Bush is a 'disciplined and focused' president

PROVO — President Bush ranks among the most disciplined and focused presidents in American history, a Harvard government scholar and West Wing veteran said during an intriguing public exchange at Brigham Young University last week.

Roger Porter worked in the White House for Presidents Ford, Reagan and George H.W. Bush and delivered a lecture on the changing nature of the American presidency at a BYU Forum assembly.

But the BYU graduate shared his personal opinion of Bush afterward, when asked to list the president's strengths and weaknesses by a man with a rooting interest — BYU general counsel Thomas Griffith, a controversial Bush nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

"One of his greatest strengths is he is incredibly disciplined and focused," Porter told Griffith and a group of about 50 faculty, staff and students assembled for a question-and-answer session in a small, plush room in the Marriott Center.

Porter said presidents are fed so much information and deal with so many issues it is like drinking from a fire hydrant, and some find it easy to lose focus and move on to new subjects. Not Bush.

"He is very determined and persistent," Porter said, a characteristic he noted Griffith recognize in Bush.

The president nominated Griffith last May, but his nomination was blocked in the Senate and died in December. However, Bush re-nominated Griffith in January, along with 19 other federal judicial nominees Congress refused to confirm during his first term.

As for Bush's weaknesses, Porter pointed out that the president arrived in Washington with the sense he could build a new culture of understanding between the executive branch and Congress, much the way he did with the Legislature in Texas when he was governor.

Congress did not comply, however.

"I think the president lost some of his enthusiasm for reaching out and working with the legislative branch," Porter said.

Bush's frustrations with Congress, which now include Griffith's nomination battle, also illustrated one of the main points of Porter's lecture, that presidential power has waned in the halls of Congress over the past few decades.

Porter cited a number of reasons for this change. First, presidents can no longer work with a small number of Congressional powerbrokers because power is now distributed widely in subcommittees. Congressional independence also has been bolstered by larger staffs and better technology, communication and transportation, which has resulted in stronger ties to constituents.