I think the perception is sound, that the Clinton White House has erred big time in this respect and, oddly, that it has done so in an innocent or at least unaware way. Whatever the outcome of the actual substantive charges in the Whitewater affair turns out to be, I am certain that the current political troubles of the administration owe a great deal to this almost blithe disregard of the importance of establishing lines of responsibility for actions in government. Hillary Clinton’s role, so hotly debated these days, is a focus of the problem, but it is far from being the only feature of it. The president’s wife, unlike an agency head or a regular White House jobholder, does not have to answer to any boss. She has a job description but no job, at least in the conventional sense. I do not mean that she doesn’t work like a dog-she does-or that she is not awfully smart and dedicated-she is-but rather that she wields enormous derivative power without any visible, institutional check on it. People respond that this is no different from, say, a chief of staff who is not confirmed by the Senate, either. But there are differences. A First Lady does not have the obligations of someone in a named, payroll position which, with or without Senate confirmation, carries certain requirements of visibility and answerability within a known staff structure.
Mrs. Clinton generated an immensely consequential health-care reform plan with the help of hundreds of other contributors from outside the traditional offices of government in the institutional equivalent of that Arizona biosphere project, a kind of gigantic bubble in which an artificial environment was created. Yes, it’s important not to have only bureaucrats and Beltway political officials inspiring our laws, and, no, this does not go to the merits or demerits of the particular plan. But it is surely understandable that many people are made passing uncomfortable by the vague and vanishing provenance of an important bill like this. And the same is true of other activities within the Clinton White House: they cannot be traced to confirmed or employed officials who are paid to do the work and must be responsible not just for implementing their suggestions but also for taking the heat when things go wrong.
This circumstance induces a certain recklessness. It is said that lines of duty, assignments are unprecedentedly blurred in this White House, if they exist at all. Of course there are certain areas of distinctive, specialized responsibility, such as that of the man in charge of the National Economic Council, Robert Rubin, or the assistant for national security, Anthony Lake, and some others. But in addition there are endless White House aides, the swarmers, who are more or less into everything but held to account for nothing. Meetings are said to often be large hodgepodges of wanderers in, kibitzers from down the hall, persons (many more than in previous administrations) with “walk-in” rights. One witness describes the action as similar to that of 9-year-olds learning soccer: they all leave their positions and run, in a great jumble, to wherever the ball is. The ball in this analogy is the hot issue of the day.
In addition, there are an awful lot of important people who are known as “in-and-outers.” They are friends, consultants and so forth who have visiting rights, temporary passes but permanent impact. These are the advisers whose judgments carry a lot of weight with the Clintons, who come and go and who have a considerable influence over decisions the government then makes-but who in no way have to deal with the ill effects (or ill repute) when what they counseled goes wrong. This is what I have in mind when I say such a circumstance induces recklessness. These are advisers who have the president’s interests in mind, but they are not much circumscribed by fear they will themselves pay a price for bad advice, and so, in my judgment, are not such a bargain for the president or such a great source of wisdom. He needs advisers with a larger, more readily identifiable stake in their advice and with an institutional obligation to oversee its implementation and make it work. There is no better reality check on the advice a person gives.
These tendencies in the Clinton White House have had two damaging effects. One is that it has become too easy for those who counsel the president in this freelance or, if they are ensconced in jobs, free-floating capacity, to confuse his personal fortunes with the fortunes of his government. Much of the trouble his minions got in-and helped to get him in-concerning those meetings on the fate of the RTC proceedings in the Whitewater case came precisely from this misapprehension. People who believe they are working for the man, not the president, let alone the government, are almost bound to make that mistake.
They also tend in their clubbiness to resent and distrust appointees who are more oriented to actual governmental goals. This leads, inevitably, to the other main damaging effect: the benching of so much of the heavy duty, genuine talent in Clinton’s government. In fact many of the most substantive and impressive of his appointees in the agencies are regularly dumped on by the others for being-what else?-“not with us,” “disloyal,” loyalty being seen in a very narrow, personal way.
Only Clinton, none of his top subordinates, can fix this, because it couldn’t occur if he didn’t let it happen, and will so long as he doesn’t intervene. He should. The messiness of the operation, the continual delay and overriding by swarmers of decisions reasonably and responsibly made by his top staff or cabinet officials isn’t hurting the opposition, that’s for sure. It’s hurting him.
