Lance Mannion: Now he tells us

Bob Woodward's offering Barack Obama ten rules of thumb for a successful President.

Funny thing. Woodward forgot to put one key item on the list.

Early in your first term and then again just before you're up for re-election, try to get a highly regarded, powerful and influential editor at the Washington Post to write sycophantic, myth-building bestselling books about you based entirely on bald-faced lies by your toadies, henchmen, and court lackeys.

Actually, Woodward's list of commandments can be boiled down to a single golden rule:

Do not be like George W. Bush or Dick Cheney in any way.

All Woodward's points are fairly obvious, easy but important lessons drawn from the biographies of the best Presidents. (The Post requires registration. In case you don't have time, I put the list, without Woodward's commentary, at the bottom of this post.) They are things most of us already knew before 2000 and had learned again the hard way by 2004. Which is why so many of us never wanted George W. Bush to get anywhere near the White House and so looked forward to getting him out of there. The qualities and habits and methods Woodward says a successful President needs are qualities, habits, and methods George W. Bush---and Dick Cheney---were temperamentally averse to.

They are qualities, habits, and methods that Bush and Cheney shunned from the first day of their co-dependent Presidency.

And they are qualities, habits, and methods Bob Woodward told us they had, told us didn't matter, and ignored entirely as bases for judgment when he couldn't bring himself to tell us either of the first two things in his books, Bush at War and Plan of Attack, qualities, habits, and methods Woodward discovered they didn't have when it came time to write his next two books, State of Denial and The War Within, both of which were written too late to be of any use in judging whether or not Bush should be re-elected in 2004.

Funny thing, when he was writing The Price of Loyalty, Ron Suskind had no problem seeing and reporting that Bush and his gang not only lacked those qualities, habits, and methods but openly disdained them. But then he didn't rely solely on the word of liars, sycophants, and cringing careerists for his research.

And Richard Clarke knew it and warned us about in Against All Enemies .But then he was there.

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Updated to save you the trouble of registering at the Post right this minute: Woodward's to do and to don't list:

1. Presidents set the tone. Don't be passive or tolerate virulent divisions.

2. The president must insist that everyone speak out loud in front of the others, even -- or especially -- when there are vehement disagreements.

3.A president must do the homework to master the fundamental ideas and concepts behind his policies.

4. Presidents need to draw people out and make sure that bad news makes it to the Oval Office.

5. Presidents need to foster a culture of skepticism and doubt.

6. Presidents get contradictory data, and they need a rigorous way to sort it out.

7. Presidents must tell the public the hard truth, even if that means delivering very bad news.

8. Righteous motives are not enough for effective policy.

9. Presidents must insist on strategic thinking.

10. The president should embrace transparency. Some version of the behind-the-scenes story of what happened in his White House will always make it out to the public -- and everyone will be better off if that version is as accurate as possible.

April 2021