Comparative analysis of President Clinton and President Bush

Bush & Clinton Leadership Styles

The Leadership Styles of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush

Both President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush made symbolic appointments when they were setting up their cabinets, although Clinton appointed far more women and minorities to top positions than Bush did. According to the University of Virginia research on presidents (http://millercenter.virginia.edu) Clinton, who said he wanted his cabinet to "look like America," chose four women for important executive positions. He chose Janet Reno for attorney general (the first woman to hold that position); he chose Madeleine Albright as secretary of state (again, the first woman to hold that position); he also chose Donna Shalala as secretary of health and human services and Hazel O'Leary as secretary of energy. He also named African-Americans to top spots: Ronald H. Brown as secretary of commerce, and Mike Espy as secretary of agriculture. As for Latinos, Clinton named former San Antonio mayor Henry G. Cisneros as secretary of housing and urban development and Federico Pena as secretary of agriculture.

George W. Bush appointed two African-Americans to powerful positions, Condoleezza Rice (secretary of state) and Colin Powell (secretary of state); he appointed Latinos Alberto Gonzales as attorney general and Carlos Gutierrez as secretary of commerce; as for women, Bush appointed Ann Veneman secretary of agriculture, and Gale Norton secretary of interior.

On the issue of abortion, Clinton, who is "pro-choice," supported a woman's right to choose whether she is to have an abortion or not, and he appointed judges to prominent positions in support of abortion rights. Bush, on the other hand, is very "pro-life" and has done many things during his administration to make it hard for women in the U.S. military to get abortions, and he has cut back aid programs to foreign countries in situations where abortions were options for women in poverty programs.

Clinton had a vice president, Al Gore, who was very active in seeking ways to "reinvent government," to save money and to make programs more effective. Gore led Clinton's drive to set up the Internet in public schools so even poor students could have access to research resources on the World Wide Web. Bush's vice president, Dick Cheney, has been very much out of public view for much of Bush's two administrations. When Cheney is seen, it is because he is usually attending a Republican fundraiser and attacking Democrats who criticize Bush's war in Iraq. Gore was seen as a very open vice president whose work achieved very high visibility; Cheney works behind the scenes, and is believed to be very influential in the Bush administration in matters of fighting terrorism and war strategy in Iraq.

Bush is very much aware of one of his main political constituencies, the conservative Christian movement; this movement is anti-abortion and very negative about gay people. In fact, Bush has supported a constitutional amendment (which makes his conservative Christian supporters happy) that would ban gay marriage. Clinton, meanwhile, reached out to the gay community and initiated the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy toward gays in the military. Many gays were being pushed out of the military based on old suspicions and values.