Staff, Bureaucracy, and the Washington Pressure Cooker

Compare and contrast the movies in Section III. How can members of Congress and the president make solid decisions in the pressure cooker that is Washington, DC? What role does staff and the executive branch bureaucracy play in the decision-making process? How important is staff and the bureaucracy in protecting Congress and the president politically? Explain. Be sure to draw on all the movies in this section, the assigned readings, and any others you can think of, in answering these questions. Remember: there are no “right” or “wrong” answers to these questions—simply opinions which are either well-defended or not

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