitutionally prescribed method of lawmaking has been challenged by the use of “signing statements.” Halstead, in a Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, defines presidential signing statements as “official pronouncements issued by the President contemporaneously to the signing of a bill into law that, in addition to commenting on the law generally, have been used to forward the President’s interpretation of the statutory language; to assert

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 constitutional objections to the provisions contained therein; and, concordantly, to announce that provisions of the law will be administered in a manner that comports with the Administration’s conception of the president’s constitutional prerogatives” (Halstead 2006,1). In other words, when the president signs a bill into law, he sometimes attaches a statement indicating his own interpretation of the legislation or instructs bureaucrats not to enforce certain provisions of the newly enacted law. The presidential signing statement is a discretionary act that does not have any specific basis in the United States Constitution. Critics of President George W. Bush and constitutional scholars claim that he has abused his executive powers through his use of these extraconstitutional signing statements in order to achieve his policy goals. Many of the same criticisms regarding abuse of presidential power have been made about many other presidents, such as Richard Nixon with Watergate and Ronald Reagan with the Iran-Contra scandal. Supporters of the president maintain that presidential signing statements are a creative, traditional, yet necessary means for the president to govern a more complex government in the face of numerous opposing forces, such as interest groups, members of the opposition party, and to maintain a healthy role for the executive branch in its affairs with Congress and the Judiciary. Signing statements have even become an issue in the 2008 presidential campaign. The Boston Globe reported Arizona Senator John McCain saying, “I would never issue a signing statement” and that he “would only sign it or veto” all bills that come to his desk as president of the United States (Savage and Pindell 2007, A14). According to the same article, Democratic candidate Bill Richardson agreed with McCain, “I will eliminate them. I won’t have one” (Savage and Pindell 2007, A14). However, President Bush is not the only recent president to invoke signing statements. President Bill Clinton actually issued more signing statements than President George W. Bush. (The differences between them, however, will be addressed below). There are two notable examples of Clinton’s use of signing statements during his presidency, both of which were meant to override the decision of a Republican-controlled Congress. First, during the U.S. Peace-Keeping mission in Somalia, Congress inserted a provision in a bill that explicitly prohibited the president from placing U.S military forces under the command of a general from another country. Clinton signed the bill and added: I construe [this section] as not restricting my constitutional responsibility and authority as Commander in Chief, including my ability to place U.S. combat forces under the temporary tactical control of a foreign commander

 

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where to do otherwise would jeopardize the safety of U.S. combat forces in support of UNOSOM II. Such U.S. combat forces shall, however, remain under the operational command and control of U.S. Commanders at all times” (Woolley and Peters).

In signing the National Defense Appropriations Act of 1996, President Clinton took exception to a provision in the Bill inserted by Congressman Robert Dornan of California that would require all HIV-positive servicemember to be dismissed, regardless of their fitness to serve in the military. “Clinton signed the statute but concluded that that provision was unconstitutional and announced that he would support efforts in Congress to eliminate it. In that statement, the president announced that he had directed the attorney general not to defend the HIV ban in court if it was challenged” (Cooper 2002, 217). The Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations began many of these practices when attaching signing statements to recently passed statutes. Spitzer (1991) stated that the signing statements of the Bush I administration, if allowed to stand as precedent, would forever shape the executive-legislative balance of power in future years. Almost two decades later, we now consider the ramifications of President George W. Bush’s presidential signing statements on presidential power.

The Imperial Presidency Legacy Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. in his 1973 book, The Imperial Presidency, argues presidential power has grown incrementally over many presidential administrations in response to threats or perceived threats to the United States in the eyes of the president, encroaching on the constitutional power of Congress. More specifically, this gradual strengthening of presidential power originated, according to Schlesinger, in the president’s Article II powers as the Commander-In-Chief of the Army and Navy and to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Schlesinger sketches various historical accounts of how presidents have taken unilateral action without the blessing of Congress; and many cases in which the president refused congressional requests for information. In 1792 George Washington, when asked by the House of Representatives to share papers and records of a failed expedition against the Indians, met with his cabinet and decided to divulge the information because it would not “injure the public” (Schlesinger, Jr. 1973, 16). In 1817-1818, President Madison did not ask for congressional authorization to send General Andrew Jackson to chase Spanish forces back into

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 Florida. Madison, John Adams argued, established the president to declare defensive war without Congress by this action. President Monroe’s announcement of non-interference by European powers in the Western hemisphere, the Monroe Doctrine, was never approved or challenged by Congress, and thus “implied acceptance by Congress” (Schlesinger, Jr. 1973, 27). By 1843, according to Schlesinger, the presidents had accumulated a whole list of grounds “for presidential discretion” to act apart from Congress either to dispatch the military or refuse to provide requested information. These reasons included separation of powers, protection of “active investigation and litigation”, protection of confidential informants, and the protection of innocent persons (Schlesinger, Jr. 1973, 43). Schlesinger documents almost every extra-constitutional claim of presidential authority throughout the 19th and 20th centuries until its zenith in the Nixon administration. Abraham Lincoln closed confederate ports in the twilight of the Civil War and suspended the ban on Habeas Corpus. Franklin Roosevelt unilaterally ordered the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Harry Truman seized the steel mills to avert a strike during the Korean War. Schlesinger’s sharpest criticism regarding the imperial presidency, however, was aimed at President Richard Nixon’s practice of impounding funds, or refusal of the president to spend congressionally approved funds. “Impoundment had existed before Nixon, but no previous President had used it to overturn statutes and abolish programs against congressional will. For Nixon impoundment had become a means of taking from Congress the determination of national priorities” (Schlesinger, Jr. 1973, 397). President Nixon’s Impoundment controversy began in 1971 as a tool through which he could slow Congress’s excessive spending and keep Congress to their selfmandated spending ceilings. Farrier (2004) notes that Nixon proposed 57 programs be cut or reduced in his 1972 budget. Nixon justified this impoundment power by pointing to several previous congressional budget statutes that gave the president authority to keep congressional spending under certain limits (Farrier 2004, 57). Thirty-five years after the resignation of President Nixon, we are already beginning to evaluate President George W. Bush’s presidency. Many have already compared the 43rd president to Nixon as a result of what some would argue to be similar questionable claims of presidential power. Where does this leave the relations between Congress and the presidency? For the most part, Congress has remained either largely silent during this expansion of presidential power or has willingly abdicated power to the president. The War Powers Resolution of 1973 was meant to

 

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limit the war making power of the president by limiting the president to sending troops into hostilities for no more than 60 days unless Congress approves. Presidents since Nixon, including President George W. Bush, according to Fisher (2004) have had their way with wars powers over Congress because Congress is inept. “For its part, Congress seemed incapable of analyzing a presidential proposal and protecting its institutional powers. The decision to go to war cast a dark shadow over the health of U.S. political institutions and the celebrated system of democratic debate and checks and balances” (Fisher 2004, 211). The Budget and Impoundment Act of 1974 was designed to stop the abuses of impoundment in the Nixon administration. As Farrier (2004) noted, “The 1974 act rejected executive-enforced spending limits and reduced the president’s impoundment powers by creating new oversight controls on their use” (Farrier 2004, 79). Most recently, Congress has proposed to curb the executive practice of attaching signing statements to enacted statutes in the form of the Presidential Signing Statement Act of 2006.

President George W. Bush and the Imperial Legacy President George W. Bush inherited a presidency with accumulated powers. He utilized this accrued power during a time dangerous period in American history. The Al Qaeda terrorist group launched an attack on the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon, and other American targets on the morning of September 11, 2001. Three specific presidential actions during the Bush Administration illustrate the disputed power Bush claimed as president of the United States, often at the expense of Congress and the courts. Shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Bush ordered domestic electronic surveillance in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. “Pushing the Limits of Wartime Powers” was the headline of the December 18, 2005 Washington Post story when it reported that the president had ordered secret warrantless wiretapping on citizens and residents within the United States. The authors of the article explained that “the Bush administration concealed the program’s dimensions or existence from the public and from most members of Congress” (Gellman and Linzer 2005, A1). According to Babington (2006), the Republican Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Peter Hoekstra, “has told President Bush that the administration is angering lawmakers, and possibly violating the law, by giving Congress too little information about domestic surveillance programs” (Babington 2006, A6).

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 On November 13, 2001, President Bush issued Military order #1 that established military commissions to try enemy combatants captured on the field of battle in the U.S. offensive against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Bush’s military order was later successfully challenged in the 2006 Supreme Court case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. In a 5-3 decision, Justice John Paul Stevens rebuked President Bush’s creation of military tribunals for enemy combatants. The president did not have authority under Article II, according to the Court, to establish the military commissions for trying prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay (O’Brien 2008, 315). In January, 2002, the Bush White House refused to turn over records of the Energy Task Force that met with Vice President Cheney in 2001. Representative Henry Waxman, a Democrat from California, claimed that many provisions of Bush’s energy policy “‘would have benefitted Enron,’” the bankrupt energy firm. Vice President Cheney repeatedly refused to release this information, claiming executive privilege (Milbank 2002, A7). President George W. Bush could argue, correctly, that each of the above assertions of presidential power had precedence in prior administrations, especially the war-time presidents. How does the presidency of George W. Bush stack up against prior administrations regarding the use of executive power? President Bush’s frequent use of the signing statement is, perhaps, one of the most notable and controversial tools employed by our 43rd chief executive.

Research Question The purpose of this chapter is to investigate President George W. Bush’s use of presidential signing statements and assess the impact of these statements on Bush’s legacy and the Imperial Presidency. The record shows President George W. Bush refused to enforce more than 750 laws enacted while president, as determined by his issuance of presidential signing statements (Savage 2006, A3). Will we remember George W. Bush for abusing his presidential powers or will the legacy of his administration be that of further expanding the powers of the executive for the next occupant of the oval office? In order to explore this question, I employ a three-prong approach to investigate George W. Bush’s use of signing statements. First, following a review of the scholarly literature, I assess the constitutionality of presidential signing statements. Is there any legal or Constitutional basis behind the use of signing statements? Where do the legal scholars position themselves on this issue? Second, I provide a comparative

 

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analysis of the use of signing statements during the Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, Clinton and George W. Bush presidencies. More specifically, I break down the number of times a president refuses to enforce an “unconstitutional” law as per their signing statement and whether the president provides a “saving construction” to the statute; providing direction to the bureaucracy in carrying out the law so that it remains a constitutional act. Third, I compare the percentage of time Presidents Bush and Clinton instituted presidential signing statements in the areas of foreign (defense) and domestic policy. A president who refuses to enforce provisions of a law in domestic affairs via a signing statement should be considered more dangerous than if the president alters statutory meaning with foreign affairs legislation. This is because the rights and freedoms of the American people are more closely and directly threatened by a president’s direct authority over the people. Finally, we should consider the context of when and how the president refuses to enforce a statute. Does the president violate the Constitution during a time of war or peace? Has the president been using them for his own gain? What should be the limit of presidential power when it comes to the use (or misuse) of presidential signing statements? As I note below, the practice of attaching signing statements to congressional acts has become a more regular presidential act in recent years.

History of Presidential Signing Statements President George W. Bush’s use of signing statements has recently come to the forefront of public attention. However, the practice of attaching signing statements to enacted legislation has been used by presidents dating back to George Washington. Cooper (1997) explains that “presidents have issued more than 6,000 proclamations having the force of law since George Washington’s Neutrality Proclamation of 1793” (Cooper 1997, 539). Woolley and Peters give credit to President James Monroe for producing the first signing statement. They identify Monroe’s January 17, 1822 message to Congress as the first signing statement in which the president attempted to clarify what he thought was a confusing law concerning his authority as the commander-in-chief. More specifically, the law dealt with the president’s authority to organize the military. President Monroe stated, in part: . . .Under the late organization of the artillery arm, with the exception of the colonel of the regiment of light artillery, there were no grades higher than lieutenant-colonel recognized. Three of the four colonels provided for by the act of Congress of the 2d of March, 1821, were considered,

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 therefore, as original vacancies, to be filled, as the good of the service might dictate, from the Army Corps. . . (Woolley and Peters).

Presidents since Monroe have also used signing statements, but used them mostly as rhetorical devices to thank supporters of the legislation and to chide opponents. Kelley (2007) explains that signing statements can instruct bureaucrats how to interpret legislation and how to implement vague “or undefined provisions of the law” (Kelley 2007, 738). For example, in President Reagan’s November 30th signing statement attached to the “Older Americans Act Amendments of 1987”, he provides guidance to the bureaucracy on how to enforce the law, I believe, however, that certain provisions of H.R. 1451 must be carefully construed and administered to avoid raising substantial constitutional questions under the equal protection clause. . . . While I share the Congress’ concern that older American programs reach all eligible populations, I expect that the attempt to provide services to low-income minority individuals will be made in a manner that is not racially preferential. . . (Woolley and Peters).

Presidential signing statements came into vogue during the Reagan administration. “It was the Reagan administration that had taken what had been a relatively benign and largely ceremonial practice of issuing a statement on signing of legislation and worked to make it a systematic and effective weapon to trump congressional action and to influence not only the implementation of a law but also its legal interpretation” (Cooper 1997, 201). The idea that a president can nullify or declare unconstitutional a piece of legislation just signed is what makes presidential signing statements so controversial. Kelley (2007) argues that there were three key events that sparked the current controversy over President George W. Bush’s use of signing statements. First, President George W. Bush reneged on an agreement with Senator John McCain over the use of torture by the US military in a Defense Authorization Bill in January 2006. John McCain inserted an amendment into the military appropriations bill outlawing torture by the United States as a tactic against enemy combatants. However, after signing the bill into law, President George W. Bush stated that his administration would interpret the law “in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as commander-in-chief and consistent with the constitutional limitations on judicial power” (Editorial, The Washington Post 2006, A20). The second event contributing to the spectacle over presidential

 

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signing statements was the appointment of Judge Samuel Alito Jr., to the Supreme Court. During his 2006 confirmation hearings, the Senate Judiciary Committee repeatedly asked Alito about a 1986 memorandum he authored as a lawyer in the Reagan Justice Department in which Alito maintained that the president’s approval of legislation was just as important as Congress’s. Alito referred to the president’s powers as coming directly from his position as the head of the Executive Branch of government, or the “unitary executive.” While Alito wrote the memo from the Justice Department, Cooper (2002) reports that Reagan’s Attorney General, Edwin Meese III “is credited” with establishing the signing statement as a real tool of presidential power. The third factor contributing to the saliency of President George Bush’s signing statements was a Boston Globe article in which Charles Savage claimed President George W. Bush nullified over 750 provisions in bills he had signed with signing statements. As a result of the notoriety Bush received about his signing statements, members of Congress have introduced a number of bills within the last few years, in an attempt to reign in this practice and assert their constitutional authority. Senator Arlen Specter introduced legislation that would ban the use of signing statements in the Presidential Signing Statements Act of 2006. This act, which did not become law, prohibits any state or federal court from relying on a presidential signing statement “as a source of authority when determining the meaning of any act of Congress” (Presidential Signing Statements Act of 2006). Senator Arlen Specter and U.S. Representative Carol Shea-Porter re-introduced a similar Presidential Signing Statements Act in 2007 in the Senate and House, respectively, which asserts Congress’s constitutional role to provide the original meaning to legislation passed by Congress and signed by the president. The 2007 measure also forbids courts to rely on presidential signing statements for statutory meaning (Presidential Signing Statements Act of 2007). Most recently, Representative Walter B. Jones, Jr. of North Carolina introduced yet another bill addressing the presidential signing statements on May 8, 2008 (Presidential Signing Statements Act of 2008). None of these bills have passed Congress. Support for presidential signing statements also came from the Clinton Administration. In 1993, Walter Dellinger, the Assistant Attorney General submitted a memorandum to Bernard Nussbaum, who was a counselor to President Clinton. Dellinger stated in his memorandum, “Thus, the President may use a signing statement to announce that, although the legislation is constitutional on its face, it would be unconstitutional in various applications, and that in such applications he will refuse to execute

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 it” (Dellinger Memorandum 1993, 2). Also, a Task Force of the American Bar Association came out against the use of presidential signing statements in 2006. The Task Force argued that if a president thinks a provision of a bill is unconstitutional, he should veto the measure. In its July 2006 report, however, the ABA panel did endorse the use of signing statements as a means for the president to praise a bill as a landmark in civil rights or environmental law and applaud its legislative sponsors, or to provide his views as to how the enactment of the law will affect the welfare of the nation.

Literature Review The United States Constitution clearly establishes the president’s lawmaking authority in Article 1, section 7 where the president is charged with signing or vetoing legislation and in Article 2, section 3, to faithfully execute the law. The Constitution also set up boundaries for Congress in Article 1 and for the judiciary in Article 3. As mentioned earlier, the signing statement power is not enumerated in the Constitution. The scholarly literature discussing presidential signing statements, consisting mostly of law review articles, evaluates the legality of signing statements from different perspectives of presidential power, prior Supreme Court decisions, the legal ability of Congress and the courts to correct, or respond to their use, and, finally, the practical necessity of signing statements to manage a government that regulates virtually every segment of our modern society. The center of the controversy over signing statements in the literature concerns how one views the scope of presidential power. Scholars who favor an expansive view of presidential authority obviously find the use of signing statements to be a legal practice. Barron (2000) makes the case that while the president is charged with enforcing laws passed by Congress, he also has an un-enumerated “non-enforcement” power whereby he is not required to enforce laws he sees as being unconstitutional. As the last official in the law-making process, the president should interpret Constitutional meaning, “The president quite clearly possesses a non-enforcement power in those circumstances where there is Supreme Court precedent invalidating law” (Barron 2000, 104). Johnsen (2000) agrees, but argues for a “context-dependent approach” in which the president has the power not to enforce what he sees as ambiguous laws or laws that clearly violate the Constitution. If the bill is not ambiguous or unconstitutional, it must be enforced. The legality or constitutionality of the signing statement is dependent upon the specific

 

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nature of each law passed by Congress. Also, since the president plays a co-equal role as Congress in the legislative process, according to Dessayer (1990), signing statements are just as important to the legislative history of a bill and should be provided just as much consideration from the courts. After all, there is nothing in the Constitution that prevents the president from performing quasi-legislative functions. “For all practical purposes, however, the constitutional duty to propose legislation, coupled with the lack of constitutional restraints on the president’s ability to influence the legislative process, has left the president in an excellent position to participate actively in the lawmaking process on a regular and fairly uninhibited basis” (Dessayer 1990, 405). Dessayer (1990) and Johnsen (2000) firmly support the president’s constitutional authority to issue signing statements because of what they see as his expanded powers in the Constitution. Presidential signing statements serve a practical function and are virtually untouchable in the U.S. legal system. The president needs the signing statement to help govern the immense U.S. bureaucratic establishment. Signing statements establish procedures for governmental agencies to follow. Once an agency has implemented a presidential directive, it is really impractical to stop or change how the agency implements a statute. Also, it would be nearly impossible to trace bureaucratic behavior or the impact of an agency’s decision to a specific presidential signing statement because of the regular bureaucratic processes (Cooper, 2007). In addition to the practical necessity of signing statements, several scholars note the slim odds of ending the practice. Thompson (2007), for example, insists that current proposals to curb the use of signing statements, such as the ABA recommendations and the Presidential Signing Statement Act of 2006, will have difficulty solving the legal issue of standing. Standing to challenge signing statements in court “almost never exists because signing statements do not create a case or controversy under Article 3” (Thompson 2000, 203). Standing requires direct injury to a party caused by the executive action. Signing statements, by definition, require the president to enforce or not enforce congressional statutes. One cannot show injury if the president takes no action to enforce a law (Thompson, 2007, 200). Other legal analysts blame the courts and Congress for allowing the president to unconstitutionally expand his powers over time. May (1998) contends that only the Supreme Court can interpret the constitutionality of legislation and that members of Congress do have standing with the courts to challenge signing statements. Kelley (2007) suggests Congress needs to provide more “vigorous oversight”

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 over the executive branch and begin withholding appropriations from the president for refusal to enforce laws. A 2006 Harvard Law Review article objects to the use of signing statements as part of the legislative history of a bill. Signing statements should not receive Chevron Deference, or the force of law interpretation granted to agencies implementing a statute. Instead, the article states, courts should use signing statements as a last resort to review the meaning of a law. Finally, Palmer (2006) argues there are serious international legal consequences of presidential signing statements. The 2006 Bush signing statement skirting the McCain antitorture amendment, Palmer (2006) found, not only violated domestic laws regarding torture, but “threatens U.S. adherence to its international treaty obligations”, clearly a serious charge (Palmer 2006, 21). The literature presents mixed signals with respect to the legality of presidential signing statements. The bulk of the scholarship suggests that while this presidential tool may not be entirely constitutional, decades of use and its expediency for governing, along with the difficulty of establishing standing to challenge the president on his use of the signing statement make the signing statement a tool that will be employed by presidents for years to come. We may never know whether this practice is constitutional.

Methodology Here I provide a limited empirical study on the use of presidential signing statements. I collected the presidential signing statements for the Reagan, H.W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush presidencies from a combination of the American Presidency Project [online] through the University of California, Santa Barbara and data provided from the Congressional Research Report on Signing statements prepared by Halstead (2006). I coded all 535 signing statements by the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations as found on the American Presidency Project website. First, I categorized each signing statement according to whether or not the legislation dealt with foreign or domestic policy. I included defense spending as foreign policy. Second, I coded the signing statements on whether the statement was political or constitutional. The first category is entitled Pleased/Displeased/Likely Effects of Adoption1. Signing statements in this category include instances where the president lauds the bill’s sponsors or members of the public who pushed the bill through Congress, extols the virtues of the policy, or criticizes congressional practices such as attaching riders to omnibus bills. A “displeased” president will sign the bill despite the fact that it may not

 

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provide the president everything he wants or is the best Congress can do to meet the president’s request. Since many of the bills sent to the president are large omnibus bills, the president prefers to sign, not veto an entire bill because of one or two specific provisions of the legislation. Otherwise, the process will become unwieldy. The second category is entitled Provision of Bill is Unconstitutional and will not be enforced2. Signing statements in this category are those in which the president finds either the whole piece or parts of the legislation unconstitutional. Signing statements may offer a “saving construction” of a bill to avoid constitutional infringement. So in other words, the president may find a provision unconstitutional but then say he will interpret the provision in line with his constitutional responsibilities. I also include the president’s instructions to the bureaucracy to not enforce a law or enforce it in a certain way in the “unconstitutional” category.

Results Table 4-1 below shows the percentage of signing statements finding at least one provision of a law unconstitutional. Using the Data from Halstead’s (2006) CRS report and the data from The Presidency Project, we can see that both President George H. W. Bush and President George W. Bush used 70-80% of their signing statements to find one or more provisions of laws unconstitutional, while Presidents Reagan and Clinton declared laws unconstitutional about 25% of the time. I also think it is important to note that the percentage of signing statements used to find laws unconstitutional is based on the total number of signing statements issued. In terms of raw numbers of signing statements, President George W. Bush has issued the fewest number of signing statements of the past four U.S. presidents. President Clinton used the signing statement significantly more than President George W. Bush to thank members of Congress or recognize individuals. For example, there were many more signing statements from President Clinton that dealt with matters such as renaming a post office, changing the name of a federal building, or recognizing the passing of public figures such as Rosa Parks, Bob Hope, and Ryan White. Clinton issued and attached many more “symbolic” signing statements to legislation than President Bush dealing with ceremonial matters. Even if we would eliminate the symbolic or ceremonial Clinton signing statements, Clinton would be on parity with President Bush with regard to the number of signing statements finding laws unconstitutional. The raw numbers in Table 4-1 suggest that President George W. Bush and

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 President Clinton are not really that far apart in the number of signing statements finding laws unconstitutional. Percentage-wise, however, in more than 80% of President George W. Bush’s signing statements, he refused to enforce a bill, declared a law unconstitutional, or offered a saving construction interpretation to the statute. This finding appears to lend credence to critics of President George W. Bush who say he has issued these statements in excess. TABLE 4-13: Percentage of Signing Statements Finding at Least One Provision of Law Unconstitutional President

Pleased/Displeased &likely effects (Political Use)

REAGAN

205 (74.27%) 68 (31.77%) 286 (73.15%) 32 (20.51%)

H.W. BUSH CLINTON G.W.BUSH

Unconstitutional, Unenforced & Saving Construction (Constitutional Use) 71 (25.72%) 146 (68.22%) 105 (26.85%) 124 (79.48%)

Total # signing statements

276 214 391 156

TABLE 4-24: Number of Signing Statements Dealing with Domestic and Foreign (Defense) Policy Provisions by Presidents Bill Clinton & George W. Bush President

Foreign Policy

CLINTON

311 (82.05%) 81 (51.92%)

G.W.BUSH

Domestic Policy 65 (17.15%) 63 (40.38%)

Both/Other

Total

3 (.79%) 12 (7.69%)

379 156

Table 4-2 illustrates how all presidential signing statements breakdown into either foreign policy or domestic policy. Over 82% of President Clinton’s signing statements were issued in the area of foreign policy, while less than 18% dealt with issues of domestic policy. Slightly more

 

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than half of President Bush’s signing statements relate to foreign policy and about 40% have to do with domestic policy. A possible explanation for why Bill Clinton issued more signing statements in foreign policy could is because he engaged the United States in more United Nations peacekeeping missions and the fact that he faced a Republican Congress during six out of his eight years as president. The most interesting findings of this chapter are found below in Table 4-3, which sorts presidential signing statements that find statutes unconstitutional or offers a saving construction by policy type. Most of the provisions found unconstitutional by these presidents in their statements in the area of foreign policy concerned mandatory reporting requirements to Congress or forcing the president to follow a particular policy with a foreign government. Presidents Bush and Clinton relied heavily on their powers as “commander-in-chief” to void these provisions of the law. These results are quite remarkable. Presidents Bush and Clinton used signing statements equally to find roughly half of domestic laws and half of foreign policy statutes passed by Congress unconstitutional. TABLE 4-3: Number of Signing Statements Finding Domestic and Foreign (Defense) Policy Provisions Unconstitutional/Unenforced (or Saving Construction by Presidents Bill Clinton & George W. Bush President

Foreign Policy

CLINTON

52 (41.93%) 31 (56.3%)

G.W.BUSH

Domestic Policy 62 (50%) 24 (43.6%)

Both/Other

Total

10 (.08%) 0 (0.0%)

124 55

Conclusion The purpose of this chapter was to evaluate the legacy of President George W. Bush with regard to his exercise of executive power in the form of signing statements. The Imperial Presidency concept, outlined by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. helped us provide some context to understand the lasting effects of the George W. Bush presidency. A brief review of the legal scholarship on signing statements suggested that signing statements may be legally questionable; previous presidents have already established them as permanent tools. In terms of raw numbers, this comparative study found that the number of signing statements produced by George W. Bush

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 is not out of line, generally, with those issued by his predecessors. President George W. Bush did find more provisions of laws unconstitutional in each signing statement, however, than the last several presidents. President George W. Bush is the only president, among the other three that I examined, who has the responsibility of waging a global war on terrorism. Halstead (2006) reached a similar conclusion about presidential signing statements. Ultimately, he said, the more appropriate focus when considering signing statements is the individual’s assertion of presidential authority contained within the signing statement, not the signing statement itself. The Imperial Presidency concept remains alive. The legacy of the George W. Bush administration will be that of continuing the affirmation of power in the executive office. Perhaps the legacy of the George W. Bush administration will be more clearly seen with the how next presidential administration approaches the presidential signing statement.

References Babbington, Charles, “Bush is Pressed on Reporting Domestic Surveillance,” The Washington Post, 29 July 2006. Barron, David. 2000. “Constitutionalism in the Shadow of Doctrine: The President’s Non-Enforcement Power.” Law and Contemporary Problems, 63(1/2), Winter-Spring, 61-106. Blue Ribbon Task Force Report, American Bar Association. http://www.abanet.org/media/docs/signstatereport.pdf. [online] Cooper, Phillip J. 2002. By Order of the President: The Use and Abuse of Executive Direct Action. Kansas: University of Kansas. —. 1997. “Power Tools for an Effective and Responsible Presidency.” Administration & Society 29 (November): 529-556. Dellinger, Walter. 1993. Memorandum for Bernard N. Nussbaum, Counsel to the President. http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/signing.htm. Dessayer, Kathryn Marie. 1990. “The First Word: The President’s Place in ‘Legislative History.’” Michigan Law Review, 89 (November): 399426. Farrier, Jasmine. 2004. Passing the Buck: Congress, The Budget, and Deficits. Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky. Fisher, Louis. 2004. Presidential War Power, 2nd Ed., revised. Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas. Gellman, Barton and Dafna Linzer. 2005. “Pushing the Limits of Wartime Powers.” The Washington Post.December 18, p. A1. Halstead, T.J. 2006. “Presidential Signing Statements: Constitutional and Institutional Implications.” CRS Report for Congress. September 20.

 

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Harvard Law Review 2006. “Context-Sensitive Deference to Presidential Signing Statements.” Harvard Law Review 120(December): 597-617. Johnsen, Dawn E. 2000. “Presidential Non-Enforcement of Constitutionally Objectionable Statutes.” Law and Contemporary Problems 63(Winter-Spring): 7-106. Kelley, Christopher S. 2007. “The Law: Contextualizing the Signing Statement; Legislation.” Presidential Studies Quarterly. 37(December): 737. May, Christopher N. 1998. Presidential Defiance of “Unconstitutional” Laws: Reviving the Royal Prerogative. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. O’Brien, David M. 2008. Constitutional Law and Politics: Struggles for Power and Government Accountability, Volume 1. New York: W.W. Norton. Palmer, Erin Louise. 2006. “Reinterpreting Torture: Presidential Signing Statements and the Circumvention of U.S. and International Law.” Human Rights Brief 14(Fall): 21-24. Presidential Signing Statements Act of 2006 (S. 3731). U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary. Presidential Signing Statements Act of 2007 (H.R. 3045). U.S. Congress. House. U.S. Congress. Judiciary Committee. House Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties. Presidential Signing Statements Act of 2007 (S. 1741). U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary. Presidential Signing Statements Act of 2008 (H.R. 5993). U.S. Congress. Judiciary Committee. House Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties. Savage, Charlie, “Scalia’s Dissent Gives ‘Signing Statements’ More Heft,” The Boston Globe, 15 July 2006. —. “Bush Asserts Authority to bypass defense act. Calls Restrictions Unconstitutional,” The Boston Globe, 30 January 2008. Savage, Charlie and James W. Pindell, “A tactic of Bush’s on Bills is Assailed – McCain, Others Hit Signing Statements,” The Boston Globe, 20 November 2007. Schlesinger, Jr. Arthur M. 1973. The Imperial Presidency. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Spitzer, Robert J. 1991. “Presidential Prerogative Power: The Case of the Bush Administration and Legislative Power.” PS: Political Science and Politics 24(March): 38-42.

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 Thompson, Chad. 2007. “Presidential Signing Statements: The Big Impact of a Little Known Presidential Tool.” The University of Toledo Law Review 39 (Fall): 185-208. “Unchecked Abuse (editorial),” The Washington Post, 11 January 2006. Woolley, John T. & Gerhard Peters, The American Presidency Project [online]. Santa Barbara, CA: University of California (hosted), Gerhard Peters (database). Available from World Wide Web: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/signingstatements.php.

Notes  1

President Bill Clinton’s November 20, 1995 statement on signing the Treasury, Postal Service, and General Government Appropriations Act of 1996 is a good example of a president being pleased/displeased/likely effects of congressional legislation category. In this statement, Clinton expressed both pleasure and displeasure with the bill, yet signed it anyway: Last night I signed into law H.R. 2020, the "Treasury, Postal Service, and General Government Appropriations Act, 1996. The Act provides a total of $11.3 billion in discretionary budget authority for various programs in the Department of the Treasury, the U.S. Postal Service, the General Services Administration, the Office of Personnel Management, the Executive Office of the President, and several smaller agencies. With this legislation enacted into law, over 140,000 furloughed employees were able to go back to work. I am pleased that a provision contained in an earlier version of the bill, which would have limited the political advocacy rights of non-profit organizations that receive Federal funding, was removed from the bill. This unacceptable provision would have presented a broad attack on the exercise of fundamental rights protected by the First Amendment. Regrettably, the Congress has not funded the Internal Revenue Service at a sufficient level to ensure the kind of service that the taxpayers deserve. I am disappointed that the Congress eliminated the FY 1995 funding of $405 million for the compliance initiative as it creates serious risks to the levels of tax compliance. At the very least, this action is expected to result in the loss of additional revenue over the next five years. Major compliance cuts send the wrong signal and reward tax cheats. The Internal Revenue Service's FY 1996 funding level is not consistent with the efforts of the Administration and the Congress to balance the Federal budget. 2 President George W. Bush’s statement on signing the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005 is a good example of a signing statement where the president finds a portion of a bill unconstitutional and offers a “saving construction”:

 

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 Today, I have signed into law H.R. 4548, the "Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005." The Act authorizes appropriations to fund United States intelligence activities, including activities essential to success in the war on terror. The executive branch shall construe provisions in the Act, including sections 105, 107, and 305, that mandate submission of information to the Congress, in a manner consistent with the President's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to withhold information that could impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative processes of the Executive, or the performance of the Executive's constitutional duties. Section 502 of the Act purports to place restrictions on use of the U.S. Armed Forces and other personnel in certain operations. The executive branch shall construe the restrictions in that section as advisory in nature, so that the provisions are consistent with the President's constitutional authority as Commander in Chief, including for the conduct of intelligence operations, and to supervise the unitary executive branch. To the extent that provisions of the Act, such as sections 614 and 615, purport to require or regulate submission by executive branch officials of legislative recommendations to the Congress, the executive branch shall construe such provisions in a manner consistent with the President's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to submit for congressional consideration such measures as the President judges necessary and expedient. Section 105 of the Act incorporates by reference certain requirements set forth in the joint explanatory statement of the House- Senate committee of conference or in a classified annex. The executive branch continues to discourage the practice of enacting secret laws and encourages instead appropriate non-binding uses of classified schedules of authorizations, classified annexes to committee reports, and joint statements of managers that accompany the final legislation.” 3  The numbers provided for the Reagan and H.W. Bush, and Clinton administrations are provided by Halstead (2006). I personally coded signing statements found on Woolley and Peters’ The American Presidency Project [online] for The George W. Bush administration. These numbers include Bush’s January 2008 signing statement. 4  The total number of signing statements for the Clinton Presidency is different from Table 1 because the number of signing statements coded for Table 2 was tabulated by the author from The American Presidency Project [online]. I relied on the tabulation made by Halstead (2006) for the number of signing statements made by Clinton in Table 1.



CHAPTER FIVE BUSH’S NEW NATIONALISM: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF NEW FEDERALISM MICHAEL W. HAIL

Introduction and Overview This comparative study of George W. Bush evaluates his domestic policy of new federalism with the preceding presidencies of Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, and Clinton across a range of formal executive powers utilizing a regulatory model and a historical, comparative methodology. The focus of this assessment is on the use of some of the central tools of executive federalism: regulatory policy, public management of the grantin-aid programs, vetoes, executive orders, and presidential rhetoric. Presidential scholars such as Skowronek have recognized the importance of Reagan as a president establishing a new policy regime, and central to that paradigm are the constitutional relationships under Reagan’s New Federalism. George W. Bush is elected and continues the New Federalism paradigm which Donald Kettl recently termed Reagan’s most enduring legacy. However, the Bush federalism represents an evolutionary culmination of devolutionary New Federalisms since Reagan which transform after 9-11 into what I term a New Nationalism. George W. Bush campaigns for the presidency and serves during the first year of his first term articulating a policy of “new federalism” that is congruent with Reagan’s New Federalism. As President Bush stated in one of his only policy speeches on federalism in 2001, "I'm going to make respect for federalism a priority in this Administration." George W. Bush did indeed make federalism a priority and directed the Domestic Policy Council to develop a comprehensive policy on federalism which would have included establishment of a new executive order on federalism. In addition to these actions, Bush utilized OMB to establish a regulatory deceleration of rules and established a scrutiny of regulatory policy at the start of his administration that aimed to review preemptions,

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mandates and other federalism actions, particularly those set in motion by the Clinton Administration, that were not in line with Bush policy goals. The events of 9/11 dramatically altered the political landscape but among the most significantly affected areas of public policy are those of federalism and intergovernmental relations. Foreign policy and homeland security capture the attention of the presidency and domestic policy issues such as federalism remain sublimated. After the initial year of the Bush Administration, the OMB actions are lifted, the executive order (though developed) is never issued, and the Domestic Policy Council shifts energy to other priorities (prominent among them, homeland security). This domestic policy evidence suggests the Bush presidency may be one of disjunction under Slowronek’s classification of presidential leadership in political time. This study evaluates Bush’s federalism with a comparative policy framework that examines the powers of the presidency to articulate policies of federalism: vetoes, executive orders, regulatory enactments, and the powers of the rhetorical presidency. In each of these key aspects of presidential power, data on the Bush administration is evaluated against comparable outcomes in the same regards for Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and the conclusion of this research is that George W. Bush represents the end of the devolution revolution and the beginning of a period of new nationalism for federalism and intergovernmental relations. And if, as Woodrow Wilson suggested, the ”cardinal question” of the balance of federalism is the true barometer of the civic culture of the U.S., then Bush’s transitional federalism represents a silent paradigmatic shift in public dialogue rather than a re-alignment. Ultimately, Bush leaves the next era of federalism relatively undefined even if more nationalist in character.

Methodology, Definitions, Approach Institutions of American federalism and intergovernmental relations have been identified by David Walker as including the executive, bureaucratic, Congressional, judicial, and state institutional components, each with its own role in "federalism” (Walker 1995).1 This paper examines executive federalism understood as the policies of the President and the White House that establish the regulatory parameters for the implementation of national policy. The dynamics of the federal system include studying these institutions in terms of "cooperation, competition, conflict, and conflict resolution” (Olstrom 1989, 44). Ostrom (1989) sees the "separation of powers" and the "autonomous units of government" that

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characterize the American federal system as requiring an analysis that "refers to multiorganizational relationships that have the internal dynamics applicable to single organizations plus the dynamics of interorganizational arrangements” (143). This type of “multiorganizational” analysis echoes the views of major figures in the federalism field whose approach is followed in this research such as Daniel Elazar and Thomas Anton (Elazar 1972). The definition of federalism used in this analysis designates federalism as "a form of government in which a union of states recognizes the sovereignty of a central authority while retaining certain residual powers of government” (Wright 1978, 8). Intergovernmental relations is defined in this research as "a body of activities and interactions occurring between governmental units of all types and levels within the U.S. federal system"(Wright 1978, 8). And as James Q. Wilson remarked on the divisiveness of the debate over American federalism, "Since the adoption of the constitution in 1787, the single most persistent source of political conflict has been the relations between the national and state governments” (Wilson 1995, 12). It is in this important respect that evaluating devolution and the balance of federalism in the present era requires an explicit concern with authority. Authority as measured by leadership is constrained and affected by fiscal federalism. As fiscal federalism increases pressure (unfunded mandates, cross-cutting regulations, devolution of programs, preemptions, and co-options) on state and local budgets, state policy authority is affected by the continued expansion of federal authority. The past two decades have been widely viewed as the “era of the states,” (Walker 1995) a period where the status of federalism had risen to a new level of importance. Generally, the period is characterized by most observers as one of a shrinking federal policy role and an expanding role for state and local governments (Barnes 1996). The Clinton administration, like the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations, continued to advance this general policy trend (Walker 1995. Despite the devolution revolution, most power remained in Washington, even if those in charge of national power sought to devolve it, American federalism experienced a qualified and privileged devolution. Many scholars observed this change in orientation and concluded that there was not a rebalancing of federalism in terms of the Founding Fathers federalism (Walker 1995). Yet, there was clear difference in the political rhetoric and horizon of policy. Thus, John Shannon argues that a return to something like dual federalism has been achieved by the Reagan revolution (Shannon 1987). Though, the “devil” in devolution, as Donahue has noted, is the more constrained fiscal capacity of states, compounded by expanded policy responsibility

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(Donahue 1997). An examination of vetoes, executive orders, regulatory enactments, and the powers of the rhetorical presidency provide a comparative basis to evaluate the George W. Bush presidency in the management of devolution and domestic policy affects upon state and public sector organizations. The Bush federalism is examined comparatively with the presidencies since Reagan. The conclusions of this evaluation provide some explanation for the domestic policy record of the Bush Presidency and its legacy for the next era of federalism. My methodology in this study is primarily historical, legal, and institutional. I examine government documents, histories and biographies. Census and economic data, Presidential addresses, constitutional law, vetoes, executive orders, regulatory enactments, among others, provide primary source material for establishing the policies and conditions affecting executive federalism and structures of government wielding the authority to make (or not to make) these policies. This research is a classical longitudinal case study with a comparative approach. The value of case study methodology such as this was heralded by Bob Rodgers and Jason Jensen as “intellectual gold,” and it remains among the most salient methodological approaches for studying American politics and policy (Jensen and Roger 2001). The historical context is a combination of the political events and practices as well as the political culture articulated through institutions across all levels of the federal system in the period under examination. This study ultimately underscores the importance for approaches like Jeffrey Tulis’ research on the Rhetorical Presidency (Tulis 19878).The emphasis on political, rather than economic data, in understanding the intergovernmental institutional relationships in the U.S. federal system assists us in understanding the effects of the devolutionary decades from 1980 through the present. These twenty-five years have witnessed presidencies where executive power has been wielded with the goal of devolution and the character of executive federalism has been a statist attempt to return to a type of dual federalism model. None-the-less, there has been, at best, a mixed record of shifting power from national to sub-national levels of government. As this case study of executive federalism from Reagan to Bush illustrates, the outcomes remain disjuncted from the objectives as the devolutionary principles are understood through the regulatory federalism model in contradistinction with the rhetorical federalism of the presidents.

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Reagan and Bush Sr. As noted federalism scholar David Walker remarked on the Reagan era, “American federalism and the web of federal-state relationships it engenders experienced their greatest challenges and transformation during the current intergovernmental era. By 1980, there were no vestiges of ‘dual federalism’ in any of the arenas in which federalism functioned or attempted to function” (Walker 1995). This new era was one which Michael Reagan termed “permissive federalism,” for intergovernmental relations were predicated on the federal government’s permission for lower levels of government to exercise any meaningful policy authority. President Ronald Reagan represents a dramatic shift in the understanding of federalism principles and a very decidedly Originalist approach to constitutional interpretation and federal policymaking (Hail 2005). President Ronald Reagan made clear in his First Inaugural Address in 1981 that he intended to herald a new era of federalism, “It is my intention to curb the size and influence of the federal establishment and to demand recognition of the distinction between the powers granted to the federal government and those reserved to the states or to the people. All of us need to be reminded that the federal government did not create the states; the states created the federal government” (Reagan 1981). The Reagan record is important given an increase in direct interaction between federal and local governments during the period following the New Deal. The “system differs in key respects from the one in place at the dawn of the Reagan era” (O’Toole 2000, 145). Yet despite the significant differences Reagan brought to American intergovernmental relations, “the most fundamental aspects …have remained prominent” (O’Toole 2000, 145). The transformation of American federalism from dual federalism to cooperative federalism is the most fundamental transformation recognized by federalism scholars (Corwin 1950).2 And the transformation signified by Reagan’s New Federalism constitutes a watershed break with the cooperative federalism regime established by President Roosevelt. The Reagan approach was states rights based and, though it presented a new era in states rights through devolution of federal programs, it was accomplished on the terms of national government authority described as co-optive or coercive federalism (Conlan 1988).3 The new intergovernmental relationships are less cooperative than client-oriented, and the federal aid process accords former cooperative partners a political status more accurately understood through an interest group exchange framework (Hale and Palley 1981).The growth of mandates

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and fiscal pressures at all levels of government has contributed to these perceptions of the federal system (Beam 1981).4 Studies of public attitudes about federalism reveal just such attitudes on the part of elected officials as well as the public (Advisory Commission 1992, 1993). TABLE 5-1: Presidential Ronald Reagan Executive Orders on Federalism and IGR

President Ronald Reagan Executive Orders on Federalism and IGR Executive Order 12291 Federal Regulation Signed: February 17, 1981

Executive Order 12372 Intergovernmental Review of Federal Programs Signed: July 14, 1982

Executive Order 12498 Regulatory Planning Process Signed: January 4, 1985

Executive Order 12612 Federalism Signed: October 26, 1987 The Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations attempted to reverse the role of the federal government with their New Federalism, and in so doing, reverse the trend of unfunded mandates, preemptions, and co-options, but their record does not seem to substantiate the aspirations of their policy preferences. Donald Kettle termed the New Federalism “control by regulation” (Kettle 1983). Despite the intransigence of federal power, even through an era of devolution, there remain significant behavioral affects of the Reagan New Federalism. The rhetorical federalism of Reagan made significant changes in the intergovernmental system and devolution was a reality for the sub-

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national public sector actors during this period (Hail 2003). The conscious effect on federal regulation is evident in Reagan’s 1982 State of the Union address, “Together, we have cut the growth of new Federal regulations nearly in half. In 1981 there were 23,000 fewer pages in the Federal Register, which lists new regulations, than there were in 1980 (Reagan 1981). One of the first acts of the Reagan administration in regard to establishing the New Federalism was to take the issue of federal regulatory power to task. President Reagan on January 22, 1981 created the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief and appointed Vice President George H. W. Bush as Chairman. Chairman Bush led a very effective effort for the Reagan Administration whereas the two previous administrations floundered. As one scholar noted, “there was, from the very beginning of the task force’s life, a very basic political fact of life quite different from the regulatory control programs developed by Ford and Carter – buck the task force and you are bucking the vice-president and the White House” (Ball 1984, 220). The Reagan efforts were evident through his numerous vetoes, his use of regulatory powers to retard regulatory enactments, his issuance of Executive Orders – most notably the Federalism EO, and the significant use of rhetorical powers to advocate a New Federalism agenda. Ronald Reagan recast the intergovernmental system as a devolution lead through national directives and Reagan re-established federalism as an issue of central importance in American politics.

Clinton—Continuity and Conflict There are three primary areas that identify Clinton’s federalism policy: 1. his executive orders on federalism, 2. his re-inventing government initiative, and 3. his policy speeches on federalism. The Clinton Administration's driving force in "re-inventing" government has been Vice President Gore's National Performance Review. This approach is defined as "refocusing our collective intergovernmental effort toward outcomes instead of processes" (Office of Vice-President 1993). The Gore report maintains that "partnership should be the hallmark of the proposal -between the federal and lower levels of government, and among and between the public, private, and private non-profit sectors at the service delivery level"( Office of Vice-President 1993).5 The Administration’s "reinventing" government program represents a combination of the cooperative federalism model, of a decentralized and localized government

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model, and of a free-market model of citizens as consumers of government services. TABLE 5-2: Reagan Task Force on Regulatory Relief 1981

Reagan Task Force on Regulatory Relief 1981 Three Essential Duties: 1. review major proposals by executive branch regulatory agencies, especially those proposals that have a major policy significance or where there is overlapping policy jurisdiction; 2. assess executive branch regulations already on the books, especially those that are potentially burdensome to the national economy or to key industrial sectors; 3. oversee the development of legislative proposals in response to congressional timetables and, more importantly, to codify the president’s views on the appropriate role and objectives of regulatory agencies. The Reagan Guiding Principles: 1. regulations approved only when there is a compelling need; 2. regulatory approach taken that imposes the least possible burden on society; 3. regulatory priorities should be governed by an assessment of the benefits and costs of the proposed regulations

Vice President Gore made clear the "consumer" approach: Effective, entrepreneurial governments insist on customer satisfaction. They listen carefully to their consumers. ...They restructure their basic operations to meet customer's needs. And they use market dynamics such as competition and consumer choice to create incentives that drive their employees to put customers first. By "customer," we do not mean "citizen." A citizen can participate in democratic decisionmaking; a customer receives benefits from a specific service. …In a democracy, citizens and customers both matter. But when they vote, citizens seldom

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TABLE 5-3: Fundamental Federalism Principles Sec.2. Fundamental Federalism Principles. In formulating and implementing policies that have federalism implications, agencies shall be guided by the following fundamental federalism principles: (a)Federalism is rooted in the belief that issues that are not national in scope or significance are most appropriately addressed by the level of government closest to the people. (b)The people of the States created the national government and delegated to it enumerated governmental powers. All other sovereign powers, save those expressly prohibited the States by the Constitution, are reserved to the States or to the people. (c)The constitutional relationship among sovereign governments, State and national, is inherent in the very structure of the Constitution and is formalized in and protected by the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution. (d)The people of the States are free, subject only to restrictions in the Constitution itself or in constitutionally authorized Acts of Congress, to define the moral, political, and legal character of their lives. (e)The Framers recognized that the States possess unique authorities, qualities, and abilities to meet the needs of the people and should function as laboratories of democracy. (f)The nature of our constitutional system encourages a healthy diversity in the public policies adopted by the people of the several States according to their own conditions, needs, and desires. In the search for enlightened public policy, individual States and communities are free to experiment with a variety of approaches to public issues. One-size-fits-all approaches to public policy problems can inhibit the creation of effective solutions to those problems. (g)Acts of the national government—whether legislative, executive, or judicial in nature—that exceed the enumerated powers of that government under the Constitution violate the principle of federalism established by the Framers. (h)Policies of the national government should recognize the responsibility of— and should encourage opportunities for—individuals, families, neighborhoods, local governments, and private associations to achieve their personal, social, and economic objectives through cooperative effort. (i)The national government should be deferential to the States when taking action that affects the policymaking discretion of the States and should act only with the greatest caution where State or local governments have identified uncertainties regarding the constitutional or statutory authority of the national government.

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Allowing for differences of emphasis and extent, these basic propositions could just as easily come from the George H.W. Bush administration as from the Clinton Administration. The Clinton EO 13132 establishes several “principles” of federalism listed in Table 5-3. One of the most significant aspects of the new intergovernmental partnership envisioned in the "re-invention" of government is the common ground shared by Republicans and Democrats on this initiative. After the Republican landslide in the 1994 elections, it was remarked by more than one political observer that "Vice President Gore's 'Reinventing Government' drive will be expanded. ...The drive will be given more visibility with a new emphasis on trimming the federal payroll" (Election 94, 31-32). 6 This bipartisan consensus for devolving power to States and reinventing the intergovernmental system is echoed by the new Republican leadership. As Newt Gingrich commented on the shared agenda of Congress and the President, "[The Clinton Administration] has a lot of good ideas about reinventing government" (Speaker Speaks 1995, 11).7 Despite these areas of agreement concerning “reinvention,” and principally the bipartisan consensus between Clinton and Congressional Republicans on downsizing the federal bureaucracy, the Clinton Administration made some important breaks with the Reagan intergovernmental policy. As Jacob J. Lew, OMB Director, explained in M-00-02 on October 28, 1999, “President Clinton issued Executive Order No.13132, ‘Federalism,’ on August 4, 1999. The Order takes effect on November 2, 1999. As the preamble indicates, the Order seeks ‘to ensure that the principles of federalism established by the Framers guide the executive departments in the formulation and implementation of policies.’ After emphasizing key federalism principle and policymaking criteria, the Order designates specific procedures for intergovernmental consultation and calls for more flexible issuance of government waivers” (Lew 1999, 1). Executive Order 12612 ("Federalism"), Executive Order 12875 ("Enhancing the Intergovernmental Partnership"), Executive Order 13083 ("Federalism"), and Executive Order13095 ("Suspension of Executive Order 13083") are revoked by EO 13132 (Executive order 1999). These actions basically revised prior Clinton Executive Orders and regulations that partially revoked the Reagan EO on federalism, but completed the redefinition by altering virtually everything of Reagan’s approach remaining in force. The Clinton EO on federalism provided greater national flexibility in interpreting intergovernmental impacts of federal actions with regard to functional federalism, and moved

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theoretically closer to the nationalist perspective on constitutionalism. Clinton did not entirely move away from Reagan’s New Federalism, but he gave it differential enforcement and substantially different constitutional grounding.

George W. Bush’s New Federalism George W. Bush established early in his administration that federalism would be a critical domestic policy issue for his administration. On February 26, 2001, an Interagency Working Group on Federalism was formed as part of the Domestic Policy Council. This interagency group was charged with review of the intergovernmental policy system and with developing a new executive order on federalism. As OMB Director Mitch Daniels recently noted, “the Administration is committed to securing greater involvement with our intergovernmental partners in Federal decision-making” (Daniels 2001). As President Bush noted, "I'm going to make respect for federalism a priority in this Administration” (Bush 2001). And indeed, in a speech before the National Conference of State Legislatures on March 2, 2001, President Bush made clear that, “One of the things that I talked about with the governors, all of whom were here the other day, was a new federalism initiative. And my administration that's going to listen to people at the state and local level to make sure we clearly define the role of federal government and state governments. And then, …by executive order, put a group together to make sure it actually happens” (Bush 2001). George W. Bush was prepared to make a new federalism Executive Order (EO), when the events of September 11, 2001 sidetracked his domestic policy agenda (Lexington-Herald 2001). The new EO was to contain provisions that “revoke a Clinton administration policy” and created a federalism agency “charged with protecting states’ rights.” The order, building on a Reagan administration policy, will create a federal watchdog charged with determining whether any federal law regulation deals with an issue better handled by states” (Lexington-Herald 2001, A3).” The Executive Order was never issued, and remains pending today. The Bush Interagency Working Group on Federalism was charged to develop an EO as a cornerstone of national intergovernmental policy to “devolve authority and responsibility to State and local governments.” Daniels (2001) noted, “The Working Group has welcomed the input of State and local government officials and others who share ideas to promote State and local innovation, flexibility and accountability. The

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President has directed the Working Group to present him with a Federalism Executive Order, and a report with recommendations to promote the principles of federalism” (1).8 OMB Director Mitch Daniels articulated three primary actions that disclose the Bush approach, and which are detailed on the following table. TABLE 5-4: Bush Administration OMB Policy Commitments to New Federalism Bush Administration OMB Policy Commitments to New Federalism First, we will do more to involve State and local governments early in the rulemaking process. Consultation means little if it occurs after the opportunity to improve a rule is passed. Agencies should consult with State and local governments, including their elected officials and Washington representatives, before they have committed to any particular rulemaking alternative. Second, we will bring more uniformity to the consultation process to help both agencies and our intergovernmental partners know when, how and with whom to communicate. States and localities should have a clear point of contact in each agency, and agencies must understand that "consultation" means more than making a telephone call the day before a rulemaking action is published in the Federal Register. Third, we will enforce the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act to ensure that agencies are complying with both the letter and the spirit of the law. The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) is under my direction, and I will direct OIRA to return a rule that is not in compliance with the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act to the agency from which it came. If an agency is unsure whether a rule contains a significant mandate, it should err on the side of caution and prepare a mandates impact statement prior to issuing the regulation.

Ruben Barrales, the Whitehouse Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and Deputy Assistant to President Bush, recently noted the priorities in developing the order were guided by President Bush’s objective to “devolve power and authority to the states”(Barrales 2001, 5-6). These federalism principles were also guiding budget decisions, and as reflected in Bush’s 2002 budget, the intergovernmental policy directives included a “citizen-centered, results oriented, and market-based” approach (Barrales 2001, 5-6).9 “In contrast with several Republican presidents, George W. Bush did not advance a signature federalism proposal or executive order,” as recently noted by Conlan and Dinan (2007). “Consequently, the Bush approach to federalism must be gleaned from an analysis of the tools by

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which presidents have traditionally influenced federalism” (299). Nonethe-less, from comments President Bush made before the National Governors Association and the National Conference of State Legislatures, and from Congressional testimony of OMB Director Mitch Daniels and speeches by OMD Deputy John D. Graham, one can establish certain inferences about the content of the drafted Bush EO and some probable impacts on policy. If issued, it would contain a substantial re-statement of the Reagan and Bush 41 EOs, and further consolidate regulatory actions into national enforcement of sub-national policy prerogatives. It seems no action to issue a Bush EO may actually materialize. Whether the Bush EO will not be issued because of the continued focus on homeland security, or because, as others argue, “the president’s lack of any philosophical commitment to federalism,” is unclear, but certainly “[the Bush] administration has been routinely dismissive of federalism concerns and frequently an agent of centralization” (291). Across a range of domestic policy, George W. Bush has advocated nationalization of policy authority in contrast with his most immediate predecessors. This is evident when one looks across the Bush policy initiatives: from education policy where NCLB (No Child Left Behind) establishes nationalized measures of assessment (Wong and Sunderman 2007).10 To environmental policy where rulemaking at EPA provided energy corporations more flexibility for Clean Air Act regulation (but in doing so pre-empted State and local enforcement action). From across the range of issue areas and through fiscal and policy advocacy frameworks, the consistent move toward nationalization of policy by the Bush White House is unmistakable, and in no area more certainly than in homeland security policy. And perhaps because of homeland security, like other war time presidents, Bush demonstrates the historical forces of centralization brought to governments by war measures. As Pika and Maltese (2008) put it, “before the attacks, Bush’s agenda focused upon domestic issues,” whereas after the war on terror begins with 9-11, a substantial affect on the Bush agenda is clearly evident (458). This shift is reflected in the change in focus on federalism policy which was one of the major elements of the pre-9-11 domestic policy agenda. The data on fiscal federalism further illustrates the growth of national government fiscal power during the Bush presidency:

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Diagram 5-1: Federal Grant $$ as % Direct Spending

30 P E R C E N T

25 20 15 10 5 0 1980

1985

1988

1990

1992

1996

2005

YEAR

Diagram 5-2: Federal Grant $$ as % State and Local $$

P E R C E N T

30 25 20 15 10 5 0 1980

1985

1988

1990 YEAR

1992

1996

2005

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Another area for consideration in the assessment of Bush’s New Federalism or New Nationalism are preemptions, where again Bush has been utilizing national authority to pre-empt State and local government authority at a rate that exceeds his predecessors. As Zimmerman (2007, 443) recently noted, Bush had 62 preemptions he signed into law in his first five years (a rate of 12.4 per year), and this exceeds Reagan (11.5), G.H.W. Bush (8.5), and Clinton (8). For the first Republican President in 46 years to govern with a Republican Congress, there can be little doubt that the use of national power under the Bush Presidency is at best inconsistent with the established position of the Republican Party since Reagan, as well as with policy positions of George W. Bush himself prior to 9-11. Looking at other measures of federalism, presidential vetoes are an excellent source of evaluative data. The veto data illustrates the periods of conflict between executive and legislative branches during periods of divided government as well as presidencies of disjunction and articulation. There is no obvious connection between federalism-based vetoes but it is useful to contextualize the vetoes undertaken. Under the regulatory model, formal actions such as vetoes would be presumed to diminish and the data reflects that hypothesis. The phenomenon of regulatory systems as contrasted with formal institutions illustrates sublimation of federalism, as well as for most intra-institutional conflict in the intergovernmental system. Comparing the vetoes with executive orders, we find the following activity during the period of devolution.

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Diagram 5-3: Measuring Federalism EOs and Vetoes 450 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 REAGAN

G.H.W. BUSH VETOES

CLINTON

G.W. BUSH

EXEC. ORDERS

President Bush vetoed no federal legislation throughout most of his presidency. It was not until the democrat takeover of Congress at the midterm elections of the second Bush term that Congress passed legislation over a Bush veto threat. Bush followed through on his veto threat but overall, the trend remains consistent with the cycle of devolution. And comparatively, the volume of overall regulatory actions remained strong even during the era of devolution. The expansion of federal authority continued at a slower rate but the growth remained positive and the results cumulative. This reflects the likely position of George W. Bush as a president of disjunction and one who heralds the end of Reagan’s era of new federalism and the beginning of a new era of nationalism.

The Bush Legacy: New Nationalism and the Politics of Disjunction Presidential scholar Stephen Skowronek established an interpretive framework for understanding presidential leadership within which it is useful to situate conclusions for the Bush presidency. The presidential cycles, as explained by Skowronek (1984):

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To read American history with an eye toward the dynamics of political change is to see that within the sequence of national development there have been many beginnings and many endings. Periods are marked by the rise to power of new political coalitions, one of which comes to exert a dominant influence over the federal government. The dominant coalition operates the federal government and perpetuates its position through the development of a distinct set of institutional arrangements and approaches to public policy questions (210). .

This political regime established by President Reagan, the last presidency of articulation, has been one of devolution rhetorically, if not substantively. Across a range of domestic policy measures (vetoes, executive orders, regulatory enactments, and the powers of the rhetorical presidency), the comparison of the presidencies since Reagan reflects the full cycle of devolution and a return to a dual federalism type of paradigm through the presidency of George W. Bush. The Bush presidency defined itself, as Skowronek (2008) has noted, “[as] completing the unfinished business of the Reagan insurgency, and consolidating its hold on American government” (130). TABLE 5-5: Skowronek’s Recurrent Structures of Authority

[Previously established commitments] Vulnerable Resilient

President’s Political Identity Opposed Politics of Reconstruction Politics of Preemption

Affiliated Politics of Disjunction Politics of Articulation

The presidents who establish the authority to repudiate the old order are positioned to engage the politics of reconstruction. These presidents are followed by presidents who legitimate the inherited order and engage the politics of articulation. The cycle then turns to presidents who are opposed to the existing order but who face a still resilient order and engage the politics of preemption. The final cyclical phase is that of a president affiliated with the established order which is politically vulnerable and engages the politics of disjunction (Skowroneck 1993).

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Skowronek has classified George W. Bush as a presidency of articulation, comparing him to Polk, T. Roosevelt, and L.B. Johnson (Skowroneck 2008). However, based upon the George W. Bush record on federalism and domestic policy, one would also conclude G.W. Bush has a presidency of disjunction. Based upon the distinct contrast of Bush nationalism with the devolutionary federalism of his predecessors (Reagan, Bush, and Clinton), across a range of federalism and intergovernmental issues in domestic policy, George W. Bush arguably has a record as a presidency of the politics of disjunction. This disjunctive presidency would draw comparisons in political time to Franklin Pierce or Herbert Hoover. The plausibility of an articulation or disjunctive presidency reflects differences in the scope of evaluation based upon domestic policy or total policy, as well as proximity to the Bush administration in time. While undoubtedly the position of G.W. Bush in political time will be clearer after the record of the successor presidency becomes established, it remains my conclusion that the New Nationalism of G.W. Bush heralds a significant break with the cycle of devolution originating in Reagan’s reconstructive presidency.

Conclusions The intergovernmental research on executive or administrative federalism, revealed a continuity of statist/anti-federal ideal types federalism articulated through Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, and Bush Jr. Administrations. The question of President George W. Bush’s federalism and intergovernmental relations policies reflects a trend toward use of Clinton EOs with a more statist constitutional interpretation and a devolution orientation, consistent with those of presidencies since Reagan. And on the question of implications these federalism and intergovernmental relations policies have for the next era of federalism, generally, it would seem a consistent trend toward devolution rhetoric with expanded mechanisms utilized to sustain and increase federal authority, with measures such as EOs and grant-in-aid flow from federal to sub-national governments with increased cross-cutting regulations. This study evaluated the Bush presidency through the Bush domestic policy agenda and federalism. The comparative policy framework examined the powers of the Bush presidency to articulate policies of federalism: vetoes, executive orders, regulatory enactments, and the powers of the rhetorical presidency and in each of these key aspects of presidential power, data on the Bush administration was evaluated against comparable outcomes in the same regards for Ronald Reagan, George

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H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. The conclusion is that George W. Bush represents the end of the devolution revolution and the beginning of a period of new nationalism for federalism and intergovernmental relations. And if, as Woodrow Wilson suggested, the ”cardinal question” of the balance of federalism is the true barometer of the civic culture of the U.S., then Bush’s transitional federalism represents a silent paradigmatic shift in public dialogue rather than a re-alignment. The Bush presidency established the present era through leadership that can be defined as the politics of disjunction in the Skowronek framework, and through this leadership, Bush leaves the next era of federalism relatively undefined even if more nationalist in character. Presidency scholars have called this the new imperial presidency, and based upon this study of Bush domestic policy; there are substantive prospects that increased national policy authority resulting from Bush policy will have a similar regal orientation for intergovernmental management (Aberbach 2008). The Bush domestic policy transforms executive federalism into a new nationalism, and the new nationalism establishes an even stronger prerogative federal authority. Even as it leaves federalism policy relatively undefined, the new nationalism of the Bush presidency certainly constitutes a fundamental, and probably enduring, break with the devolutionary era of recent presidencies.

References Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations. 1993. Changing Public Attitudes on Government and Taxes Washington, D.C.: Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations 1992. Federal Statutory Preemption of State and Local Authority: History, Inventory, Issues. Washington, D.C.: Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations. Aberbach, Joel D. 2008. “Supplying the Defect of Better Motives? The Bush II Administration and the Constitutional System.” In The George Bush Legacy. Edited by Colin Campbell, Bert A. Rockman, and Andrew Rudalevige. Washington, DC: CQ Press. Ball, Howard. 1984. “Presidential Control of the Federal Bureaucracy.” Federal Administrative Agencies. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Barnes, Fred. 1996. “Power to the States.” USA Today Weekend. July 26, pp.4-5.

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Barrales, Ruben. 2001. “Federalism in the Bush Administration.” Spectrum: The Journal of State Government: The Council of State Governments. 74(3):5-7 Beam, David R. 1981. "Washington's Regulation of States and Localities: Origins and Issues." Intergovernmental Perspectives 3 (7):10. Benton, J. Edwin. 1992."The Effects of Changes in Federal Aid on State and Local Government Spending." Publius. Winter:71-82. Bush, George W.2001. “Remarks by the President to National Conference of State Legislatures.” Office of the Press Secretary. March 2. Changing Public Attitudes On Government and Taxes. 1993.Washington, D.C.: Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations. Conlan, Timothy. 1088. New Federalism. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution. Conlan, Tim and John Dinan. 2007. “Federalism, the Bush Administration, and the Transformation of American Conservatism.” Publius: The Journal of Federalism. 37 (3): Corwin, Edward S. 1950. "The Passing of Dual Federalism." Virginia Law Review. 36:1-24. Daniels, Mitchell E. Jr. 2001. Congressional Testimony before the Subcommittees on Technology, Energy Policy, Natural Resources, and Regulatory Affairs. . Donahue, John. 1997. Disunited States. New York: Basic Books. Edwards, George C.III, John H. Kessel, and Bert A. Rockman, 1993. Researching the Presidency: Vital Questions, New Approaches. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Elazar, Daniel J. 1972. American Federalism: A View from the States. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company. "Election '94: The Conservative Agenda. America's Stinging Rebuke to Clinton Signals a Shift Right. But How Far?" 1994. Business Week. 21 November, p.31-32. Executive Order 12612, The Whitehouse, Ronald W. Reagan, Signed: October 26, 1987. Executive Order 13132, The Whitehouse, William J. Clinton, August 4, 1999. Foreman, Christopher H. Jr. 2008. “The Braking of the President: Shifting Context and the Bush Domestic Policy Agenda.” In The Bush Legacy. Edited by Colin Campbell, Bert A. Rockman, and Andrew Rudalevige. Washington, DC: CQ Press.

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Hail, Michael W. 2003. Cycles of American Federalism and the Intergovernmental Implications from Rural Economic Development Policy.Ph.D Dissertation. University of Delaware. —. “Reagan’s New Federalism.” Federalism in America,(Vol.2). Edited by Joseph R. Marbach. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing, 451-453. —. 2006. Regulatory Federalism as a Model for Understanding Juridicial Federalism: A Case Study in the Exercise of Power from Reagan to Bush. Paper presented at the 2006 annual meeting of the American Society of Public Administration, Denver, Colorado. Hale, George E. and Marian Lief Palley. 1981. The Politics of Federal Grants. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press. Huddleston, Mark W. and Marian Lief Palley. 1981. "Shortchanging Nonmetropolitan America: Small Communities and Federal Aid." Public Budgeting and Finance. 1: 36-45. Jensen, Jason L. and Robert Rodgers. 2001. “Cumulating the Intellectual Gold of Case Study Research.” Public Administration Review. 61(2): 235-246. Kettl, Donald F. 1983. The Regulation of American Federalism. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. Lew, Jacob J. 1999. OMB Director, OMB Memorandum M-00-02, October 28. Lockard, Duane.1969. Governing the States and Localities. London: MacMillan. Lowi, Theodore. 1978. "Europeanization of America? From United States to United State." In Nationalizing Government, Edited by Theodore Lowi and Alan Stone. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications. Office of the Vice President Albert Gore Jr., 1993. Report of the National Performance Review: From Red Tape to Results, Creating a Government that Works Better & Costs Less. September 7. Office of the Vice President Albert Gore, Jr.,1993. “Strengthening the Partnership in Intergovernmental Service Delivery”. Accompanying Report of the National Performance Review. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, September. Ostrom, Vincent. 1989. The Intellectual Crisis in American Public Administration, 2nd ed. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. O’Toole Jr, Laurence 2000. “Intergovernmental Relations (IGR): The Concept of IGR as Interdependence, Complexity, and Bargaining”. Public Administration: Concepts and Cases edited by Richard Stillman, II. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. Peterson, Paul E., Barry G. Rabe, and Kenneth K. Wong. 1986. When Federalism Works. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution.

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Pika, Joseph A. and John Anthony Maltese. 2008. The Politics of the Presidency. Washington, DC: CQ Press. Presidential Vetoes. Download at www.Americanpresidency.org. Rabe, Barry. 2007. “Environmental Policy and the Bush Era: The Collision Between the Administrative Presidency and State Experimentation.” Publius: The Journal of Federalism. Vol. 37, No. 3, Summer 2007. Reagan, Ronald. 1981. First Inaugural Address. www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/presiden/inaug/reagan1. —. 1981. State of the Union Address. www.historicaldocuments. com/RonaldReagans1stStateofUnion.htm Reagan, Michael D. 1972. The New Federalism. New York: Oxford University Press. Rossiter, Clinton, 1961. The Federalist Papers: Hamilton, Jay and Madison. New York: Penguin. Shannon, John. 1987. “Fend-For-Your-Self (New) Federalism,” In Perspectives On Federalism. Edited by Harry N. Scheiber, Berkeley: Institute of Government Studies, University of California, pp. 32-33. Skowronek, Stephen. 1982. Building a New American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capacities 1877-1920. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —. 1984. "Presidential Leadership in Political Time," In The Presidency in the Political System. Edited by Michael Nelson. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press. —. 2008. Presidential Leadership in Political Time: Reprise and Reappraisal. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas. —. 1993. The Politics Presidents Make. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University. "Speaker Seeks Dialogue for Progress Without Partisanship”, The Washington Times. 4 January 1995, p.a11. “States Rights Agency to Be Created”. Lexington Herald-Leader, September 2, 2001, p.A3. Strauss, Leo and Joseph Cropsey.1987. History of Political Philosophy, 3rd edition. Chicago: the University of Chicago Press. Tulis, Jeffrey K. 1987. The Rhetorical Presidency. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Walker, David B. 1995. The Rebirth of American Federalism. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House. White, Leonard D. 1948. The Federalists. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

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Wildavsky, Aaron. 1967. American Federalism in Perspective. Little, Brown and Company: Boston. Williamson, Richard .1990. Reagan's Federalism: His Efforts to Decentralize Government. New York: University Press of America. Wilson, James Q. 1995. "Federalism," in American Government, 6th ed., Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Co. Wilson, Woodrow. 1961. Constitutional Government in the United States. New York, Columbia University Press. Wong, Kenneth and Gail Sunderman. 2007. “Educational Accountability as a Presidential Priority: No Child Left Behind and the Bush Presidency”. Publius: The Journal of Federalism. Vol. 37 (3). Wright, Deil S. 1978. Understanding Intergovernmental Relations, 1st ed. North Scituate, MA: Duxbury Press. www.whitehouse.gov/dpc/. Zimmerman, Joseph F. 2007. “Congressional Preemption During the George W. Bush Administration.” Publius: The Journal of Federalism. Vol. 37(3).

Notes 1

The role of these institutional "players" in the federal system has received a designation such as "executive federalism" or "judicial federalism" 2 This transformation is recognized almost unanimously, although the exact explanation is not. FDR is recognized as the administration that brought the transition to a “cooperative” federalism from the dual federalism of the past. Lowi marks the break explicitly in 1933 in his article “Europeanization of America? From the United States to the united State”. Lowi. Theodore J and Alan Stone, eds. Nationalizing Government. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1978. Duane Lockard also notes the period of change and offers one indication being in terms of percent of public service employment, with the federal increase being 1005% compared to states and local governments 407% from 1900-1950. Lockard, Duane. Governing the states and Localities. London: MacMillan, 1969. 3 Conlan notes that even though there have been indications of a "new cooperative federalism" found in some "recent implementation studies," this federalism is more accurately characterized as "co-optive federalism."(p.236) See also chpt.6, Peterson, Paul E., Barry G. Rabe, and Kenneth K. Wong. When Federalism Works. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1986. 4 Also see, Benton, J. Edwin. "The Effects of Changes in Federal Aid on State and Local Government Spending," Publius. (Winter 1992) 71-82. 5 However, it should be noted that although the Clinton approach seems to emphasize cooperative intergovernmental relations based on "partnership," that this is not an equal partnership; among the "assumptions" of the Administration are that "states and localities can't be trusted ...to ensure fairness and equity" and that

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"the federal government is more competent and exercises better judgment than state and local elected officials and managers." 6 A further reflection provides that "The [Clinton] Administration will also back legislation to give states more freedom to experiment with delivering services." 7 This interview with Speaker Gingrich underscored multiple areas of commonality, from changing the welfare system, to ending unfunded mandates, to the line-item veto. Most of the areas of commonality between the Congress and the President seem to involve not the direction so much as the extent of national policy toward States and local communities. 8 Daniels further noted: “The Interagency Working Group is responding to the President's call. The group consists of Cabinet secretaries, agency heads and senior White House staff, including myself. Their participation in the drafting of a new Executive Order will ensure that the Order signed by the President will result in action, rather than an Order on paper alone, unheeded and unenforced.” 9 The planned Bush executive order then would bring continuity with the New Federalism approaches of his predecessors and rearticulate the Reagan federalism and intergovernmental policy model. 10 See also, Foreman, Christopher H. Jr. “The Braking of the President: Shifting Context and the Bush Domestic Policy Agenda.” Colin Campbell, Bert A. Rockman, and Andrew Rudalevige. The George W. Bush Legacy. Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2008.

CHAPTER SIX PRESIDENT BUSH’S LEGACY ON SOCIAL SECURITY CHRISTIAN E. WELLER AND AMANDA M. LOGAN

Introduction President George W. Bush won a second term in 2004. Shortly after the ballots had been counted, President Bush decided to use his political capital to push for an ambitious reform of Social Security, the country’s federal retirement system for almost all workers. In particular, the president’s goal was to establish a system of private accounts within the existing social insurance system. This reform effort built on the work that President Bush’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security had done in 2001 and on his promise to privatize Social Security during the election of 2004. What followed was an intense national debate that lasted for much of 2005 and centered on three issues. First, it highlighted two separate visions for Social Security’s future. On one side were those who argued for the continuation of the more than seven decades old, publicly funded and guaranteed social insurance system that offered retirement, disability, and survivorship benefits. On the other side were supporters of President Bush’s approach, who argued for diverting a portion of Social Security’s resources into private investment accounts – a process commonly known as privatization. Through this policy discussion, the original intent of Social Security’s role as social insurance became prominent and visible again after the general population had forgotten the program’s original intent as retirement, disability and survivorship insurance. Second, the discussion raised important questions about the program’s long-term solvency and potential ways to close the expected gap between Social Security’s income and its expenditures. As much of the debate

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made clear, the outlook for Social Security’s long-term finances shows no cost explosion, but rather a gradually widening gap between income and expenditures that can likely be addressed by a sensible combination of additional revenue and small benefit reductions. And, many observers came to understand that President Bush’s proposal to divert Social Security payroll taxes into private accounts, if enacted, would have worsened the system’s finances over the next 75 years. To counter this economic drawback, President Bush augmented his original privatization proposal with a proposal to improve Social Security solvency by cutting benefits for all, but the poorest beneficiaries. Lastly, the reform debate shone a light on the fact that many Americans had accumulated little wealth outside of Social Security to support them in retirement. This point was never directly addressed in late 2004 or throughout 2005 by President Bush or the then-Republican dominated U.S. Congress with any type of additional policy proposals. As these themes emerged over the course of 2005, President Bush’s desire to make Social Security privatization a part of his presidential legacy faltered. Aside from ignoring the basic economic flaws of the underlying policy proposal – primarily widening deficits and lower benefits – President Bush also misunderstood the public’s mood on Social Security. While the majority of voters thought that Social Security needed serious reform, they did not endorse the president’s approach to fundamentally changing the system’s nature from social insurance to an investment-based system. They also adamantly opposed his proposed benefit cuts. In fact, the more voters learned about President Bush’s Social Security reform proposal, the less they liked it. Three years later, Social Security reform reemerged during the 2008 presidential election cycle. Most importantly, the Republican presidential candidate, Senator John McCain of Arizona, who had originally been a supporter of President Bush’s Social Security reform plans but had since attempted to change his stance, found that he had to follow the path laid out by President Bush, unless he wanted to subject himself to political pressure from his base, who had not received the promised Social Security privatization after the 2004 election. President Bush’s ill-fated Social Security reform was thus a shadow looming large over the next Republican presidential candidate, who endorsed reform proposals that were both economically ineffective in addressing the system’s challenges and unpopular among voters.

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Retirement Wealth Social Security offers crucial benefits to working families when the primary source of income disappears due to the retirement, death or disability of a worker. That is, Social Security is a social insurance program that provides retirement, survivorship and disability benefits to participating workers and their families. Most of the Social Security reform debate in 2005 centered on retirement benefits. Interestingly, however, slightly less than half of all Social Security beneficiaries receive their own retirement check from the program. In 2003, the last year before the Social Security discussion for which data were available, 49.7 percent of Social Security beneficiaries received their own retirement check. The other half was comprised of the recipients of spousal benefits, disability benefits and survivorship benefits. Included among Social Security’s insurance beneficiaries in 2003, for example, are close to four million children (Table 6-1). TABLE 6-1: Distribution of Social Security Beneficiaries in 2003 Retirement Number (Millions) Share of Total Average Monthly Benefit (Dollars) Children (Thousands) White Children Black Children

Survivorship

Disability

Total

Own

Dual

29.5

23.4

6.2

6.8

7.6

62.8 %

49.7%

13.1%

14.5%

16.2%

$922.1

n.a.

n.a.

$792.0

$722.5

480.5

-

-

1,906.7

1,579.3

350.1

-

-

1,234.4

1,034.3

96.8

-

-

418.1

327.1

Source: Chaurushiya and Weller (2005). “n.a.” indicates data are not available. “-” indicates that category is not applicable.

President Bush’s Legacy on Social Security

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It is also important to note that the disability and survivorship insurance functions of Social Security play a disproportionately larger role for minorities and women than do retirement benefits (Weller and Bragg, 2001; Chaurushiya and Weller, 2005). When considering Social Security’s retirement function, it is important to keep in mind that Social Security was always meant only as a basic retirement income program. This is witnessed by the fact that its average replacement is approximately 40 percent of a worker’s last earnings, which is considerably lower than the replacement rates of retirement benefits in other industrialized economies and well below the standard replacement rates of 75 to 80 percent of pre-retirement income recommended by financial planners (Weller, 2004). However, Social Security has played a disproportionate role in providing retirement income for many Americans. The Social Security Administration (2005a) reports that people 65 and older received on average 60 percent of their income from Social Security in 2002 – again the last year, for which these bi-annual data were available prior to 2005.1 For 24 percent of people 65 and older, Social Security constituted at least 90 percent of their income. For people 65 and older in the middle of the income distribution, Social Security constituted 67 percent of their income on average. Thus, the proportion of retirement income Americans receive from Social Security is typically much larger than the average replacement ratios would suggest. Social Security’s disproportionately large role as a source of retirement income serves as an indicator of inadequate private pension wealth. This begins with uneven pension coverage. While Social Security offers almost universal coverage to those nearing retirement, about one quarter of households by people between the ages of 56 and 64 had no private pension (Table 6-2). TABLE 6-2: Coverage Ratios for Different Forms of Retirement Wealth Share of households with specific wealth Year

1983

2001

1983

2001

1983

2001

Social Security

92.4

98.2

91.9

97.5

77.5

92.9

DC and DB pensions

69.5

73.5

70.9

74.4

66.9

62.4

Home ownership

76.2

76.6

77.7

82.5

74.3

79.0

47 to 55

56 to 64

65 and older

Notes: All figures are in percent. Source is Weller and Wolff (2005).

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In addition, private retirement wealth is rather unequally distributed. Women tend to have less retirement wealth than men, minorities less than whites, and those with less education less than those with higher educational attainment (Diagram 6-1). Diagram 6-1: Retirement Wealth, by Demographics, 1998 $400 $350 $300

Dollars (1,000s)

$250 $200 $150 $100 $50 $0 Single Men

Single Women

Whites

Minorities >16 Years