All the King’s Men

He’s baaack--again.

And this time Dick Morris is full of political advice from dead people--dead politicians, actually. You remember Morris. He’s died too, several times, politically. There were the times he consulted for both sides of the political aisle (and may or may not have detailed that for clients). And there was that tabloid expose with the prostitute just as Morris’ client, President Bill Clinton, was accepting the Democratic nomination in 1996. Mere momentary setbacks in modern politics. Clinton valued Morris’ advice so highly that he later smuggled him into the White House to share his expertise in secret, keeping it quiet even from devoted official presidential staff. And Morris’ polls told the president he should vacation in Wyoming. So he did.

Today, as living proof that scandals may perish but flamboyant celebrities in modern America never die and never fade away, the repackaged Morris resides on the Fox News Channel, where he dispenses political opinion, candid advice and sometimes accurate prognostications to viewers who aren’t paying for any of it.

“Power Plays,” his fifth book, is a clever idea, cleverly titled and cleverly outlined--clever like one of those book ideas, book titles and book outlines from Judith Regan at HarperCollins which, by golly, according to Morris’ acknowledgments, it indeed was. The outspoken Regan, you may recall, dispenses her own opinions on her own show on Fox, which, like HarperCollins, is owned by Rupert Murdoch. So you see the strategic political connections in this book on political strategies. No coincidence.

In this book, Morris examines some moves by politically great and not-so-great men. (Apparently Regan’s outline did not include detailed mention of female political leaders such as Britain’s Margaret Thatcher). In a fairly breezy style suitable for television, Morris breaks his examination of political strategies into six categories: Stands on Principle, Triangulation, Divide and Conquer, Reform Your Own Party, Using New Technology and Mobilizing Your Nation at a Time of Crisis. Whether Morris is the best-qualified person to examine political principles might make good shouting fodder on “The O’Reilly Factor,” which also happens to appear on Fox.

You’d better like politics and history to read “Power Plays.” You’ll see some patterns you may or may not have noticed: How Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle, Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan held to their principles, lost, suffered political exile and returned, possibly repackaged, to triumph in a changed society while Woodrow Wilson, Barry Goldwater and someone named Al Gore all failed. Except we might need another epilogue if, in coming months, Gore’s latest repackaging gains “traction” (a favored expression of political consultants).

Written for a generation that gets its news from TV and the Web, Morris’ sections on how Churchill and FDR crafted political intimacy and support through this newfangled thing called radio are enlightening. But perhaps Morris’ best sections deal with triangulation, a process in which a politician confounds his opposition and neutralizes its supporters by co-opting its issues while protecting his standing among his own political supporters.

American journalism too often treats politics as a mere spectator sport full of duplicity, rather than as the machinations of participants in a complex democracy reflecting through their maneuvers the complex and often conflicting and hypocritical feelings of inattentive voters. Understanding these professional strategies sheds light on our democracy’s inner workings and on how we can be manipulated. Since open attacks on opponents can ricochet, it’s just as effective politically to lure opposition supporters or simply weaken their fervor by seeming to adopt some of their stands.

Under Morris’ guidance, triangulation worked brilliantly for Clinton, a Democrat who took his own carefully publicized micro-steps to appear to address Republican values and issues such as welfare reform, budget deficits and crime while not thoroughly abandoning the Democratic agenda. Without Morris’ advice, Republican Nelson Rockefeller’s bids in the 1960s to reach moderates and liberals, while not strengthening his conservative standing, spelled doom for his GOP presidential aspirations. But Republican George W. Bush, an astute student of politics even before his high school election as chief cheerleader, could talk throughout his 1999-2000 campaign about education and compassion to reach moderates while still emphasizing tax cuts for his base. Or consider Francois Mitterrand, the socialist French president in the 1980s who nationalized industry and, when it was clearly failing, appointed the hard-right conservative Jacques Chirac as premier and gave him full rein. Chirac proceeded to rapidly privatize industry and within two years erase the need for himself while correcting Mitterrand’s mistakes for Mitterrand. As that other noted Fox personality, Homer Simpson, would say, “D’oh!”

Morris also admiringly examines Lincoln’s repackaging of himself from fervent abolitionist to fervent unionist who could accept limited slavery to realist who would free slaves if it would help win the Civil War. Wilson, on the other hand, failed miserably to push the League of Nations because he never effectively linked its success or existence to the future of his own nation.

All this can provide historical context for a nation whose collective political memory might go back to what’s-his-name, that Georgia governor before the movie actor. But you better not be an idealist reading “Power Plays,” and you’d better not think that anyone on this planet does now or has ever done anything other than relentlessly pursue power for its own sake. Many voters might see Lincoln or Truman as doing something because they believed it was simply right.

To Morris and many of his consulting ilk for hire, doing that right thing is humorous and naive but just might suggest an opening, if it polled properly. Issues to them are merely valuable bargaining chips to offer, withhold and, most of all, maneuver around for tactical advantage in lining up sufficient segments of voters to win in the current election cycle. Mini-steps are preferred as political symbols because there’s no end product requiring delivery. Finally resolving any issue is unwise; it deprives your side of a valuable tool for the next cycle.

“Power Plays” teaches some interesting political lessons from the past. But the real insight for most of us in this book is might be the inadvertent warning window it provides into the wily minds of professional cynics like Morris who have infiltrated our political system and now know us so much better than we know ourselves.