Stephen Hess
Stephen Hess
Stephen H. Hessis a senior fellow emeritus in the Governance Studies program at the Brookings Institution. He studies media, the U.S. presidency, political dynasties and the U.S. government. He first joined Brookings in 1972 and was distinguished research professor of media and public affairs at the George Washington University. He served on Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon's White House staff and as an adviser to Presidents Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter...
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He doesn't put in the equal sign. But it's not so subtle that any Future Farmer of America wouldn't catch on pretty quickly.
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He does hold the administration's feet to the fire, and that's awfully helpful at this point.
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He has come to symbolize how unprepared this administration was for this disaster, fairly or unfairly,
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Had this been handled expeditiously, quickly, it might have been a story on the style page, or limited to the late night comedians and the cartoonists. There's simply no question they fumbled this one.
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This White House's problems are not personnel, they are basically problems of policy.
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Those that are elected on Tuesday, we're likely to have as presidential candidates six and 10 years from now.
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We're talking on a week in which a woman president was inaugurated in Africa and a woman was elected in Latin America, so this is not any longer so unique.
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Even in this context, I am not going to get too uptight about it. When (officials such as Griffin) make statements that can be interpreted as political statements, the government should not be underwriting it. You just caught the fellow with a little egg on his vest, looking untidy.
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Besides, he's already spoken extensively about the hurricanes.
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But life did not work quite as he designed it in the next year. He picked the wrong major item, Social Security. And then the war got worse and he had the hurricane. So now it's not only the sand that has run out of the hourglass but also the political capital has run out of the bank.
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Bill Clinton is taking the biggest public policy risk of his career and Gore just has to be there with him all the way. Otherwise what happens -- it becomes a Hubert Humphrey situation.
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Ultimately, ... you have to stand for something.
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There has been so much game-playing on her behalf, ... Suddenly, Texas judges are popping up out of the ether to defend her, and she seems to have a gentleman caller who speaks on her behalf, and on and on.
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Whenever a president is in trouble, as this one is, the pundits and observers in Washington say, 'Don't just stand there, do something.' So they give a speech -- he's done that. They appoint a blue-ribbon commission -- he's done that. They change personnel -- they are doing that. The point is, that is not what really ails this administration. They've got a policy problem, and either they can change the policy or they have to hope the policy starts working better for them.