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ELECTIONS
Senator offers next president advice
MORGANTOWN -- To be the great president America needs, the nation's longest-serving U.S. senator tells candidates John McCain and Barack Obama, be what George W. Bush was not.
Be humble, honest and contemplative, Sen. Robert C. Byrd writes in his latest book, "Letter to a New President: Commonsense Lessons for Our Next Leader."
Seek dissenting opinions. Reject the politics of fear. Admit and learn from your mistakes, the 90-year-old West Virginia Democrat writes.
Byrd has been a long-time critic of the president and his latest book offers a scathing assessment of Bush, a "son of privilege and dynasty who had defined himself as the president of only that fraction of the country which shared his world view."
But with Bush's departure comes opportunity, says the senator who has served under 11 presidents, including his favorite, Harry Truman. The book, released June 28 with little fanfare, is intended to be read by his successor on inauguration day, Jan. 20.
The book is packed with "wise and insightful advice, not only for our next president but for all of us," says presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Unfortunately, says historian and former Bush adviser Doug Wead, it won't likely be read by McCain or Obama. On the campaign trail, there is no time for books.
"These guys are running the world," Wead says. "To get objective, philosophical advice is a luxury they don't have time for."
That is a tragedy, he adds.
"Leaders are destined to make some of the same mistakes, and they do, over and over," he says. "The hubris always comes."
The work of the Senate and a lengthy hospitalization prevented an earlier appearance, but Byrd will sign copies of his book Wednesday in Morgantown. Spokesman Jesse Jacobs says Byrd hopes to hand-deliver a copy to Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee.
"Sen. Byrd doesn't believe Sen. McCain is going to be the next president," Jacobs adds. "But if Sen. McCain is interested in receiving a copy of the book, we'd be happy to get him a copy."
Though he is known as a scholar and orator, Byrd is also a straight-talking dispenser of homespun wisdom in "Letter to a New President." He quotes philosophers, poets and Founding Fathers in equal measure, championing values that may seem old-fashioned but are, he argues, needed more than ever.
The 10 chapters include "A Big Lie is Still a Lie: Tell The Truth" and "Let the Press Do Its Job, Even When That Might Sting."
The Bush administration, Byrd charges, "built much of its program around a basic commitment to lying." Yet lying has become so common, so culturally accepted, that no stigma is attached.
"We cannot continue down this path, new president," Byrd writes. "We must rebuild a culture of intolerance to lying, and that must start close to home."
The White House did not immediately comment, and Byrd's office says it has received no response from the administration.
A good president also must "have the confidence in himself to be as slow as he needs to be in coming to a decision," then be able to articulate his thinking," Byrd writes. However, "he must always continue to re-evaluate his conclusions in light of subsequent developments."
As an object lesson, Byrd points to an April 2004 news conference in which Bush could not answer a question about what mistakes, if any, he had made while in office.
"I would submit that a president who is unable to learn from his or her own mistakes, and then to articulate for a curious public what he or she has learned, is not prepared for that office," Byrd writes.
Bush, he says, "is a man who seems to be the center of his own universe" and one who "banished himself to the ignominious position of worst United States president ever."
But Wead, who served as special assistant to George H.W. Bush, then informal adviser to his son between 1997-2000, believes only history will decide if that's true: Seven of the last 10 presidents were viewed differently upon leaving office than they are today.
"It's not the slam dunk that many historians think," he says, though Wead himself recalls thinking 20 years ago the younger Bush "would either be the most terrible president in American history or the greatest ... and maybe both."
While Bush is opinionated and self-righteous, Wead says, his desire to oust Saddam Hussein was motivated in part by love for his father, whom the former Iraqi dictator tried to assassinate. The family was out of power and helpless, and that perspective colored the lens through which Bush viewed a war.
"What Sen. Byrd sees as sins," Wead says, "he would see as virtues."
But Byrd's best advice is stressing the importance of gathering counsel from many corners.
"That's a real weakness of George W. Bush," Wead says. "His personality and his modus operandi lends itself to a small, tight, restricted staff. I was once in that tiny little group in the '88 election cycle for a few years, and I saw how easy it would be for me to block that door and not let anyone else in."
The next president must be willing to acknowledge his critics, even learn from them.
"If nothing good is coming in," Wead says, "nothing good is going out."
