The Yes Men

Seattle's NPR station, KUOW, had Doris Kearns Goodwin on its morning Weekday talk show (with host Steve Scher) discussing her recent book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (I caught parts of it while doing some errands in the car this morn). It details how he worked with members of his cabinet who didn't necessarily share his views (nor who supported his nomination for the presidency)--which, she puts forth, made Lincoln a better president for having to discuss multiple points of view over policy issues (obviously, this is a politically charged book in an era of Yes Men/Women surrounding our current president). You can listen to the whole show via Real Audio or MP3 (this page also has links to RSS podcast feeds). But I was struck by this segment toward the very end of the hour-long show, which nicely sums up the book's thesis and wraps it into current events:

Scher: Have there been presidencies, that you know of, where policies have been seen to be not working and leaders did make a shift, did make a big abrupt change?

Goodwin: Well, there certainly have been, in these second-term presidencies, onew who were able to get out of a very tough time. Eisenhower, his chief of staff Sherman Adams, was undone by corruption. He then took more hold of the presidency and he came through those last years better than before. Reagan, as well all know, after Iran-Contra, changed his White House staff and was able to come through those last years with the Soviet Union, detente, that allowed him to go out on a much higher note. But it all depends upon, they have to acknowledge that something's wrong. And they have to be able to understand that the staff that they've had with them in the White House or in the cabinet posts whov'e been with them through that first term have lost touch with the American people.

You know in Lincoln's day, the White House was much more a people's house. Anybody could come into the reception, people who wanted jobs could knock on Lincoln's door and just go talk to him. And his staff would say, you don't have time for this. He said, I've got to remember the popular assemblage from which I've come. These are my public opinion baths. He understood the importance of keeping touch with what the mood of the country was at, and I think our White House now is so insulated--not just in Bush's time but in recent times--and they lose touch, the people who are with them lose touch with the mood of the country, so their policies then tend to become more and more wrong. And if they can't acknowledge something's wrong, there's no way of changing it around.

Scher: How did Roosevelt do that?

Goodwin: Roosevelt just had an enormous curiosity, I think, and he constantly would have reporters in, he would talk to people, he had two Republicans in his, after Pearl Harbor, he put two Republicans into his cabinet. And just as Lincoln did, he made sure to have that divisiveness right there so they could all talk together. Because otherwise, if you have just those like-minded people, you're not going to be able to understand what's going on in the country at large.

Scher: Did Kennedy do that, in some way?

Goodwin: Well, Kennedy had McNamara in there, he did that to some extent. And he acknowledged after the Bay of Pigs that he had made a mistake. He then restructured his White House in order to make sure that that didn't happen again, and that helped him enormously with the Cuban missle crisis. So it all starts with having to, like Lincoln [inaudible]. Like he said to Grant, you were right, I was wrong. He said to a general, you know, I frequently make mistakes in the thing I have to do hastily, so that you have to be able in your own soul to say this is not working, and then be able to figure out how to change it.

Scher: In your own soul.

Goodwin: In your own soul, absolutely.

Scher: That's a big, critical part of it--an inward looking person.

Goodwin. Absolutely.