Drafting a new team
On being a captain, Spiro Agnew, and the 100-year-old advice that still applies to new Cabinets today
The naming of a new slate of Cabinet secretaries is one of the strangest of all league draft events: There's only one team on the field, and the players can be chosen for reasons ranging from proven past performance to growth potential to naked patronage. The team has precious little time to prepare before hitting the field of play, and each of those main players must immediately turn around and recruit their own team of assistants and deputies.
■ America has endured some pretty awful picks: Ulysses S Grant had a notoriously corrupt Cabinet, and Warren Harding's administration contained some downright filthy characters. At least one person rose to Vice President while flirting with outright Communist sympathies and Richard Nixon's Vice President, Spiro Agnew, was forced to resign over tax and other charges. And let us not overlook the villainy of VP Aaron Burr.
■ All of which is to say that the biggest mistake when assessing an incoming Cabinet is to assume that the nation has never seen anything like them before. History begs to be our guide -- both for Presidents as they make their choices, Senators as they pass judgment on qualifications through advice and consent, and the loyal opposition as they seek to impose accountability.
■ Calvin Coolidge, who assumed the Presidency upon Harding's death and had to disentangle some of the mess behind, wrote in his autobiography, "When a man has invested his personal interest and reputation in the conduct of a public office, if he goes wrong it will not be because of former relations, but because he is a bad man [...] What we need in appointive positions is men of knowledge and experience who have sufficient character to resist temptations."
■ Whoever finds their way into office, whether of good character or not, it only makes sense for us to bear Coolidge's advice in mind. Very few human behaviors are ever as new as we imagine them; the specific conditions may vary, but human nature is almost never new.
