Last week I began looking at Richard Dearborn’s essay on “The White House Office.” It offers an interesting overview of the roles of many governmental positions that one hears about in passing but may know nothing about in particular. From Dearborn’s position as the Deputy Chief of Staff in the Trump administration, he knows well what it is that these persons in these roles do. This essay could be a helpful introduction to Washington curious, but it does come with an agenda. As I pointed out last week, by naming loyalty to the president and the Constitution as the primary credential for the While House Counsel (p.28), Dearborn skirts one of the more obvious challenges of the Trump administration – when loyalty to the president means disloyalty to the constitution. Just ask former Vice President Pence, whose constitutional role presiding over the Senate was not in service to or answerable to the Executive branch of government. Still he was deemed disloyal for doing his constitutional duty and not doing President Trump’s bidding.
Much of Dearborn’s essay sounds descriptive, but it is evident that it also has an agenda as part of a larger section called “Taking the Reins of Government.” When Dearborn writes about the work of the White House Communications Director, he helpfully describes the need for this Director to be informed of the breadth of White House activities, as well as having quick-minded skills to fend off or redirect questions, even rebutting the presumptions behind a question, in order to stay on message. To be fair, it strikes me that Communications Directors of every political stripe at every political level face the challenge of whether they are communicating the truth per se, the truth as the know it, or the truth that their office wants communicated.
The context to keep in mind here is the role of the free press in the US and the extent to which a politician, elected by and for the people, is accountable to it. Particularly in a day when social media enables virtually anyone to publicize claims that may or may not be true, a free press is recognized as a necessary safeguard against political hubris that disguises itself in savvy press releases. At the same time, news media in the US are not perfect, are often driven by economic necessity, and one must recognize the perspectival nature of any news source. News media are both necessary and need to be highly scrutinized. One way that press associations have tried to ensure some level of accountability for their work has been through the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA), known chiefly through questions raised in the White House briefing room or aboard Air Force One, as well as by the WHCA dinner each year, where barbs and teasing flies back and forth between politicians, press, and guests. For over 100 years, the WHCA has encouraged governmental transparency by through press conferences and has encouraged press accountability by requiring White House correspondents to be credentialed by the Standing Committee of Correspondents. Again, the context here is the role of the free press to ensure governmental accountability by insisting on “the people’s right to know.”
It is disheartening then when Dearborn continues the “us v. them” rhetoric of P2025 saying, “The new Administration should examine the nature of the relationship between itself and the White House Correspondents Association and consider whether an alternative coordinating body might be more suitable” (p.30). In plain English, this is an invitation for the next President to destroy a century-old process of accountability and replace it a body of reportage that is hand-picked, or “more suitable.” So, not only has Dearborn paved a way for the Communication Director to offer information that is loyal to the president’s agenda, he is encouraging the administration to ensure that the CD will present that information to a press corps that is also deemed loyal, marking the end of accountability and an invitation for hubris.
Again, this would be a wonderfully informative essay about the various roles within the White House if it weren’t contextualized within such a blatant maneuver to dismantle hard won structures of accountability surrounding a president.
MD
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