Outlook: No White House Honeymoon

While Task Looks Daunting, Presidents Who Clean Up After Predecessors Earn High Marks

"What does it mean to inherit the presidency in an hour of crisis? Historically, it has usually meant a push to reverse the last fellow's policies. That holds true even in relatively tranquil times. In 2001, for instance, the incoming Bush team, which scorned its predecessors as ineffectual, weak and morally compromised, made a mantra of the term "ABC" ("Anything But Clinton"). ... With about 80 percent of the electorate saying that the country is on the wrong track, it doesn't take a brilliant tactician to suggest that a new direction would work well for either Barack Obama or John McCain. ... But how well does rejecting the policies of one's predecessor work? Here's the historian's answer: pretty well."

Former Clinton administration speechwriter Ted Widmer, author of "Ark of the Liberties: America and the World," was online Monday, Sept. 22, 2 p.m. ET to discuss his Outlook article about past presidents who've pushed the country away from his predecessor's policies, and what we might expect from the next White House.

The transcript follows.

Archive: Transcripts of discussions with Outlook article authors

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Ted Widmer: Hi everyone. I see a few questions relating to my piece yesterday in The Post about becoming president during hard times -- the pitfalls and the potential. I see a few questions already, some tilted obviously to the right, and others to the left. In other words, a perfect cross sampling of America. I'll try to answer as many as I can.

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Brisbane, Australia: How much cash is still available to the U.S. for all this spending that has been promised by Bush? I understand that the U.S. budget is already $10 trillion in the red, and the Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and wherever are costing billions a month to finance. Who in their right mind is going to lend the U.S. anything at this point in time?

Ted Widmer: Nice to hear from this distant questioner -- we don't always remember how much U.S. foreign policy does to shape the affairs of the entire world, American and un-American alike. It's hard to answer with specifics about money -- it's true, Bush has made promises, but his power to enact them is more or less nil at this late stage as lame duck syndrome is already at an advanced stage. But at the same time, the U.S. economy is still the engine of the world, and where there is a potential for growth there will be investors. But a clear task of a new president will be to ensure that sound fiscal conditions prevail, that the deficit can be reduced, that reckless spending will be curtailed, and so forth. If those conditions are met, it will be very much in the world's interest to get the U.S. economy moving again.

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Muskogee, Okla.: A very intelligent look at the way past administrations coped with the mess left by their predecessors. However, how does the blatancy of the GOP smear campaign fit into this mix? If Obama wins, he begins under a cloud concocted by right-wing radio personalities who use underhanded innuendo to perhaps permanently affect his ability to govern. If McCain wins, he begins with a history of following the same path as the Bush administration, and a significant portion of the American public will believe he won his office through lies, slander, pandering and plain ol' dirty tricks. How can any one human being reconcile this?

Ted Widmer: Excellent question. Certainly there have been smears -- but I don't think they really have stuck. I think if Obama wins, it will be such a transcendent moment of new possibility that the positive message will outlive the negative one. Similarly, I believe that McCain will continue to create independent space for himself as the anti-Bush (even while strategically retreating from that position now and then). Last night on "60 Minutes," for example, he was floating ideas that Bush never would in a millions years. (Andrew Cuomo as part of GOP cabinet?)

There have been a lot of dirty presidential campaigns -- usually we forget all about them in the euphoria of the victory and the self-reinvention narrative that we love.

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Silver Spring, Md.: Certainly one major legacy being left for the next president is a mounting deficit, but just how much of a concern is that to most voters? Those who call for $10 billion a month to continue to be spent in Iraq and Afghanistan and also call for lowering taxes certainly feel that higher taxes are more of a turnoff than a higher deficit.

Is it that the deficit is too amorphous or too hard to understand, or that it is something that will be paid off down the road? We want instant gratification (e.g. lower taxes now); even if it's not instant, we'd like to believe it is (more drilling, which will really lead to more oil many years in the future).

Ted Widmer: This too is an excellent question -- and I agree. "The deficit" never has been the sexiest topic to campaign on -- it's amorphous, and projected into the future, and it seems to shrink as easily (under Clinton) as it grows, which can undercut its relevance to voters. But I think that will change somewhat in the next year, as the economy stays in the news and as credit-availability is tied to the deficit. Also, with a new president there will be a new emphasis on which policies work and which don't, and I would not be surprised if there was a lot of new nostalgia for the Clinton economic policies of the early-to-mid-'90s. We know what they were, we know they succeeded, and we know that a huge amount of job creation followed -- so what's not to like?

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Atlanta: I couldn't disagree with the premise of your article more. Virtually every problem that will be handed over to the next president was not of President Bush's making. The two biggest problems are the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, which were caused by Clinton's negligent foreign policy, while the financial crisis mainly was caused by Democrats' reluctance to regulate.

Ted Widmer: This question, if it is meant seriously, is fascinating for its ability to reinvent history. The last I heard, President Clinton had not invaded Iraq or Afghanistan, nor had he presided over the recent collapse of the economy, as convenient as it may be to blame him. And it's amazing to hear the economic crisis attributed to the Democrats for their failure to regulate -- they've held Congress, barely, for all of two years; the GOP had it all for the six years before that. I thought the GOP was supposed to be the party of responsibility? Let's try to live up to the responsibility of telling the truth about the serious mistakes that have been made. We're Americans -- we can handle the truth.

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South Riding, Va.: After hearing Sarah Palin give her first speech at the convention a few weeks ago, I wondered how much of the speech was her true style and humor and how much was the speechwriter. As a speechwriter, how do you balance the message of the speech without losing the essence of the person giving the speech?

Ted Widmer: Well, even if the speechwriter came up with those jokes, she delivered them with aplomb, and should get much of the credit. Basically as speechwriter you're just trying to give them the best possible platform from which to soar (or fall flat) -- but the final result is up to the politician, as it should be. A great politician can make an ordinary speech sound good -- with improvisations, little asides and a distinctive emphasis. A mediocre politician will make the Gettysburg Address sound like a high school assembly speech.

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Palo Alto, Calif.: Some have argued that Obama is being Carterized -- i.e. set up by the Republicans for one term. Should Obama win, his administration will be mired in two wars costing more than $1 trillion dollars, and now he will be responsible for the management of the bailout of a $45 trillion (yes, that's trillion) industry that may collapse completely. If you were Obama, how would you ensure that these Republican Trojan horses are disabled ASAP?

Ted Widmer: That's a tough one -- a quick answer is that it would be politic to ensure that both parties have a stake in the successful resolution of the problems you mention. Creating a high-profile bipartisan commission to advise, supervise and regulate the bailout would be a big step in the right direction. In World War II, Harry Truman became famous as the senator tough enough to make sure that the U.S. munitions industry was not fleecing the taxpayer -- that's why FDR chose him as his final vice president. How great it would be now to have powerful senators and administration officials looking at Halliburton and insider trading and making sure that honest business practices are followed. Honestly, this stuff isn't that difficult if people just follow the law.

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Arlington, Va.: Why would anyone want to be president given the current mess? The global finance system is melting down, there are wars on various fronts, the American people are polarized pretty much 50-50 ... it seems like the next president is doomed.

Ted Widmer: Well, that is basically the question I set out to answer in the piece. It might be true -- except that we appeared even more doomed in 1861 and 1933, and things turned out pretty well. The current situation is bad, but 1933 was worse by a wide margin. Jonathan Alter's book "The Hundred Days" has some good information on just how serious it was; so does Arthur Schlesinger's trilogy about FDR.

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Chantilly, Va.: I know that Bush is not very popular, and that reversing the course of action on many fronts could be seen by many as putting America back on the proper path. But are there areas that, although unpopular with the American people, would be made much worse if the course were reversed?

Ted Widmer: Great question. Yes, I think Democrats should resist kneejerk attempts to simply reverse everything. For example, AIDS funding to Africa has increased. Funding for UNESCO was restored. There were occasionally good statements about Darfur. None of that should be overturned.

We Democrats are sometimes squeamish about the use of military power, and we want to avoid that squeamishness, just as we want to avoid the trigger-happy policies of the past eight years. In short, we want to get it just right. We don't want a president who refuses to commit U.S. power when it is needed (as it regrettably often is). And we strongly want a president who is out there, eloquently and urgently denouncing violations of human rights and democracy, and pressing for the basic things that we care about to be available to the world. To be assertive, in other words -- but assertive in a more persuasive way than President Bush has been. His "Freedom Agenda" has not been convincing to many people. Still, having said all that, the spread of freedom and the rejection of tyranny are still exceedingly worthwhile goals for U.S. foreign policy.

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New York: Besides the obvious mess (economy, war, debt, lost leadership of America, etc.), what is the next administration going to do about: Replacing lawyers in the Justice Department with ones who know the law, passed the bar, and are not political appointees in a job that should not be political? Reversing the imperial presidency?

Getting the government to grow where it counts? We have more political appointees in management, workers have been let go, contractors have been put in to do the work and we still have Chinese food and drug imports that are killing us. Who is protecting me? Who is protecting our children?

Ted Widmer: It would be nice to see a new administration come in with a clearly-articulated code of ethics that would include ideas about effective performance, avoiding conflicts of interest, working with representatives of both parties, delivering basic services to citizens -- in effect, doing the job it has been hired to do. Corporations have to be efficient to survive (or at least they used to). Why can't governments?

Gingrich's 1994 Contract with America was an ingenious political idea -- if somewhat cynical in his hands. A new basic statement of what a government should and should not do for the people it serves would be most welcome. I know, it sounds like a Frank Capra movie -- but this might be something that could unite Republicans and Democrats eager to move forward.

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Fairfax, Va.: Given that the electorate has grown used to being lied to in the past eight years, and as the electorate is clueless about how our financial system actually works, and as most people can't remember what politicians said last week -- let alone several years ago -- isn't it pretty clear by now that the next president can get away with anything his heart desires? Especially with a mainstream media that is as ignorant, incompetent and sold out as ours is, what the last president did safely can be ignored?

In other words, we the people have been so dumbed-down, our public discourse so degraded, our sources of information so biased, that whether McCain only does the same as Bush a little less than 90 percent of the time or Obama finally tells us what he has up his sleeve, the electorate will continue to be abused and manipulated until we stand and fight for our rights as citizens.

Ted Widmer: I hope that this is wrong -- but I can't honestly say. It seems to me that some of this is right (that there is little understanding of the financial mess, and no memory of what politicians say and do), and also that we have been hurt by the declining performance of the media, who are caught between downsizing pressures of their own and a celebrity culture that cares more about Pamela Sue Anderson than retirement accounts. It's hard to know whether to blame a media that underreports what is going on or a public that shows no interest for what is going on. But that last point is not quite true, the 2008 election has shown the power of relatively unconnected people to gather together and shape outcomes (especially in the Obama campaign), and the Internet is conveying information very quickly and effectively, even if not always accurately. So there are grounds for hope. As I tried to say earlier, the American people has been burned before -- on plenty of occasions -- and invariably found a way to tinker with the system to save it. That's what needs to happen now.

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Burke, Va.: Do you think that there is there a more effective way to lead the world in fighting against terrorism and nuclear proliferation than creating a strong economy and reducing our dependence on foreign oil by finding new sources to power our energy and transportation requirements?

Ted Widmer: Those are two very good ways to begin, but I think we need to get back, more deeply, to the old-fashioned business of diplomacy -- international conferences, treaties, summit meetings to work out irritants, that sort of thing. Dean Acheson said "The United States should be the first to attend a peace conference and the last to leave."

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Burke, Va.: What do you think about oil companies' corruption of public officials? How much the public has lost in oil royalties that should have been paid?

Ted Widmer: This would be an outstanding topic for an investigative piece, but unfortunately I don't have the info.

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Philadelphia: As a University of Pennsylvania graduate, it always pains me to know that the only president to attend Penn was William Henry Harrison, who used his knowledge as a medical student to stand in the rain and deliver the longest inaugural speech ever, catch cold, and die in office after a month into his presidency. As much as we don't like to talk about it, the job of "president of the United States" has the highest mortality rate of any occupation. Do you think it may be more likely that someone with more Capitol experience is more apt to create his own policy agenda, i.e. Sen. Biden, whereas Gov. Palin is more apt to be dependant upon the policy advisors she might inherit?

Ted Widmer: I think it changes from situation to situation. Many outsiders have governed very well (Lincoln for example), and governors traditionally have been good -- Clinton, FDR, Wilson, Reagan, etc.. But in the current environment I sympathize with your sense that a Biden would be more comforting than a Palin. Still, I hope that it never would come to a vice president having to become president under those kinds of circumstances.

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Burke, Va.: Phil Gramm, President Bush, Vice President Cheney and their Republican allies, including McCain, gutted the Glass-Steagall Act in favor of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which was written by the Wall Street lobbyists. It allowed commercial banks, investment banks, and insurers to merge (which would have violated antitrust laws under Glass-Steagall). Do you think we can revoke the the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and re-enact the Glass-Steagall Act?

Ted Widmer: That's a good specific question -- I think it's a matter of political will. If a large enough Democratic majority wins, the way it did in 1932, then anything is possible.

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Juneau, Alaska: Hi Ted. "Honeymoon"? Who would want to be married to the presidency given the mess it is in? I think we are headed toward a disaster of epic proportions, and I am not sure there is much either candidate can do at this point as president. As my 13-year-old said in the car on the way to school today, Bush has destroyed the country. Who want to clean up the elephant poop after the circus has come through town?

Ted Widmer: Well, I might have used that last line if the editors had let me. It's quite an arresting image.

Look, I think "destroyed" the country is too strong -- but "seriously harmed" is not. Still, 1932 was worse than 2008 --and the way they got out of it was by rolling up their sleeves and attacking the problems without sentimentality. We can do it again.

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Dunn Loring, Va.: If Obama wins, do you think that one of the first things his staff will have to deal with is tracking down the missing "O" keys from all of the White House keyboards?

Ted Widmer: Great question. But we'll need "O" if we want to spread demOcracy, build a recOvery, and instill bi-partisan cOOperatiOn. W, it turns out, was a more forgettable letter.

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Ted Widmer: I tried to answer your questions but couldn't quite get to all of them in an hour. But thanks for the good questions -- I enjoyed it. I'll try to answer the others somehow if I can find time later.

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