REICH REPORT / SEPTEMBER 2005

Before I head out to California, I wanted to share with you a few thoughts and
suggestions.

First, I urge you to join with me and get behind Deval Patrick's campaign for
governor. I've known Deval since he was assistant attorney general in charge of
the civil rights division at the Justice Department, under Bill Clinton. Deval
is a true progressive -- committed to social justice, fair and balanced growth,
and good government. As assistant attorney general, he took on crimes such as
attacks on churches and synagogues, vigorously enforced the Americans with
Disabilities Act, and led the way toward a fair lending program based on risk
rather than race. He's committed to a good education for all, equal justice, and
well-paying jobs for all our people. And his background in the public, private,
and nonprofit sectors attests to his strong management skills. He'd be a great
governor. We deserve one, for a change.

Second, I'm pleased to report that Progressive Democrats of Massachusetts -- an
organization that grew out of my campaign for governor -- is making good
progress at the grass roots of the state, developing and fielding progressive
candidates for local office and supporting progressives for the state
legislature. There are now seven chapters -- in Cape Ann, Lexington, Brookline,
and Arlington, in the East, and Northampton/Amherst, South Hadley, Holyoke, and
the Southern Berkshires, in the West. There's also a network of smaller
organizing committees in Springfield, Longmeadow, Worcester, and Newton, along
with Progressive Democrats of Cambridge and Progressive Democrats of Somerville.
If you're not yet involved with PDM, please do so. If you'd like more
information, check with Cathleen Cavell, at cathleencavell@gmail.com, or Peter
Dolan, at pdolan.pdem@verizon.net.

Third, Harold Hubschman, one of our most diligent organizers during the Reich
campaign, is mounting a petition drive to get on the ballot an initiative to
bring the Massachusetts National Guard home from Iraq. I think the country is
waiting for just this kind of grass-roots movement, and I hope you'll be able to
help. Find out more at www.homefromIraqnow.org

Finally, this thought:

As I testified at the Roberts hearings last week, and beheld the meticulous
planning that went into the White House's nomination of Roberts for Chief
Justice, I kept asking myself how can the Bush administration be so disciplined
and effective at politics and yet so undisciplined and ineffectual at governing?

No White House in living memory has been as successful in squelching leaks and
keeping cabinet members on message, withholding documents from Congress and the
public, reaching down into the bureaucracy to bend analyses in directions that
supports what it wants to do, imposing its will on congressional leaders of the
same party and even making a political imprint on state legislatures. No recent
president has got re-elected with controlling majorities in both houses of
Congress, or been as successful in repositioning the national debate around his
ideological view of the world.

Yet just as remarkable is this White House's incompetence in doing the work of
governing the nation. Its stunning failures to act on predictions of a terrorist
attack like 9/11 or a natural disaster like Katrina; its botched intelligence
over Saddam's supposed weapons of mass destruction; its failure to secure order
after invading Iraq; its shameful treatment of prisoners of war; its fiscal
profligacy; its bizarre Medicare drug benefit, from which the elderly are now
fleeing; its bland response to the wave of corporate lootings; its incapacity to
run the Federal Emergency Management Agency -- the list goes on. Not since the
hapless administration of Warren G. Harding has there been one as stunningly
inept as this one.

The easy answer to the paradox is that Bush cares about winning elections and
putting his ideological stamp on the nation, but doesn't give a hoot about
governing the place. But that's no explanation because the two are so obviously
connected. An administration can't impose a lasting stamp without being managed
well, and a president's party can't keep winning elections if the public thinks
it's composed of bumbling idiots.

The real answer is that the same discipline and organization that's made the
White House into a hugely effective political machine has impaired its capacity
to govern. Blocking data from lower-level political appointees and civil
servants that's inconsistent with what it wants to do or sheds doubt on its
wisdom, for example, may be effective politics in the short term. It keeps the
media and the opposition party at bay. But it also prevents top policy makers
from ever getting the quality of information they need. Operatives in the CIA
suspected Saddam didn't have weapons of mass destruction and personnel at State
knew the plan to invade Iraq was seriously flawed, but such judgments were
suppressed by a White House that made perfectly clear what it wanted and didn't
want to hear. Career professionals at the CIA and State are now wary of sharing
what they know with appointed officials, as are scientists and experts all over
the federal government.

Similarly, a White House whose cabinet officers all deliver the same, positive
lines can be a formidable message machine. But this same discipline also
discourages internal dissent, for the simple reason that in Washington nothing
stays completely private. The predictable result is that Bush officials have
become yes-men incapable of sounding alarms. The price of dissent is high. Soon
after Larry Lindsey, then Director of the National Economic Council, warned that
the cost of the Iraqi war would be in the range of $200 billion -- almost
exactly what it's cost so far -- he was fired. After Paul O'Neill, his Secretary
of the Treasury, worried out loud that federal budget deficits didn't seem to
matter any longer -- a prescient concern -- he was fired, too. Can it be any
wonder why this President doesn't seem to get it?

Political discipline is also honed when the White House staffs agencies with
people loyal to the president, along with loyalists' friends. Joe Allbaugh
worked as W's chief of staff when he was Texas governor and his 2000 campaign
manager, so it seemed perfectly natural to put Allbaugh's college buddy, Michael
Brown, in charge of FEMA even though 'Brownie' had no previous experience in
disaster management. FEMA's acting deputy director and its acting deputy chief
of staff had no relevant experience, either; both had been advance men in the
White House. Given this, no one should be surprised that FEMA so badly bungled
Katrina. Brownie is gone now, but the the administration is still crawling with
cronies who know their politics but don't have a clue what they're supposed to
manage.

Politics first, competence last. That's the Bush administration all over. Karl
Rove, Bush's brain and deputy chief of staff, is in charge of the political
juggernaut that's substituted for effective governance. Presumably, he's now at
work on a plan to burnish the image of Republicans as managers of the public's
business so they don't get the hell beaten out of them in the mid-terms a year
from now. But the harder Rove works at spinning what this White House has
accomplished, the more likely it is that Americans will see that what it's
accomplished is basically spin.

***

Keep up the good fight. I promise you I will.

Bob Reich


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