While there’s still time — if there’s still time — some FOB —Friend of Barack— should do him a real solid and slip him a copy of What Do We Do Now? — Steve Hess’ “Workbook for the President-Elect” hot off the presses from the Brookings Institution just in time for the transition.
Steve —who wrote speeches for Ike and worked for Pat Moynihan in RN’s White House— has been part of and/or observed every presidential transition from 1960 to the present day. He has written on the subject at greater length, and with more of an academic focus, in 2002’s Organizing the Presidency.
What Do We Do Now? (the winning Senate candidate’s plaintive question at the end of Jeremy Larner’s Oscar-winning script for The Candidate) is a perfect combination of insider esoterica and trivia-friendly miscellany; it is written with the grace and wit of a natural writer and informed by the insight and wisdom of a man who has practiced what he now preaches.
And, the page that should be paperclipped open for the POTUSE’s immediate perusal is page 57.
Its message is simple and captured in the caption of the Pat Oliphant cartoon that fills the page:
Never Give Major Public Policy Responsibilities to Someone You Can’t Fire.