Why Priebus was destined to fail The former RNC chairman was the low-key leader Trump thought he needed, but quickly viewed as too weak to serve him. By TODD S. PURDUM
| 07/29/2017 08:05 AM EDT On paper, Reince Priebus was a logical chief of staff for Donald Trump, an experienced inside player who could help the biggest outsider who ever won the presidency navigate the complex byways of Washington, Congress and national politics. But their teaming only made sense if the new president was willing to listen – and learn.
On Friday, after six tumultuous months in which Trump often went out of his way to suggest that it was Priebus who needed remedial education, the president proved once and for all that he had no interest in anything Priebus had tried to teach him, and sent him packing. The move, which had been anticipated for months, came after the departure of his press secretary, communications director, F.B.I. director and national security adviser.
It is a truism of White House management that presidents get the chiefs of staff they want, at least as often as the ones they need. Early in his first term, Bill Clinton chose his boyhood friend Thomas “Mack” McLarty, a pliable figurehead, because he wanted to function as his own chief of staff. Richard Nixon chose the crew-cut enforcer H.R. Haldeman to instill fear and deliver the bad news that Nixon himself often shrank from imparting.
In Priebus, Trump first tried the kind of low-key, steady hand that what’s left of the GOP establishment thought he needed as a novice politician. Surely the longest-serving national chairman in the Republican Party’s history, who had held the Republican Party together through fractious years and helped it reclaim the presidency, could be a calming, rational manager in the White House.
But from the beginning, the fit was awkward. During the 2016 campaign, Priebus had repeatedly beseeched Trump to modulate his message and play well with the other candidates in the crowded Republican field. Trump, who has always been his own chief strategist, communications guru and political director – and who was winning by running his way -- saw that as a sign of weakness, and responded accordingly.
In retired Marine Corps General John Kelly, Trump has now turned to the kind of military strong man he thinks he wants, one he hopes will kick keisters and take names. But the president might want to be careful what he wishes for. There is a model for that kind of chief of staff, and it’s probably not one that Trump would be comfortable with. Dwight Eisenhower’s chief aide, former Governor Sherman Adams of New Hampshire wielded so much influence that he was known as “The Abominable No Man.”
After Eisenhower’s 1955 heart attack, the perhaps apocryphal story made the rounds that one Democrat had said to another, “Wouldn’t it be awful if Eisenhower died and Nixon became president?” only to have his friend reply, “Wouldn’t it be awful if Sherman Adams died and Eisenhower became president?” There will never be any doubt about who’s the real boss in the Trump White House.
If Kelly is really to bring order to the West Wing, reining in feuding advisers like Steve Bannon and the voluble new communications director Anthony Scaramucci – who have anything but the “passion for anonymity” that Franklin Roosevelt sought in his aides -- may well be the least of his worries. Each day brings fresh evidence that the most unpredictable, undisciplined figure in this administration is the president himself. The very manner of Kelly’s surprise appointment – announced without warning in a presidential tweet – might give any new chief of staff pause.
<..snip..>
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/07/29/why-priebus-was-destined-to-fail-241117
