by Gregory Domin The George W. Bush Presidency: Appraisals and Prospects. Edited by Colin Campbell and Bert A. Rockman. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2004. 357 pp. New Challenges for the American Presidency. Edited by George C. Edwards III and Philip John Davies. New York: Pearson Longman, 2004. 245 pp. The George W. Bush Presidency: An Early Assessment. Edited by Fred I. Greenstein. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. 314 pp. Considering the Bush Presidency. Edited by Gary L. Gregg II and Mark J. Rozell. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2004. 210 pp. Four recent works on the presidency of George W. Bush will interest scholars and students alike. These volumes cover a variety of subjects ranging from general leadership skills, leading the public and managing the press, managing Congress, organizing the White House, decision making, and implementing the war on terror. These four books offer the reader original perspectives evaluating George W. Bush's presidency and provide detailed and nuanced analyses of the president's accomplishments, failures, and frustrations at a critical time in our nation's history. Perhaps the central question that each raises is "what should we make of this president and this Presidency" (Campbell and Rockman, 352), so unlike the political personality and style of any other president/presidency? Three common denominators tie these works together and go a long way in answering this question: Bush's leadership style, his relationship with Congress, and his decision making/implementation of the war on terror. The first theme the works examine is Bush's leadership style, both at home and abroad, from the vantage point of the unusual circumstances that led to his election. Despite the fact that Bush did not have a public mandate to work with, he came to the Oval Office with assertiveness and resolve, evidenced by an early push for tax cuts and reforming public education with the No Child Left Behind Act. Bush's transition to a wartime president after the events of 9/11 forced the administration to refocus its agenda, calling into question the power of the presidency as well as its limitations. On both the domestic and foreign policy fronts, Bush was able to mobilize virtually every Republican lawmaker behind his policies as well as a handful of conservative Democrats. Many Democrats and members of the press underestimated Bush, which was of no small consequence, because his own "political style is flexible, but issue-driven and highly determined.... Moreover, he will compromise when he has to, but given the choice Bush will strive for results that are as close as possible to his policy aims" (Greenstein, xi). The chapters by Richard Neustadt, George C. Edwards III, Marc Landy, Barbara Sinclair, and Stephen J. Wayne in New Challenges for the American Presidency and Ivo Daadler and James Lindsay in The George W. Bush Presidency: An Early Assessment are both fascinating and groundbreaking when it comes to the questions of leadership and guiding beliefs. The second common denominator, which is closely related to the first, is their analysis of Bush's relationship with Congress. As several of the authors note, "Bush's relationship with Congress went through three phases during his first two years in office, and a fourth phase as a result of the 2002 midterm election" (Nelson, in Gregg and Rozell, 41). During the first phase, a time of united government, Bush's legislative agenda met with great success primarily by focusing on tax cuts and reforming education and by winning the confirmations of key Cabinet appointments such as Ashcroft, Powell, and Rumsfeld. Phase two of this relationship produced great frustration for the White House. Republicans had always worried about their one-seat majority in the Senate. Their fears were realized on "May 24, 2001 when Senator Jim Jeffords, announced he would become an Independent and caucus with the Democrats" (Nelson, in Gregg and Rozell, 148). Jeffords's decision gave the Democrats a 51-49 working majority in the Senate and allowed Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota to become the new majority leader, thus focusing the Senate's agenda away from the president and on Democratic issues such as health care reform and a patients' bill of rights. Phase three of Bush's relationship with Congress generated limited success. The September 11th terrorist attacks improved Bush's approval ratings by some 40 points virtually overnight. Although presidents typically receive a "rally 'round the flag'" effect, it usually is short lived. However, the effects of this rally persisted for over a year as Bush's surge in popularity allowed him to win on most matters of national security for the remaining 16 months of the 107th Congress, including the USA PATRIOT Act and a bill creating a new Transport Security Administration within the Department of Transportation. It is important to note here, as many of the authors point out, that the president's high approval ratings in national security issues did not translate into "wins" for his domestic issues, which runs counter to Edwards's point that presidents with high approval ratings usually get what they want in both domestic and foreign policy. In Bush's case, there was little bipartisan congressional support for the president's agenda at home. Much of the domestic agenda the president signed into law were Democratic initiatives (e.g., the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform legislation). The last phase comes in the aftermath of the 2002 midterm election. Bush experienced both unity and divided government in his first term, a rare circumstance, to say the least. With Bush's leadership and determination to become actively involved in the campaign, the Republicans actually made gains in both the House (six seats) and Senate (two seats), helping the party in candidate recruitment, fundraising, willingness to invest capital, campaigning, and domination of the national agenda (Nelson, in Gregg and Rozell, 152-53). This success allowed the president to expand his powers by pressing for Congress to act before the end of the session. Congress capitulated to the White House version of the Department of Homeland Security and cleared the way for several of Bush's judicial nominees. The chapters by John C. Frontier, Norman J. Ornstein, and Charles O. Jones in The George W. Bush Presidency: An Early Assessment; Nelson's chapter in Considering the Bush Presidency; and Bert Rockman's essay in The George W. Bush Presidency: Appraisals and Prospects are particularly well articulated and persuasive on this subject. The last common theme deals with decision making about and implementing the war on terror, which again relates to the overarching theme of leadership. Of particular importance are Daadler and Lindsay in the Greenstein volume and Richard Herrmann's (with Michael J. Reese) essay in Campbell and Rockman. These authors describe Bush as a "surprising foreign policy revolutionary," one who spoke out against an intrusive and interventionist foreign policy during the 2000 presidential campaign only to sign off on major military commitments in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the war on terror two years later. In several of the authors' views, Bush has gone from a multilateralist promising to work with U.S. allies in peacekeeping and nation-building efforts (at least during the 2000 campaign) to a unilateralist with hegemonic tendencies who is quickly straining U.S. relations with its allies around the world. The chapters by James P. Pfiffner, John Hart, G. Calvin Mackenzie, Richard M. Pious, and John Dumbrell in New Challenges for the American Presidency and Louis Fisher's chapter in Considering the Bush Presidency are also noteworthy for their great detail. Given its obvious implication, namely that the presidency of George W. Bush is groundbreaking and has something to teach us, these four works need to be read widely. They feature an impressive lineup of contributors who are at the top of their games. The essays also are well grounded, and their clear and relatively idiom-free prose makes them accessible to students interested in the study of the presidency. The volumes should be required reading for anyone interested in this most important subject. Gregory Domin Mercer University |
Publication Information: Article Title: The George W. Bush Presidency: Initial Assessments. Contributors: Gregory Domin - author. Journal Title: Presidential Studies Quarterly. Volume: 35. Issue: 1. Publication Year: 2005. Page Number: 197+. COPYRIGHT 2005 Center for the Study of the Presidency; COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group
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