Ray Malone's Commentary

The art of the leak was perfected in the Roosevelt administration. It is some times referred to as a trial balloon. An advocate of a policy in the administration would leak to the press that the president was strongly considering enacting policy 'a'. If that policy got a favorable response the advocate would point out the president that his recommendation appeared to have broad support. On the other hand if a rival adviser opposed a recommendation and though the public would not go for it, the rival would leak the policy to the press and quote the public opposition as a means of influencing a president.

FDR let his underlings use these techniques.. they were perfected to an art form. This was not a bad technique for Democratic administrations. The media treated them as trial balloons.

However, under Republican administrations the media covered them as fights within the Republican administration. The media used the contests within a Republican administration as a means to attack the president for not knowing what he was doing and for having an administration that could not agree on a policy.

The leak and counter leaks continued in every administration until Bush 43 became president. When George W. Bush came to office he decided to prevent such leaks. He told all members of his administration that the quickest way to defeat your recommendation was to leak it to the press. It would cost the leaker his job and his recommendation.

George W. Bush enforced that warning. The quickest way to lose your job was to leak to the press to gain support or to oppose a course of action. Such leaks rarely if ever happen in this administration. Early on Bush kept his word. Leakers got fired.

A side effect of preventing leaks, is to make the job of the press much harder. Instead of various advocates or opponents of policy coming to reporters, reporters were reduced to reporting what the final decision was. They had no way of knowing what was going on in the decision process. They do not like that.. at all. They had to dig for stories. In the Bush administration, officials were not helping then to trash Bush. It forced the press to work. They did not like that at all. It forced them to find new ways to attack president Bush.

In previous administrations the reporters knew who was for and who was against a foreign or domestic policy. Today they do not.. at least they don't while the advocates and opponents are still part of the administration.

The media tried to force the administration to reveal what was going on by asking officials to either confirm or deny that policy 'x' was going to be put in place. When the official refused to comment then the reporter would publish that policy 'x' was going to be put into force. That was based on the slim rational that the administration official had refused to say that the policy was not going to be enacted.

The Bush administration method to handle such threats was to tell the media person that they did not have a clue about what was taking place. But if they tried to put words in the administration's mouth they would likely be wrong far more often than they were right. In nearly every case where there were more than 2 options, the media guess was quite likely to be wrong. The media would be right far less than half the time. That is not a good record for those who try to play the role of all knowing pundit. They were told the media's credibility as a result of guessing on policy would be harmed.. not the administration's

The media quickly began to hate the Bush administration for blocking their participation in the process of formulating policy. They no longer had insiders leaking stories to them to either support or oppose a policy. With no leaks the media no longer had the power to decide which leak to publish and which to not publish.

For the first time in at least 68 years they had little if any power to influence the policy making process.

The result was the President got to make his case before the media could tear his case down. That was an improvement from the media tearing a policy down before the president could make his case.

One major part of the Bush legacy will be the reduction of the influence of the media on policy making. If the Democratic party remains as divided as it currently is, a return to the leak to support or oppose policy may become a vicious game that even Democratic Presidents will not allow his advisers to play.

The Bush administration has reduced the role of the media in formulating policy. That is something the media hates. It greatly reduces their power. But it is quite likely that they will be forced to tolerate it in future administrations. It is quite probable that both Democratic and Republican administrations will emulate the Bush example. That does indeed tick the media off.