What always interests me in both this formulation and the recurrent drama it is meant to describe is that people don’t pursue what is a wiser perception about the coming to town of a new president than they seem to know. Marriage is exactly the right analogy, and looking in that light at the relationship of a successful presidential candidate and the Washington he more or less weds, you can understand plenty about your government. So that’s what we will do today. Be warned, there will be no mating jokes. We are talking serious marital infrastructure problems here. You need understand only one special feature: this is never Washington’s first marriage, but always a new president’s first. Everything else will be utterly familiar to you. There are three key elements to consider.
Congress is the precise equivalent of the in-laws. The ceremony was held at their place. By then they were, if not wholly reconciled, at least cheerful of bearing (as in-laws are expected to be on the great day). But throughout the courtship they had had great reservations about the fellow, didn’t think he measured up, didn’t think his attitude toward them was awfully gracious, kept hoping someone more suitable would come along or that the union wouldn’t ever happen … or something.
No such luck. So here they all are. Congressional complaints start at once and they are your essential, hard-core in-law complaints: neglect, a want of deference, a failure to call-or, as we say here, consult. Stories immediately abound about how badly these Congress/in-laws are being treated. The big grapple is over recognition of a changed status. The in-laws do not run things anymore. They do not set the rules or make the final choices. Their well-being is a consideration, but not necessarily the prime one. They are still a crucial part of the family, but ever so slightly pushed over to the side. This comes as a terrible shock. After the first complaints, the president and his people will start rushing over to pay their respects in the regular Sunday-call or holiday-dinner manner, showing they care, showing that the folks on the Hill are needed and that their advice, which is plentiful, is greatly treasured. But the new administration will also start doing things differently, doing them its own way. All of its handiwork will then be sorrowfully criticized as deeply flawed-more or less as the doglike table manners of everybody’s grandchildren are unceasingly despaired over.
The bureaucrats are the already-in-place household help. They come with the marriage. They are the faithful old family retainers who have been on the job-this very job in this very place-for generations. Without them the whole enterprise collapses, and they know it. Boy, do they know it. They are the only ones who know how to run the washer/dryer. They also already know how to: make lasagne, wax a floor, organize a dinner party, answer the phone and, in general, make everything happen. They do not need instruction in any of these things, actually believing they understand how to do them far better than the one now fecklessly giving them instructions.
These helpers are, as a rule, hardworking, indispensable, contemptuous and intractable. They often say “yes” when they mean “no” or “maybe” or “in good time and I will decide when that is.” Their capacity to infuriate proceeds in part from the fact that they frequently save their employers from making horrendous mistakes and in part from the fact that although they usually appear cooperative and cordial they are rightly suspected of holding the people they work for in low regard. They can be heard from time to time giggling in the pantry, and it is widely felt that it is known whom they are giggling about.
We are the dreadful children from a previous marriage. We are the insolent ones who live there, the brats who can’t be sent away and who absolutely refuse to be lovable. We roll our eyes to heaven and grimace every time the new man speaks. No one, it seems, has any real control over us. We are just there. And we never shut up.
Our first response to the bringing home of yet another would-be authority figure is to show him who’s who and what’s what. We start to lament for his recently departed predecessor, whom we didn’t much care for either, but never mind. We announce with great ferocity and at once what the rules of the household have always been. We are allowed to stay up until 11 o’clock and eat candy bars before dinner and play the damned music as long and as loud as we want. Who does this new person think he is anyway to change the rules?
Inevitably there are early, terrible scenes at dinner. Authority is attempted to be imposed. Sass and abuse of every kind are returned. But the truly devastating thing about us is this: that no matter how terrible it is at dinner and no matter what threats against us are uttered and no matter how many ultimatums are laid down, guess what? We’re there again at breakfast the next morning. And at lunch. And at dinner. Ad infinitum. We live there, you see. We go with the house.
All right, all right-I have been too categorical and mean-minded too broad-brushed and caricaturelike in setting up my scheme, unfair, ungenerous and many other uns. There are plenty of sage and selfless legislators, noble bureaucrats and valiant journalists. I’ll stipulate as much. But there is a truth lurking here. And Bill Clinton has to deal with it. His success will depend on his ability to work with all these difficult parties, not be their patsy and not try to stiff them, but establish the right degree of respect and authority, accessibility and distance. It’s not something you do in 10 days.
