“I screwed up.” If you needed more evidence that we had a new President, that admission to CNN’s Anderson Cooper, regarding the collapse of Tom Daschle’s nomination over unpaid taxes, should remind you. The Bush administration, from the top down, was adamant in its refusal to acknowledge mistakes, operating on the theory that certainty = confidence = strength. Recall the famous press conference in which President Bush drew a blank when asked to recall a mistake—any mistake—he made in office.
And to be fair, this modus operandi extended as well to the Clinton administration and beyond; it’s been Washington’s general habit for some time. The passive voice is your friend. We do not make mistakes; “mistakes were made.” Holding power means maintaining a machine-like front of certitude. Admitting fault means weakness. Never blink. Never regret. Never give your enemies a scrap they can use against you. Admit a mistake that’s obvious to the rest of the world, and your rivals, your friends, and the press will smell blood in the water.
When the Daschle nomination collapsed, President Obama had the bad luck to have TV interviews scheduled with almost every major network. Or, depending how you look at it, the good luck, in that it allowed the President to take on the embarrassment directly, and hopefully, move past it cleanly. In any case, it was what it was, and the President took a buck-stops-here approach in his press interviews—with CNN, Fox News, Charlie Gibson, Katie Couric and Brian Williams—that we haven’t seen from a White House in a while.
The question is whether this approach will come across to the public as refreshing candor and accountability, or create an impression that the new administration is fumbling—whether the public will be more disappointed with the mistake or impressed with its aftermath. How it plays out will have interesting repercussions not just for Obama’s stimulus package and other efforts, but for how politicians approach the media in this era. (Compare “I screwed up” with the continuing defensive tour of Rod Blagojevich, who showed up most recently on Letterman.) Will accepting blame become the new in thing in Washington?