Kurtz - Spin cycle : Inside the Clinton propaganda machine

ALSO BY HOWARD KURTZ

Hot Air: All Talk , All the Time

Media Circus: The Trouble with America's Newspapers

To Mary, Judy, and Bonnie who dont always buy my spin

TOUCHSTONE Rockefeller Center 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020

Copyright 1998 by Howard Kurtz New epilogue copyright 1998 by Howard Kurtz

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

First Touchstone Edition 1998

Touchstone and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.

Designed by Jenny Dossin

Manufactured in the United States of America 13579 10 8642

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kurtz, Howard

Spin cycle: inside the Clinton propaganda machine / Howard Kurtz.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-684-85231-4

0-684-85715-4 (pbk)

1. Clinton, Bill, 1946- . 2. United StatesPolitics and

government1993- . 3. Press and propagandaUnited States

History20th century. 4. Propaganda, AmericanHistory20th century. I. Title.

E885.K974 1998

973. 929'92dc2i 98-11878

CIP

A BOOK IS, AT BOTTOM, A COLLABORATIVE ENTERPRISE.

My deepest thanks to my editor, Paul Golob, for helping to mold and shape the material and even for depositing some of my prose on the cutting-room floor. My thanks as well to Rafe Sagalyn, my agent, for instantly grasping the promise of this project and for all sorts of invaluable assistance. I am indebted to the dozens of people who gave generously of their time, despite crushing schedules, to help me understand the daily interplay between the White House and the press. And Im grateful to my family for their patience and support along the way.

ON THE AFTERNOON OF JANUARY 2 1, I 998, A YEAR AND A DAY

after Bill Clintons second inauguration, a grim-faced Mike McCurry walked into the White House Briefing Room to face the music.

The news, McCurry knew, was bad, so undeniably awful that any attempt at spin would be ludicrous. The canny press secretary had bobbed and weaved and jabbed and scolded his way through all manner of Clinton scandals, from the arcane Whitewater land dealings to the crass campaign fundraising excesses to the tawdry tale of Paula Jones. But this one was different. The banner headline in that mornings Washington Post made clear that this was a crisis that could spell the end of the Clinton presidency. The Big Guy, as the staffers called him, had been accused of having sex with a former White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, in the executive mansion for more than a year, from the time that she was twenty-one years old. Even worse, Clinton was being accused of lying under oath about the affair committing perjuryand urging the young woman to lie as well.

The reporters, McCurry believed, would be poised to pummel him. That was his job, of course, to stand at the podium and take whatever abuse the fourth estate wanted to dish out, hoping to score

a few points in the process and convey what he could of the presidents agenda. But the White House correspondents had been supremely frustrated for the past year as Clinton kept slip-sliding his way through the scandalous muck. The president had maintained his extraordinary popularity despite their dogged efforts to hold him accountable for what they saw as the misconduct and the evasions that marked his administration. He had connected with the American public, and they had largely failed. Clinton, in their view, had gotten away with it. Until now.

That morning, the president and three of his lawyershis outside attorneys, Robert Bennett and David Kendall, and Charles Ruff, the White House counselhad hammered out a carefully worded statement in which Clinton denied any improper relationship with Monica Lewinsky. McCurry had checked the final version with the bossFine, Clinton saidand then read the statement to the press. McCurry had not asked the president himself if he had been banging the intern. That was not his role; he was not a reporter or an investigator. His job was to repeat whatever facts or assertions the lawyers had approved for public consumption. He may have been a nationally known spokesman, the chief interpreter of administration policy, but in the end he was a flack protecting his client, no matter how distasteful the task.

As McCurry walked in front of the familiar blue curtain toward the podium and faced the assembled correspondents, the bank of cameras behind the wooden seats made clear that this was no ordinary briefing. Many of these sessions were replayed at a later hour for C-SPAN junkies, and if McCurry delivered any newsworthy phrases, a few seconds might show up on the network news. But this briefing was being carried live by CNN, by MSNBC, by Fox News Channel. The reporters, he knew, would be trying to bait him, to knock him off stride, to trick him into departing from the safety of his script. And he was equally determined to stand his ground.

The shouting began with the network correspondents taking the lead, demanding that McCurry explain what Clinton meant by an improper relationship.

Im not going to parse the statement, McCurry said.

Does that mean no sexual relationship? asked NBCs Claire Shipman.

Claire, Im just not going to parse the statement for you, it speaks for itself.

What kind of relationship did Clinton have with Lewinsky?

Im not characterizing it beyond what the statement that Ive already issued says, McCurry replied.

Shipmans NBC colleague, David Bloom, uncorked a broader question: Mike, would it be improper for the president of the United States to have had a sexual relationship with this woman?

You can stand here and ask a lot of questions over and over again and will elicit the exact same answer.

So Mike, youre willing to

Im not leaving any impression, David, and dont twist my words, McCurry shot back, jabbing his finger.

John Harris of The Washington Post tried a different tack, invoking McCurrys own reputation for honesty, which the reporters knew he dearly prized. Would you be up here today if you werent absolutely confident these are not true?

Look, my personal views dont count, McCurry said. Im here to represent the thinking, the actions, the decisions of the president. Thats what I get paid to do.