THE OBAMIANS: The Struggle Inside the White House to Redefine American Power

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Washington Post book reviewers

Jun 15, 2012 ARCHIVES  |  Entertainment  |  COLUMNS

James Mann
Viking
ISBN 978-0670023769
392 pages
$26.95

Reviewed by Gideon Rose

The officials who make foreign policy don't have it easy. Trapped between the domestic political environment on one side and the international system on the other, they have only modest freedom to choose a course of action. They need to weigh the relative merits of several policy options on a vast range of intricate and thorny issues, many of them interconnected. And every few years, the senior management of the operation is completely replaced, with the top jobs going to newcomers who often know little about the issues in question.

How those newcomers handle themselves in office is a perennially interesting question and one that the journalist James Mann has made something of a cottage industry. His 2004 book, "The Rise of the Vulcans," chronicled the backgrounds and experiences of George W. Bush's initial foreign policy team, and "The Obamians" does something similar for the current administration.

Mann is a good reporter. He writes clearly and accessibly, often with insight and sound judgment. There are gaps in the new book's coverage (Israel, Europe, trade), but the subjects he does treat (national security, Afghanistan and Pakistan, China, the Arab Spring) are handled accurately and without ideological bias. And here, as before, Mann's strength remains his close attention to the political and professional backgrounds of key administration officials, many of whom he interviewed.

The portrait is mixed. Mann argues that Obama himself dominates foreign policy, relying on a few close junior staffers in the White House to execute his will while more senior, high-profile figures in the cabinet protect his political flanks. The president comes off as smart, disciplined and engaged, but also arrogant, controlling, thin-skinned and political. He gives big speeches filled with grand rhetoric and ambitious goals, but not much of that gets translated into policy or achievement. Obama tries to escape stark choices, preferring to reconcile seemingly opposed courses of action. The record includes some successes and some failures, some bullets dodged, and a lot of cans kicked down the road.

Little of this is wrong, but little is surprising either. The book is a good representation of conventional Washington discussion about the subject - event-driven, superficial and solipsistic. There is a lot of America in these pages, but not much foreign or policy.

At one point, Mann distinguishes between the actual Obamians (who had backgrounds in Congress and became the loyal White House aides) and a group of experienced Democratic foreign policy professionals he calls the Trout Fishers (because of their penchant for fishing excursions during meetings of the blue-ribbon Aspen Strategy Group). Compared to the Trout Fishers, the Obamians "tended to know less about the nuances and subtleties of an issue, and they were less concerned with the practical details of governance. They were, however, more adept at providing a determined opposition to the Republicans, and much better at figuring out what to say in public about foreign policy [during the 2008 campaign]. They found it easier to offer the broad perspective of outsiders."

The problem, of course, is that once in office, outsiders end up having to grapple with all those pesky nuances and details. The Obamians prove smart enough to understand that throwing the standard foreign policy playbook out the window will make things worse rather than better. And so they eventually trim their sails and act less transformationally than either supporters or opponents expected.

Mann tells this story, but because he rarely gets down into the weeds of specific policy choices, he doesn't give the reader a strong sense of why this evolution is usually a good thing. The reason is that, as the Trout Fisher types of both parties understand, the basic template for American foreign policy has been relatively constant for almost seven decades now and needs only tweaking and updating, not fundamental revision.

The central task facing each new administration is pretty much the same: figuring out how to consolidate, protect and extend the liberal international order that emerged in the West after World War II. This order had both domestic and international components: At its core were democracies with mixed economies cooperating and trading with each other, nestling closely under an American security umbrella. It has provided a framework within which local economic, social and political development has proceeded across the globe, to the net benefit of both the United States and the world at large. Generations of policymakers in Washington and allied capitals have nurtured and guarded their precious offspring, keeping at bay a host of dangers - war and aggression, economic nationalism, disruption and chaos.

The order derived from Western policymakers' reflections on the nightmares of the interwar period, when unregulated markets and uncoordinated behavior had led to economic disaster and the rise of aggressive dictatorships. The outlines of the system were sketched before the postwar break with the Soviet Union, and "containment" was a late (if complementary and appropriate) addition to the policy mix. Rather than saying that the Cold War caused the order, in other words, it is more accurate to say that the Soviet Union's unwillingness to take part in the order caused the Cold War. This is why the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union changed the world less than many expected: Since those were never central to the order itself, their passing did little to affect it, merely paving the way for its extension into areas of the world previously off-limits.

In recent years, the threats to the order have evolved. As the danger of conflict between the great powers has receded and globalization has taken off, terrorism - historically a secondary concern - has gained new importance. Countries such as China, India and Brazil have emerged as powerful regional actors and crucial pillars of an ever-more-interdependent global economy. U.S. influence in non-military arenas has diminished, and the institutions used to manage the system no longer work well. The challenge for policymakers in Washington and elsewhere today, therefore, is devising ways to revitalize the order, giving it a new lease on life so future generations, here and abroad, can continue to enjoy its benefits.

As for the Obama team's record on this front, history will probably say that they made some progress, primarily by cauterizing some of the wounds of the Bush years. Thanks to their efforts, the next administration will inherit a cleaner slate and be able to focus less on crisis management and more on the big picture of global governance. That might sound like a small win - but given the extraordinary stakes for which this game is being played, even a small win is welcome indeed.

James Mann is editor of Foreign Affairs.

Copyright 2012 Washington Post Writers Group
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THE PRESIDENTS CLUB: Inside the World's Most Exclusive Fraternity

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Washington Post book reviewers

Apr 27, 2012 ARCHIVES  |  Entertainment  |  COLUMNS

Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy
Simon & Schuster
ISBN 978-1439127704
641 pages
$32.50

Reviewed by David Greenberg

Gridlock, polarization, obstructionism - if there's one thing Washington can agree on, it's that Washington can't agree on anything. The public's sufferance in recent years of petty filibusters, destructive budget showdowns, and stridently partisan news outlets has given rise to a yearning for what's imagined to be a lost culture of reasonableness. It's easy now to pine for an era like the 1980s, when President Reagan and House Speaker Tip O'Neill could put aside foundational differences and get down to business.

This desire for comity has overwhelmed fidelity to history. In reality, Reagan's presidency, too, was deeply divisive and fraught with much bitterness. Ideological warfare is frequently a handmaiden to democratic debate.

Yet democracies do need statemen. In "The Presidents Club," a lively history of the crisscrossing personal relationships among America's postwar presidents, Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy suggest that in postwar American life it has often been former chief executives who have put aside partisan concerns to help achieve larger national goals. Sharing a unique bond based on their common (and uncommon) experience as leaders of the free world, all of our presidents have left the White House convinced that only they and their fellow occupants of that august office - with its power, privileges and burdens - can truly know what the job is like. That shared knowledge and experience have forged a special relationship among them that has helped them work together for what is deemed the common good.

Gibbs and Duffy, Time magazine veterans, weave this argument - really more of a theme - throughout an anecdote-rich story that begins with Harry Truman's use of Herbert Hoover's expertise to help feed Europe after World War II and runs through Bill Clinton's rapprochement with Barack Obama after the latter's fairy-tale 2008 campaign. The authors revel in describing behind-the-scenes and especially face-to-face encounters: when Truman and Dwight Eisenhower shared drinks at Blair House after John F. Kennedy's funeral; when Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter flew together to Cairo for Anwar Sadat's funeral (there are a lot of funerals in this book); when Ford and Clinton went golfing in Vail.

Realizing that membership in the Presidents Club bestows a singular perspective can help explain certain minor mysteries of our political life. How, for example, could Clinton ever forgive George Bush, Sr., who in the 1992 campaign all but charged him with being a traitor, if not a Soviet stooge, for visiting Russia as a college student and protesting the Vietnam War "from foreign soil"? Why has Obama, whose presidential quest embodied a repudiation of everything George Bush, Jr. stood for, heard scarcely a grumble about his own policies from his once-belligerent predecessor? The answer lies in what John F. Kennedy said to Arthur Schlesinger when asked to rank the presidents: "Only the president himself can know what his real pressures and his real alternatives are." It's a sentiment that virtually every president voices at one point or another in this book.

The mutual understanding among the presidents, Gibbs and Duffy show, has allowed former enemies not only to make common cause but even to forge deep friendships. A cynic might dismiss the 2005 buddy-movie disaster relief efforts of Clinton and George Bush, Sr. following a devastating Indian Ocean earthquake as cost-free do-goodism. But it's hard not to put credence in the pull of the Presidents Club when you read that in a Bush family photo taken last year, the two Georges - and their extended kin - were joined incongruously by none other than the Democrat who served eight years between them.

Even more delicious than the tales of strange bedfellowship are the accounts of big-shot rivalry, not always pleasantly overcome. In the 1968 election, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger worked to undermine Lyndon Johnson's negotiations to end the Vietnam War, making sure that an imminent peace accord wouldn't help Democrat Hubert Humphrey at the polls. Learning of this subterfuge from FBI surveillance of Nixon source Anna Chennault, Johnson grew enraged and nearly blew the whistle on the back-channel double-dealing. Once elected, however, Nixon pivoted and proceeded to shamelessly stroke his predecessor's outsized ego, even flying LBJ to the Western White House for a birthday party, replete with mariachi band and a cake topped with yellow roses. It paid off. Sulking over his exclusion from his party's 1972 convention, Johnson acceded to Nixon's wishes and gave dispensation to Democrats who wished not to endorse their nominee that year, the dovish George McGovern.

Almost all the presidents came to dislike Jimmy Carter. Gibbs and Duffy offer juicy accounts of how the elder Bush's White House became "unhinged" in 1990 when Carter secretly lobbied various world leaders to vote against America's U.N. resolution to oust Saddam Hussein's forces from Kuwait. Tossing about the word "treason," some Bush staffers contended that Carter had violated the Logan Act, which forbids private citizens to conduct foreign policy without authority. Several years later, Clinton aides likewise labeled Carter treasonous when, on a mission to North Korea, he scrapped his instructions and cut his own deal with Kim Il Sung in front of CNN cameras. "The problem is that North Korea now has a former [U.S.] president as its spokesperson," said a Clinton official. The rogue state had met the rogue president.

Such meddling in foreign policy aside - and Nixon, along with Carter, was given to unhelpful freelancing - Gibbs and Duffy mostly applaud the former presidents' efforts at statesmanship. By virtue of their unique experience, they confer an aura of wisdom and patriotism on their collective (and sometimes individual) undertakings, whether public or private. During the Clinton impeachment, Gerald Ford performed a noble errand in conveying to Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott that the Senate's trial should be short and restrained, unlike the House's circus in December. In its frank admiration for these acts of civic-mindedness, "The Presidents Club" is a book for our age of ideological warfare, a plea for moderation.

Much of this book is gossipy, not a little of it frivolous, some of it familiar, and at least one story erroneous. (The authors write that in November 1960 Nixon heeded Eisenhower and Hoover's advice not to challenge Kennedy's election victory, but Nixon did contest the results, unsuccessfully, in 11 states.) More problematic, its celebration of bipartisanship can let us forget that the Washington consensus sometimes demands not affirmation but skepticism. Teaming up to help earthquake victims is perfectly unobjectionable, but on other matters the chumminess of these grandees can obscure the need for partisan challenge. Gibbs and Duffy write that after Ford and Carter mended their fences, they became partners on behalf of the inside-the-beltway agenda. "They wrote a Reader's Digest article in 1983 that was critical of Israel. They joined forces to push the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993 and jointly opposed a plan to legalize drugs in California in 1996." Here, the authors, in seeking to bestow praise, inadvertently reveal a festering problem in our politics: the readiness of self-regarding Washington insiders to mobilize behind a status quo whose wisdom they never deign to question.

"We politicians are just like lawyers," Johnson said to Nixon, "who get together for a drink after fighting each other like hell in the courtroom." Sometimes the ability to overcome partisan differences can be a virtue of the highest order. But just as often true courage lies in standing up against views held by the establishment, even - or especially - when you're one of its ranking members.

David Greenberg is a professor of history and of journalism and media studies at Rutgers University and author of "Nixon's Shadow: The History of an Image," among other works of political history.

Copyright 2012 Washington Post Writers Group
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Review-a-Day for Fri, Aug 26: Intellectuals Incorporated: Politics, Art, and Ideas Inside Henry Luce's Media Empire (Politics and Culture in Modern America)

Review-a-Day for Thu, Jul 28: Inside Scientology: The Story of America's Most Secretive Religion

by Janet Reitman A review by Anne Saker

You've got to hand it to L. Ron Hubbard. He might have been relegated to the minor ranks of science fiction writers except that he figured out that spiritual seekers in post-nuclear America craved a personal understanding of the self and the universe -- and they would gladly pay for that knowledge again and again and again and again ...

Which is the delightful foundation of Janet Reitman's compelling, rich and courageous explanation of Hubbard's contribution to the 20th century, the religion called Scientology, now in its sixth decade. Yes, there are third-generation Scientologists.

Reitman got onto the subject with an insightful 2007 Rolling Stone story when the religion enjoyed renewed attention from Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah's couch. For her book, she interviewed more than 100 people across the Scientology spectrum -- members, ex-members, celebrities, ex-celebrities, the devout and the militantly opposed.

She takes pains to detail how she crafted the narrative to be fair, and what comes through this prodigious reporting effort is a really good read about the birth of a strange and yet all-American institution.

The Hubbard who Reitman discovers is just the kind of narcissist who is inclined to see himself great enough to create a religion: a marketing genius and a fanciful storyteller, particularly about his own story, which comes with its own embellishments.

In later years, as the religion established itself and expanded like McDonald's (an overt model for the religion's managers), the role of Hubbard "took on more and more characteristics of a messiah. As the 'Source' of all of Scientology's teachings, Hubbard was decreed the creator of every bit of Scientology scripture, which was considered infallible."

Hubbard's death in 1986 led to the rise of an acolyte, David Miscavige, who joined Scientology as a boy and now at 19 ran the show. By then, franchise churches all over the world pulled in millions of dollars from adherents paying for repeated "auditings" to walk the Bridge To Total Freedom, the goal of which was to "go clear."

Woven into Reitman's accounting are significant subplots. The heartbreaking story of Lisa McPherson delivers the personal toll. She gave all her money and many years to Scientology, working at the church's mega-headquarters in Clearwater, Fla., but was losing her mind. Church workers performed what was essentially faith-healing, but McPherson died. Criminal charges against church officials were filed then dropped.

Reitman then goes into great and entertaining details about the church's longstanding giddiness over celebrities, especially the hots it's always had for Top Gun: "Cruise's strategic value to the church was so crucial that nothing was too good for the actor. Miscavige even created a special award for him ... which he presented to Cruise."

Reitman also considers the future, interviewing a host of teenage and young-adult Scientologists who believe that the excesses of the past are but one solid auditing away, and the church can only grow because it's got the best of intentions: to help the whole world go clear.

Inside Scientology is an impressive high-wire act producing a scrupulous history of how one man reframed the universe and how a lot of people paid for the privilege of agreeing with him.

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Find the great outdoors inside these kids' books

The outdoors, from baby blue jays to baseball, figure in four new books for young readers, from preschool to high school. USA TODAY takes a look.

Like a tamer 'Wild Things'

The Woods, written and illustrated by Paul Hoppe (Chronicle, 36 pp., $16.99, for ages 4-8, * * * out of four): In a gentle variation on Maurice Sendak's classic adventure/nightmare Where the Wild Things Are, the young unnamed narrator of The Woods can't find his favorite stuffed bunny at bedtime. That leads him into the woods, which seem to sprout right in his bedroom. The brave narrator encounters bears, dragons and monsters, although none, it turns out, should scare even the youngest readers. Paul Hoppe's text and watercolors make for comforting bedtime reading.

Finding nature in the city

My Baby Blue Jays, by John Berendt (Viking, 32 pp., $16.99, ages 5-8, * * *): Wildlife adventures can be found anywhere, even in Manhattan. Best-selling author John Berendt (Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil) spent a spring photographing one of nature's miracles on his 86th Street balcony, where two blue jays were building a nest. It was soon home to three baby blue jays, which learn to fly the hard way and seem to be unperturbed by their personal photographer. Nature (and Disney movies) can be cruel, but Berendt's blue jays find nothing but blue skies in the big city.

Covering historical bases

First Pitch: How Baseball Began, by John Thorn (Beach Ball Books, 40 pp., $19.99 hardcover, 14.99 paperback, ages 9 and up, * * *): Young baseball fans ready for revisionist history can learn much from John Thorn, the official historian of Major League Baseball, who writes, "Saying Abner Doubleday invented baseball is as ridiculous as saying the moon is made of green cheese." In an illustrated, kid-friendly episodic history, Thorn traces the evolution (rather than creation) of baseball and celebrates unsung pioneers such as Doc Adams, who, in about 1850, invented the idea of shortstops, and Octavius V. Catto, a 19th-century combination of Jackie Robinson and Martin Luther King Jr.

Rough seas for this teen

Sharks & Boys, by Kristen Tracy (Hyperion, 264 pp., $16.99, ages 12-18, * * 1/2): At 16, Enid thinks she has problems: Her mom and philandering dad are in couples therapy, and her boyfriend wants a "break," which, she hopes, doesn't mean a "breakup." Driven by suspicion and jealousy, Enid ends up as a stowaway on what was supposed to be an all-boy sailing adventure. A storm turns it into a high school version of Survivor, without the cameras but with a lot more reality. The sitcom-like dialogue becomes deadly serious as Enid learns, "Life is not fair. This world will swallow anyone. Even if you know how to swim."

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