The Economy

Viewpoint -- First-Term Judgment And Second-Term Concerns

Jan. 11, 2005

Nearly four years ago, the third week of March 2001 to be exact, I wrote a Web column urging people not to rush to judgment on the Bush Administration. It's time, as another four-year term for President Bush begins, to look back and to look ahead, to make some judgments and express some concerns.

Four years ago, I noted a new civility that the new administration seemed to be instilling in Washington, D.C. But I also noted that the new administration had not yet been tested on any of its legislative priorities, including tax cuts, or in foreign affairs.

In Washington, civility -- unless you consider omnipotent arrogance a civil virtue -- barely lasted until the 2002 congressional elections. And by the time of the 2004 presidential election, civility had fewer practitioners than Ralph Nader had electoral votes.

The Bush Administration was tested on its legislative priorities. It passed, by its standards, for the most part. But some wonder whether the results, particularly the tax cuts, pass fiscal muster.

The administration was tested and is still being tested in foreign affairs, notably in Afghanistan and Iraq. And some continue to wonder if the Administration's commitments pass geo-political muster.

The Bush Administration will be tested again in the weeks and months ahead -- on Iraq, on Afghanistan, on tax reform, on partial privatization of Social Security and on fiscal discipline.

These are important, even critical, issues. They are issues that deserve civil debate. Yet it is not clear that either Republicans or Democrats, in Washington, D.C., or around the rest of the country, will encourage the civil debate they deserve. It is clear, however, that the country will lose if that debate does not take place.

There is another important and critical issue, and it is loyalty. The ability to inspire loyalty is an essential quality of a leader, whether in government or in business. The CEOs who truly transform businesses -- as contrasted with those preside over business transitions -- have the ability to articulate their visions, gather the right resources and win the hearts and minds of employees.

One notable example is James Goodnight, the president and CEO of SAS Institute Inc., a privately held producer of analytical software. Significantly, however, the loyalty Goodnight inspires is not blind loyalty. He is an executive who deliberately leaves his office door open-so that he can hear the bad as well as the good news from employees. That, to me, is critically important.

"Predictable Surprises," a book published in October 2004 by Harvard Business School Press, is not about loyalty. But authors Max H. Bazerman and Michael D. Watkins instructively remind readers that President John F. Kennedy once defined courage as the willingness to "speak truth to power." The SAS employees who bring the bad news as well as the good news to Jim Goodnight are speaking truth to power. That may take courage. But it is even more so a powerful form of loyalty.

I would like to believe that the people that President Bush intends to move from the White House to cabinet posts -- among them Alberto Gonzales (to be Attorney General) and Condoleezza Rice (to be Secretary of State) -- will speak the truth to power. But I have some doubts. They are Bush loyalists in the narrow sense, people not particularly known for challenging presidential instincts, policies and practices. I wish I had more confidence that they would speak to the president candidly about both the good and the bad. At the same time, I wish I saw in President Bush a person who inspires the kind of loyalty that encourages the speaking of truth to power.

I write this not as an attack on this particular president or his style. Rather, I write out of a concern now more than three decades in the making. As a close observer of the last seven U.S. presidents -- from Lyndon Johnson through George W. Bush -- I have seen the perceived power of the presidency intimidate any number of people, including dozens of CEOs who are voluble with their views when not in the presidential presence.

I have seen powerful presidential personalities discourage frank discussion. And in what may be the most troubling of all, I have seen both presidents and their staffs become increasingly isolated physically and intellectually from the electorate. All too rarely have there been instances of presidents challenging their advisers and of staffs challenging the presidents.

If loyalty is to be the hallmark of the Bush White House, may it not be narrow or blind. May the presidential advisers see the truth and speak the truth to power. And may the president listen to them, see the truth and act wisely upon it.

About the Author

John McClenahen | Former Senior Editor, IndustryWeek

John S. McClenahen, is an occasional essayist on the Web site of IndustryWeek, the executive management publication from which he retired in 2006. He began his journalism career as a broadcast journalist at Westinghouse Broadcasting’s KYW in Cleveland, Ohio. In May 1967, he joined Penton Media Inc. in Cleveland and in September 1967 was transferred to Washington, DC, the base from which for nearly 40 years he wrote primarily about national and international economics and politics, and corporate social responsibility.

      McClenahen, a native of Ohio now residing in Maryland, is an award-winning writer and photographer. He is the author of three books of poetry, most recently An Unexpected Poet (2013), and several books of photographs, including Black, White, and Shades of Grey (2014). He also is the author of a children’s book, Henry at His Beach (2014).

      His photograph “Provincetown: Fog Rising 2004” was selected for the Smithsonian Institution’s 2011 juried exhibition Artists at Work and displayed in the S. Dillon Ripley Center at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., from June until October 2011. Five of his photographs are in the collection of St. Lawrence University and displayed on campus in Canton, New York.

      John McClenahen’s essay “Incorporating America: Whitman in Context” was designated one of the five best works published in The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies during the twelve-year editorship of R. Barry Leavis of Rollins College. John McClenahen’s several journalism prizes include the coveted Jesse H. Neal Award. He also is the author of the commemorative poem “Upon 50 Years,” celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Wolfson College Cambridge, and appearing in “The Wolfson Review.”

      John McClenahen received a B.A. (English with a minor in government) from St. Lawrence University, an M.A., (English) from Western Reserve University, and a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from Georgetown University, where he also pursued doctoral studies. At St. Lawrence University, he was elected to academic honor societies in English and government and to Omicron Delta Kappa, the University’s highest undergraduate honor. John McClenahen was a participant in the 32nd Annual Wharton Seminars for Journalists at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. During the Easter Term of the 1986 academic year, John McClenahen was the first American to hold a prestigious Press Fellowship at Wolfson College, Cambridge, in the United Kingdom.

      John McClenahen has served on the Editorial Board of Confluence: The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies and was co-founder and first editor of Liberal Studies at Georgetown. He has been a volunteer researcher on the William Steinway Diary Project at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., and has been an assistant professorial lecturer at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.