By David Drucker
Daily Bruin Reporter
President George W. Bush assumed office Saturday, and brought
with him a governing style that differs from the previous
administration in ways that go beyond political policy.
While former President Bill Clinton was legendary for his
personal involvement in policy minutiae, those who worked with Bush
during his tenure as Texas’ governor have indicated that the
new president prefers to leave the details to his cabinet and their
staffs.
“The Bush team is operating under a model of corporate
governance,” said School of Public Policy and Social Research
Professor Mark Peterson, who follows the presidency. “Bush is
going to function as the chairman of the board, and Dick Cheney
will be the chief executive officer.”
According to former Massachusetts governor and visiting public
policy professor Michael Dukakis, this stands in contrast to the
micro-management exhibited by Clinton during his eight years in
office.
“Clinton, like myself, tended to be actively involved in
shaping policy,” said Dukakis, who was the Democratic nominee
for president in 1988. “I don’t think Bush will be as
directly engaged, but he’ll definitely make all of the big
decisions.”
But Dukakis, who lost the 1988 campaign to President
Bush’s father ““ then-Vice President George Bush
““Â added that delegation is a natural and necessary part
of exercising executive authority.
“Even though I was more involved than Bush may be, I was
still a believer in a strong cabinet,” he said. “Bush
will delegate, and that’s not necessarily a bad
thing.”
“Is the actively involved executive better or worse than
one who delegates?” he continued. “A lot of it depends
on who you are and how you handle it.”
Professor of management William G. Ouchi of The Anderson School
at UCLA said clues to Bush’s governing philosophy can be
gleaned from how he handled his education reform package, which was
delivered to Capitol Hill on Tuesday.
“The traditional way for a president to suggest
legislation would be for him to introduce his solution , and then
let Congress fight it out, but that’s not what he did,”
said Ouchi, the former chief of staff to Los Angeles Mayor Richard
Riordan. “Before he sent in his education program, he took
one of (former Vice President) Al Gore’s ideas, included it
in his program, and even gave the Democrats credit for
it.”
This signals a practical approach, added Ouchi, as opposed to a
rigid ideological tact.
“If that’s the way Bush is going to govern
throughout his term, there could be a big change in
Washington,” he said.
Although the Bush way is reminiscent of former President Ronald
Reagan’s style of delegating authority, it’s not
necessarily the former two-term California governor that he is
emulating. That’s because Bush is the first occupier of the
Oval Office with a master’s degree in business
administration, which he picked up from Harvard after receiving his
bachelor’s from Ivy League rival Yale.
Despite such an academic pedigree, the fact that Bush sometimes
trips over his words in public settings has lead some to question
his intelligence.
Compared to Georgetown and Yale Law graduate Clinton, some
argue, Bush lacks the ability to participate in in-depth
legislative development. Thus, he has no choice but to
delegate.
But according the experts, Bush is probably more a product of
his MBA than anything else.
“I would say that his business training is likely to
affect his point of view,” Ouchi said. “He’s
likely to view governing in terms of problems that need to be
solved.”
Dario Nardi, program in computing assistant professor, who also
has a Ph.D in psychology, concurred.
“I think he’s probably a very good
problem-solver,” Nardi said. “People mistake his lack
of articulation for a lack of intelligence, but I think
that’s a mistake.”
Nardi, who describes himself as apolitical, said what the nation
is getting in their new president is someone who just happens to
govern differently than Clinton did.
“Clinton was more of a “˜get things going’ type
of person,” Nardi said. “If there was something he
wanted done, he did it himself. Bush is someone who sets up a
framework and then gets out of the way.”
What the country will most likely get in Bush, agree Dukakis and
Peterson, is a president who, like Reagan but unlike Clinton, sets
a limited number of priorities that he works very hard to
implement.
“Bush is like Reagan in that he brought his own vision to
the White House, made it clear to the people around him, and then
those people tried to realize it,” Peterson said.
Dukakis added that this governing method usually translates into
strong-willed cabinet members, and could provide an interesting
management scenario.
“By surrounding himself with people that he’s given
lots of authority to, Bush might find it difficult to rein
everybody in, though it doesn’t mean that he won’t be
in charge,” he said.
TOP 10 UNITED STATES PRESIDENTS Presidential
greatness rankings were determined through a national survey of 78
university professors, including 30 of history, 23 of law and 25 of
political science. It was conducted jointly by the Wall Street
Journal and the Federalist Society in October of 2000. President
Party affliation 1. George Washington Federalist 2. Abraham Lincoln
Republican 3. Franklin D. Roosevelt Democrat 4. Thomas Jefferson
Democratic-Republican 5. Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt Republican 6.
Andrew Jackson Democrat 7. Harry S. Truman Democrat 8. Ronald
Reagan Republican 9. Dwight D. Eisenhower Republican 10. James K.
Polk Democrat SOURCE: www.freerepublic.com Original graphic by ADAM
BROWN/Daily Bruin Web adaptation by CHRISTINE TAN/Daily Bruin