If you want to learn how to change Washington, D.C., you can start with the meteoric rise and fall of Linda Chavez. It's easy to say that we're disgusted at how those Democrats who said that having oral sex with a federal employee was OK for Bill Clinton attacked Linda Chavez for helping an illegal alien. And it is. Nevertheless, then, we're talking about Washington, D.C. -- the land of the double standard.
Linda unfortunately had to step down not because of an act of charity, but because she violated one of the most basic rules of politics. Her big mistake was to not tell the Bush-Cheney transition team about her "issue." Linda has enough Washington, D.C., experience to know better. She saw what happened to Zoe Baird in 1992. She should have known that there was no way that her little "secret" would stay secret for long.
I suspect that Linda hoped that no one would find out about what she had done. Linda, you see, was a victim of Potomac fever. She desperately wanted to be one of the big dogs on Capitol Hill. She twice ran for the U.S. Senate in Maryland and lost. Linda knew that the Bush appointment was her last chance to get to the top of the Potomac power pyramid. However, the hard reality of Washington, D.C., is that if you want to play in that league, you have no secrets. Whatever you have done, someone knows it. That someone can make money or gain power by telling what they know. So if you are a real player, you don't hold back. You let your president know everything so he and his people can decide if he wants to spend political capital fighting for you.
Let me give you an example from the other side. During the first Clinton administration, they nominated a friend of mine for Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. His nomination excited me because he was a conservative Democrat with lots of common sense. That, of course, made him unacceptable to the civil rights lobby. Nevertheless, they wouldn't have been able to defeat him but for one little secret.
You see, it turned out that he had not voted in a presidential election since 1976. He never told anyone about his failure to vote. So once that little "secret" came out, he was a goner. It's not illegal to not vote. However, convincing people that he would be an effective advocate for the voting rights of others when he didn't even exercise his own right to vote was impossible. I was sorry to see him go down, but I couldn't understand how he could have ever thought that his voting record would remain "secret."
The good news about Linda Chavez is that she had the political sense to withdraw before things got totally out of control. However, I have no sympathy for her complaint that Washington, D.C., is a search-and-destroy town. It's been that way forever and, on one level, that's what it has to be.
Think about how our federal government works. The president chooses all of the people who rule the executive side of it. Of his 8,000 direct appointments, only 2,000 or so require Senate confirmation. Once those people are in place as Cabinet members, ambassadors, judges and such, they are almost completely immune from congressional control.
That's why Congress has to look for any weakness; that's why it is search and destroy. Sure lots of it is also partisan bickering, but don't think that is the whole story. Because once the U.S. Senate confirms presidential appointees, these unelected government leaders have more power than most kings.
I'm very impressed with the stellar group that President-elect Bush has nominated to become Cabinet secretaries. These men and women have real world leadership experience. All of them have been through political fires. In fact, some experts are calling it the most impressive Cabinet in 30 or 40 years. They expect the Cabinet to reemerge from the Clinton ego machine to become a functioning part of government again.
Before Clinton, most Cabinets met with their president once a week. During Clinton's eight years, his Cabinet met with him 25 times. Bill Clinton was so determined to act like a despot, he even prevented Cabinet members from making innocuous announcements about new seat-belt regulations.
President-elect Bush, on the other hand, is a man who is comfortable with appointing the best people, giving them clear direction, and then letting them execute. That's the best way to run a business or government. It is also the only way to change how government works. Because the Cabinet secretaries are going to have to lead the ground troops on a search and destroy mission to root out government programs that violate our rights or waste our money.
Many conservatives like to fantasize about eliminating this department or that agency by a stroke of the pen. While I share those dreams, I also spent eight years in Washington, D.C. That dog won't hunt, my friends. Because the number one rule of government is that self-preservation is the number one job for all government officials.
Politicians and bureaucrats know that if they don't have a job, they have no power. So they will do anything to anybody to stay in power. That's why you have to appoint people to the Cabinet who know how they play the game. Otherwise, you will wear yourself out and nothing will change.
Twenty-five years ago, the Washington Monthly came up with a great analogy to give folks a sense of the power of the federal bureaucracy. They said that bureaucrats were like headless furniture finishing nails. Hammering them in was easy, and once they were there, they were almost invisible. But if you wanted to remove them, if you weren't careful, you would destroy the furniture trying to get them out.
If you think that's too extreme, let me share with you a conversation I had with a middle level bureaucrat in 1983. The Reagan revolution was sweeping across Washington, and this bureaucrat didn't like it. When I asked why, he said that he thought Reagan was a flake. He said, "anyway, I think this private sector deregulation stuff is a bunch of crap, and when Mondale sweeps Reagan and his revolution out the door in 1984, we won't have to do it anymore. So why change how we do things now, Reagan won't be around for much longer."
When I asked him what he would do if Mondale lost, he said, "even if Reagan wins, he only has five more years. I'm going to be here for life. I can hunker down and wait him out." Guess who's still in Washington, D.C. 18 years later?
We can change our government. We can eliminate agencies and departments, cut taxes, pay down the debt, balance the budget and reduce waste. But it will take more than brash words and editorials to do it.
Let me say it again. Changing the power structure in any government is the most vicious, brutal form of hand-to-hand political combat known to man.
So let's wish the brave men and women of the Bush Cabinet Godspeed. Once we finish praying for them, let us all roll up our sleeves and give them the support that they will need to start undoing the incalculable damage of the Clinton-Gore years.