Bush's war against wonks: why the president's policies are falling apart.

• Author: Reed, Bruce

Strip away the job titles and party labels, and you will find two kinds of people in Washington: political hacks and policy wonks. Hacks come to Washington because anywhere else they'd be bored to death. Wonks come here because nowhere else could we bore so many to death. These divisions extend far beyond the hack havens of political campaigns and consulting firms and the wonk ghettos of think tanks on Dupont Circle. Some journalists are wonks, but most are hacks. Some columnists are hacks, but most are wonks. All members of Congress pass themselves off as wonks, but many got elected as hacks. Lobbyists are hacks who make money pretending to be wonks. The Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the entire political blogosphere consist largely of wonks pretending to be hacks. "The Hotline" is for hacks; National Journal is for wonks. "The West Wing" is for wonks; "K Street" was for hacks.

After two decades in Washington as a wonk working among hacks, I have come to the conclusion that the gap between Republicans and Democrats is as nothing compared to the one between these two tribes. We wonks think we're smarter than hacks. Hacks think that if being smart makes someone a wonk, they'd rather be stupid. Wonks think all hacks are creatures from another planet, like James Carville. Hacks share Paul Begala's view that wonks are all "propeller heads," like Elroy on "The Jetsons." Wonks think the differences between hacks and wonks are as irreconcilable as the Hums and the Tutsis. Hacks think it's just like wonks to bring up the Hutus and the Tutsis.

In every administration, wonks and hacks fight it out. The measure of a great president is his ability to make sense of them both. A president must know the real problems on Americans' minds. For that he needs hacks. But ultimately, he needs policies that will actually solve those problems. For that he needs wonks.

President Bush has husbanded some big policy changes through Congress--a testament to his considerable political skills. Unfortunately, his policies seem to be better at causing problems than solving them. The economy can't create jobs despite hundreds of billions of dollars in stimulus. The reconstruction in Iraq is going over like a remake of Ishtar. The price tag of the new Medicare law is soaring even faster than prescription-drug costs. With a record $521 billion deficit, Bush has just presented what might be called the Justin Timberlake budget, ripping off the taxpayers and pretending it wasn't on purpose.

Democrats are understandably eager to blame all these epic failures on ideology,. To be sure, Bush is running perhaps the most partisan and ideological White House in the modern era. His party's longstanding fondness for tax cuts has evolved into a pathological need to reduce every remaining burden on the wealthy. But the longer I watch this White House, the more convinced I become that ideology is just a convenient rationalization for why the president's agenda isn't working. The real reason is darker and more disturbing: The Bush White House is so...