Bruce Reed — DLC honcho, former Clinton domestic policy guru, and once, very very long ago, the nice Presidential Scholar from Idaho whom I met on our joint trip to Washington, D.C. (as I lived in DC my 'trip' was on the Metro) — has written a lively, funny, account of the habits of two Washington tribes, the Wonks and the Hacks. In it he suggests that the currernt administration's major failing is that it has cast its lot with the hacks, and declared war on wonks.
It's a great piece and you should read it all, but here's the irrelevant throwaway line about one of my least favorite political operatives that made me glad I wasn't drinking coffee while I read it:
For all his faults, though, [Dick] Morris was often a useful spur to the bureaucracy, because he enabled the White House policy team to deploy our own Madman Theory: If the agencies wouldn't go along with our sensible proposals, we warned them that the president might just listen to Dick Morris. Agency productivity soared as a result.
