Word count: 1,726; eight minutes to read.
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Professionals Read
One of the hallmarks of a professional is they don’t take a casual approach to their work. True professionals are committed to their career, viewing it more than just a job, and are dedicated to continued learning about their area of practice.
All presidential appointees have a responsibility to be the best they possibly can be for both the president and the American people.
That means studying what it means to be an appointee and how to, on the behalf of the president, grasp control of the levers of power in the executive branch and wield them toward implementing the president’s agenda.
If you haven’t spent time reading books, relevant reports, engaging in thoughtful conversations, or otherwise educating yourself about the role of an appointee in the executive branch, how government works, your specific policy area, and the larger operating context (the media, Congress, lobbyists and special interest groups, etc.), then you haven’t done what you need to do to be an optimal appointee in the next Republican administration.
In this newsletter I provide suggestions that will aid your understanding.
I’ve read them all (and many more such items by appointees and conservative thinkers over the last eight years) and these are the best and most essential.
Next week I’ll provide more.
Tales from the Swamp
This is a short report by James Sherk (a former Trump appointee) at the America First Policy Institute which you can read in about an hour.
Sherk came up with the Schedule F concept (it’s covered in this newsletter) and is an expert on the administrative state and bureaucratic resistance.
If there was a conservative Pulitzer Prize he would win it for exposing corruption and malfeasance in the executive branch by career officials, as detailed in this report.
More importantly, Sherk lays out the specific tactics bureaucrats will use to stymie implementation of the president’s policies, including (but not limited to): 1) withholding information; 2) refusing to implement policies; 3) intentionally delaying or slow-walking priorities; 4) deliberately underperforming; 5) speaking to Congress and the media; and 5) outright insubordination.
These tactics (he calls them “The Hostile Career Staff Playbook”) are essential to know so you understand what is happening and can be prepared to counter them.
If you read anything on this list, read Tales from the Swamp.
Download it for free here.
Masters of Corruption
One of the funniest (and saddest) stories from Mark Moyar’s book, Masters of Corruption: How the Federal Bureaucracy Sabotaged the Trump Presidency, is when early in his tenure he sat in on a meeting with career officials who didn’t know he was an appointee.
They then proceeded to describe how they were deliberately hiding foreign aid programs in Syria because they went against Trump administration policy and the bureaucrats didn’t want them canceled.
This wasn’t the only experience Moyar had of bureaucrats concealing information from appointees, but it was one of the most important. At the time high strategic stakes were at play along with large sums of money, and the bureaucrats were hiding this from presidential appointees, and by extension President Trump.
I consider Moyar’s book to be THE MOST IMPORTANT book for any appointee to read because it shows what an average appointee outside the White House must contend with when dealing with some (though not all) career officials.
In short, it’s a real-world handbook for understanding how the administrative state works and the tactics bureaucrats use to obstruct a Republican administration’s agenda and harm the appointees trying to implement the president’s policies.
Moyar was doing the hard work necessary to implement the president’s policies and bring accountability back to USAID.
As a result, he was targeted with unsubstantiated allegations later proven false (something that happens to many appointees who get on the wrong side of the Deep State). It caused him (and the admin) a lot of trouble.
I did an interview with Mark Moyar here (it’s paywalled, so get a subscription!) that lays out what happened along with advice on what to do if you’re in a similar situation.
The book is a page turner and will help you avoid the landmines set up for you if you serve in a future administration.
Buy it here.
You Report to Me
David Bernhardt is an excellent example of the appointee as a professional.
He started out in the George W. Bush administration and would move up the appointee ranks, culminating in his last appointed position as Secretary of the Interior under President Trump.
A similar career progression is open to all appointees.
I have no doubt many of those I knew in the last admin who were Schedule Cs or junior appointees at the White House will one day be cabinet secretaries, if not senior officials in the White House or the organizations that make up the executive branch.
Bernhardt’s books is a manual not unlike Moyar’s, but from the perspective of a senior official. The viewpoint is important to know for all appointees, including those who are providing staffing and other support to such people.
Bernhardt’s book is more abstract as he provides a history of the growth of the federal government and the delegation of law-making authority by Congress to administrative state rule makers (aka unelected career staff).
But there are a lot of great stories and real-world examples too.
He’s also got some excellent insights on judicial oversight and the executive powers of the presidency, and how the Office of Management and Budget is a rogue organization whose budget examiners think they set policy, rather than a department secretary, agency officials, or the president. He talks about how to deal with them.
David’s book is very much a strategic/operational look on how to manage a large government organization whereas Moyar’s is a tactical level work from someone in the trenches where policy meets process and implementation.
Moyar’s and Bernhardt’s books are the two best books by appointees to come out of the Trump administration.
Neither are boring, unlike many of the other appointee books which simply recount what happened and what they did without providing actual insight or lessons learned to help the reader and future appointees carry out their responsibilities.
Buy it here.
Political Management of the Bureaucracy
This classic book for appointee professionals was originally titled Reagan's Terrible Swift Sword: Reforming and Controlling the Federal Bureaucracy and published in 1991, but changed to Political Management of the Bureaucracy: A Guide to Reform and Control for its 2017 reprint.
The author, Don Devine, is a legend in Republican appointee circles.
He was appointed by President Reagan and confirmed by the Senate to be the Director of the Office of Personnel Management where he served as the chief executive officer and principal policy-maker for the United States civil service, responsible for setting personnel policies for (at the time) 2 million civilian government employees and managing a budget authority of $30 billion.
Devine was given the moniker “Reagan’s Terrible Swift Sword” by the Washington Post because he led a reduction of force of over 100,000 federal workers and implemented other reforms that saved taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars over time.
The Federal Times titled him the "Rasputin of the reduction in force,” and it was said “at the mere mention of his name, federal workers grit their teeth and express fear and loathing.”
The main thesis in the book is that government is political, that in order for it to be managed effectively it must be organized and administered according to political principles, and that unless a political team with the necessary loyalty is built up in the White House and the line departments/agencies, no president can provide effective leadership over a sprawling bureaucracy and implement democratic governance.
The book analyzes from a macro perspective personnel policy in the executive branch and how to take control of it while bringing about necessary reforms and implementing the president’s agenda, despite substantial bureaucratic opposition.
This is information every appointee needs to know.
In sum, it’s a management guide for political administrators at all levels of government, and includes advice on how to deal with the media and Congress.
Many of his experiences remain relevant today.
Buy it here.
Hardball
This may seem an unusual selection, but this is the “D.C.” book I’ve read the most, at least four times, and I recommend it to anyone interested in politics.
A lot has to do with the fact that it is such an easy, fun, and interesting read, a book filled with great stories and lessons that apply to anyone working a political job.
Chris Matthews is known for being a diehard liberal and his now cancelled MSDNC show “Hardball,” but the book was written first and published in 1988 when politics were perhaps less divisive.
Matthews was a presidential speechwriter during the Carter admin and later worked for six years as Chief of Staff to longtime Speaker of the House of Representatives Tip O'Neill, playing a direct role in many key political battles with the Reagan admin.
Hardball talks about how politics really works and covers a vast range of subjects, from working in the White House, to the Hill, the media, and more.
I’ve given away half a dozen copies of this book and the one I still have is marked in red all over with underlined sentences and notes.
You won’t regret reading it, but get a used copy or check it out at the library so Matthews doesn’t get any royalties.
Buy it here. (A used copy is only $5).
Thanks for reading.
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Until next Sunday,
Bill Short
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