The Bushies also excel at the atmospherics and trappings of competence. Meetings start punctually. Everyone stays on message. Staffers don't leak. Everyone wears suits. The early Clinton administration's relative openness and extreme leakiness made the White House like a body with translucent skin. Not just every goof and foul-up, but every normal but unappetizing political process was on perfect and oftentimes excruciating display. Even successful legislative battles like the 1993 budget reconciliation bill--the measure that set the stage for declining deficits and the groundwork for sustained growth- -were drawn out with an almost masochistic relish and always left within a hairsbreadth of failure. Many of the president's key advisers mixed cockiness with subtle hints that they weren't sure they belonged there. Particularly in a wartime setting, the Bushies' buttoned- down, all-business approach contrasted favorably with the on-the-edge atmosphere of the Clinton years.