Piercing The Bubble

A recent article in the Washington Post illustrates an important issue regarding the modern process of governance in the White House, and the challenges that face President Obama as he seeks to deliver on his campaign promises. The article [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29448953/] details the nature of the seclusion and exclusion that envelops the President, all in the name of “security” and “efficiency.” These measures are what we commonly refer to as “the Bubble” inside which Presidents live. The challenge for Obama is to force Washington and the country’s politics to function in a different way, a new way, if the sad direction in which his predecessor took the country is to be altered. Yet how can a President effectively change the way business is done if he continues to do business in the same old ways? Surrounded by a large cadre of “assistants” and “Senior Advisors” who have an understandably vested interest in maintaining control of access to the President, because in the White House and in Washington access is power, the obstacle to objective leadership is in finding advisors who will tell him what he does not want to hear [but needs to know] as well as what he wants to hear.

Consider the quote from White House Staff Secretary Lisa Brown:
"The way I would frame the job is that I want to maximize his time," said Staff Secretary Lisa Brown, an assistant to the president who works out of an office on the ground floor of the West Wing. "So it's making sure that, when we send him something, it is what he wants to see, when he wants to see it, and we are helping him be as efficient as he could be."

While this formulation of the job is obviously well intentioned, it contains the seeds of serious problems. Who decides what and when Obama wants to see? Is it truly Obama or one of these staffers? Certainly, Obama does not have sufficient time to review all inputs that are sent to him. The array of issues and the amount of information needed daily is too vast for anyone to absorb in a day, a week or even a month. Yet there is also a maxim that Obama should recall, that he who frames the question controls the debate. In other words, if the options presented to Obama for decision are too biased or limited, then his thinking and decision making will be skewed in the direction that his staffers desire instead of being based upon the President’s own instincts, intelligence and beliefs.

Barack Obama has demonstrated his innate intelligence and we can only hope that he has taken the time to address this chronic problem. He has spent too much time seeking the Office and building the hopes of the country to allow that victory to be snatched from under him by a subverting staff. But a wise manager knows that sufficient time has to be spent on process if one seeks to assure effective and quality results. Obama needs to regularly review the staffing process in order to assure that his information input is not becoming skewed or myopic. In the tremendous power games of Washington, the forces seeking to control and delimit the options of the president are both strong and subtle. Obama has thrown down the gauntlet and publicly acknowledged that the lobbyist factions will attack his agenda any way they can and without scruple. But he must also recognize that within his circle of advisors there will be factions seeking to influence, if not control, his decision making.

It could easily be argued that his predecessor, George W. Bush, really did not know why he wanted to be President other than to acquire the Power and prestige of the position. Thus, it was fairly easy for Cheney and Rumsfeld to wrest control of the White House from him, effectively using ideology bound Senior Staff members who placed loyalty above competence. Their loyalty, however, was not to the president or the country, but rather to special interests who promised them hefty payoffs both during and after their time in the Bush Administration. In addition, Bush was not the brightest of men and was not intellectually active or curious. Consequently, he would have been unlikely to critically analyze what was going on around him and recognize that he was being “managed” instead of truly leading.

To date, Obama has shown that he is not entirely comfortable with the swarm of staffing that surrounds him and controls his time and movements. That is a GOOD sign, an instinct that he ought to preserve. As time and the pressures of the office begin to wear on Obama, as they inevitably will, he needs to revisit those instincts and determine whether it is truly HIS agenda that is being pursued. He must never forget that it is he that the people elected as President, and that his primary responsibility is to be himself. My own experience for decades as a lawyer and advisor, and working with other, has made me acutely sensitive to how easy it is for an advisor to forget that it is they who work for the client and not the reverse. Obama must seek to reaffirm and to remind the Staff and Senior Advisors that they work for him. It is not their place to set policy; rather they serve to assist the President in exploring all relevant options and ramifications in the process of helping HIM determine policy.

One of the major dangers of “the Bubble” is that one who is enveloped within it does not even recognize his occluded condition. Obama would do well to maintain, indeed insist upon, steps that fight against the seclusion and myopia that the traditional process creates. Trips outside the White House are important. But review of the internal process within the White House on a regular basis is perhaps even more important if Obama is to retain the reins of leadership in this Presidency.