I finished this one tonight and thought I’d try to get some thoughts down before calling it a night. Not sure whether or not this is a good call. Given the nature of the book, a wiser course may have been to just sleep on it and write tomorrow night. I’ll make the call once I’m done and before I push the “Publish” button.
First Observation: I mentioned in my first post on the book that I felt compelled to read it as soon as possible due to all the attention it was receiving in the media. I couldn’t help but think, as I was reading through the book, that the media was just missing the point. In their coverage, they’ve focused on the juicy bits – Bannon’s quotes regarding the meeting at Trump Tower with the Russians or questions raised by the book regarding the President’s fitness. The real story here is the shockingly dysfunctional relationships between three competing White House power centers – Bannon and his devotees, the Family consisting of Jared, Ivanka and their Goldman allies (Cohn and Powell) – and Priebus and his Republican mainstream colleagues (although this third group earns far less attention than the first two). The author spends almost all of his time on the destructive competition between these three groups. I know that all administrations have to deal with these types of internal struggles but the situation of almost open warfare described by the author seem far less civilized and far more amateurish than those we’ve seen in other administrations. This no doubt goes to the character – or lack thereof – of those involved as well as the President’s lack of interest in establishing any control over those serving him. We’d all be better served by coverage that spends more time on this dynamic.
Second Observation: This book isn’t about the President. It’s primarily about Steve Bannon. He’s at the center of almost everything that happens over the course of the six month period covered in the book and it ends with his firing. While the President is always a presence, he usually comes into focus when the author is relating public events about which we’re already well aware. The two times in the book where the President becomes a truly central figure are the two events that will likely become the focus of any future obstruction of justice charges – the firing of James Comey and the drafting of the first statement describing the meeting between Don Jr., Manafort and Jared Kushner with the Russian delegation in Trump tower. Most of the rest of the book focuses on Bannon, his role within the White House, his competition over the course of six months with Jared, Ivanka and the Goldman crew and his fight to impose his priorities and philosophies on the Administration. The Family faction, while they get plenty of attention, are described in a slightly dismissive way and are, in my opinion, used primarily as foils for Bannon and his agitation. It’s pretty obvious that Wolff finds Bannon to be a fascinating individual – almost distastefully endearing.
Third Observation: Bannon is fascinating. As Wolff has laid it out, Bannon is the only player in this White House that actually had a vision for what he wanted to accomplish and he was both incredibly determined and consistently unscrupulous in his attempts to advance that vision. Interestingly enough, he’s the only character in the book that doesn’t have the pall of Russia hanging over him. He also comes off – as described by Wolff – as the most thoughtful and strategic member of this weird team. Both facts tend to make him more interesting than every other actor in the book – with the exception of the shadow of the President that hangs over most the activity described. When you combine all of that with some of the quotes attributed to Bannon – one in particular being the conversation he had with the President about why it had been stupid for him to declare personal finances as a “red line” for the Special Prosecuter – a couple of pages which had me laughing out loud – he carries this book. He’s easy to dislike but he’s impossible to ignore.
Fourth Observation: Wolff does not make an overt case for the President’s lack of fitness for the role – a topic that the media has focused on relentlessly over the course of the last few days. It’s not hard to come to that conclusion as you read through the book but Wolff never explicitly makes that case. He comments at length on personal characteristics that serve the President very poorly as Chief Executive but he doesn’t speculate on his mental health or make a case for ending his tenure. As I read the book, what struck me most powerfully about the President was his weakness as a Manager. Anyone who’s successfully led an organization of any reasonable size knows that several things have to happen: 1) clear priorities have to be identified, 2) roles and responsibilities have to be clearly defined, 3) power has to be delegated based on mutually agreed to boundaries, 4) expectations and accountability has to be established and 5) progress has to be monitored on a regular basis. None of this is rocket science, it’s all learned fairly early in any journey up the management track in any career and any Manager who doesn’t do these things will fail. None of this happened in the first six months of this administration. When you combine that absence of structure with the particular personality of this President, the results should surprise no one. It leaves me wondering what the first six months of this Administration would have looked like if Kelly had been chosen as Chief Of Staff out of the gate. The President obviously displays a number of troublesome personality traits that hamper his effectiveness but it’s possible for flawed leaders to be saved by strong Staffs. It wouldn’t have prevented all of the outrageous outcomes we’ve seen but it may have mitigated the chaos to a measurable extent.
Overall, you can’t read this book without experiencing a sinking feeling. Put all of the discussion about verification / accuracy of some of the more salacious quotes aside, you can’t escape the conclusion that this represents a relatively accurate description of the chaos, foolishness and stupidity that has so visibly characterized the first year of this administration. The best thing you can say about the people at the center of the narrative is that they were all rank amateurs – including and most prominently the President. Long to short – experience matters and we all got what we paid for.
I am going to publish this tonight but I’ll come back and reread it tomorrow to see if it holds up or if there’s more to say. If you have time, I hope you’ll check in again to see if I’ve made any revisions.