Change! Part 2

Karl Rove reports in the WSJ:

On the campaign trail, Barack Obama criticized Washington for being "obsessed with the perpetual campaign." As president he is the first occupant of the Oval Office to give his director of political affairs -- who coordinates the president's involvement with his party and other campaign related activities -- an office in the West Wing. [...]  That's a sign of the importance of politics for Team Obama.

@anamariecox on Twitter

I think Obama is *perfecting* the Bush model of media relations...

David Cay Johnston in the Columbia Journalism Review:

While it is too early to judge just how this will work out, the early signs are troubling. And interviews with a dozen Washington reporters indicate that the Obama press operation tends to embrace friendly questions, while treating skeptical questions as not worth their time or, worse, as coming from an enemy.

Brendan Nyhan (formerly of Spinsanity) co-authored a book ("All the President's Spin") about the slippery, overtly political way the Bush White House communicated.  I've had a couple exchanges with him and others since then over the substance of the book (which I found generally solid), and the implications of it.  While many on the Left and in the media seem to regard the Bush White House as an anomaly - unusually deceptive, untrustworthy - I think they are giving insufficient weight to two factors:

1. The Trend: The permanent campaign is further entrenching itself in government, becoming more sophisticated, and evolving outside of its traditional home in the communications department.  It is not an anomaly; it is an arms race.  Politicians may be outraged that their opponents do it, but they will rationalize their own need to do the outrageous.  Absent a structural change in the way government operates, this will continue.
2. The Internet: Comparisons between recent years and earlier periods are virtually impossible. The internet gives us access to exponentially more information than we have ever had before. It gives people exponentially more opportunities to research, expose and communicate problems, flaws, hypocrisy and deception.  Before, we were drinking from a glass; today, we are drinking from a firehose.  It should be no surprise that today's poiticians seem somehow...wetter.  Even if the Bush administration was exactly equivalent to previous administration's, we would still be aware of vastly more problems. 

 Whatever the intentions of the Obama administration, the fact is that only major structural changes to the incentives (e.g., mandated transparency, accountability mechanisms, etc) can create actual change.  Intentions and promises are not a useful metric.  

Good intentions will always lose to perverse incentives. The Obama administration may find itself surprisingly similar to the Bush administration they thought they despised.