Larry King - Anything goes!: what Ive learned from pundits, politicians and presidents

ANYTHING GOES.Copyright 2000 by Larry King.All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Warner Books

Hachette Book Group

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New York, NY 10017

ISBN: 978-0-7595-2035-6

A hardcover edition of this book was published in 2000 by Warner Books.

First eBook Edition: October 2000.

Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com.

To Chance, born in 1999, and Cannon, born in 2000.

I hope your years will not be a time where anything goes.

This two-year project is the result not only of these times, but these people:

Warner Books president, Larry Kirshbaum, and literary agent Ed Victor were on the same page long before the first word was written.

Warner editor Rick Wolff guided and framed these words despite these times where anything goes.

The staff of Larry King Live brought pundits, politicians, and presidents to your television every night.

And Ted Turner, whose vision twenty years ago of a cable news channel allows the world to see itself today.

Larry King Pat Piper

March 18, 1993. Washington, D.C. The Radio-Television Correspondents Dinner is in full swing at the Washington Hilton. Its an annual black-tie event where more than a thousand reporters, producers, editors, news writers, bookers, columnists, anchors, and (of course) talk show hosts gather for dinner with members of Congress, ambassadors, and the president of the United States. It is one of the few evenings of the year where absolutely no serious business is conducted other than establishing a working relationship with those in the offices at the networks and those in the offices the networks cover.

This was Bill Clintons first formal dinner with the Washington media since winning the White House five months earlier, with 43 percent of the popular vote. He was the fourteenth president elected without a majority and, as if to prove the point, Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole announced less than twenty-four hours after the votes were counted that the GOP, and not Bill Clinton, represented the 57 percent who had voted either for George Bush or Ross Perot. I remember thinking to myself its really true when they say the next election begins as soon as the current one ends. And I had one other thought about this fact: a single word, unfortunately.

But when he was introduced at the dinner that evening, Clinton received an enthusiastic round of applause. I looked around the huge room, and thats when I noticed something else: Everyone rose to their feet. My take was the people in this room wanted the president to do well. It brought to mind a moment so many years earlier during my late-night radio show, when I had this very conversation with a caller. He was going on about how much he despised the newly elected George Bush, and I said to him, Dont you want Bush to succeed, and dont you think if he succeeds then the country will succeed? The caller said he didnt see it that way, and if George Bush does well that means the country goes to hell. While many have said what happens in Washington has nothing whatsoever to do with anything happening anywhere else in the country, I think what was occurring in that hotel ballroom was indeed a mirror of America in early 1993. Give the new guy a chance. Even Bob Dole stood during the introduction of the new president and applauded along with everyone else and I believed he wanted Clinton to do well, if only during this speech. And that evening Bill Clinton did well at the podium.

Never lose your sense of humor. And remember that most of us who do this on both sides do it because we love our country and prefer to believe that an effort made today can make it better tomorrow. Its a good way to live a life.

Its a tough way to live a life is what I was thinking as he spoke. And getting to that point was just as tough. The 1992 presidential election had been an extraordinary time in America. Things occurred that proved pundit after pundit flat-out wrong. It left the candidates bruised, it brought in a wild card third party candidate who defied every expert with infomercials, money, and charts, and captured, if only for a while, Americas imagination and ignited an expectation that we can do better. It brought defeat to an incumbent president who only a year earlier had a 90 percent approval rating. I knew the way we elect and watch and report on a president was going to be different from now on as a result of what had just happened. Talk about understatements.

But in this room on this night the only issue facing the president and the audience was accessibility. Bill Clinton hadnt had a news conference since being sworn in two months earlier. And already the pundits and analysts and experts were sitting on talk shows, including mine, saying hes gotta get out there, hed better start facing the voters, he needs to sell his hundred-day agenda to the public (it was now Day 58 for those who insisted on counting) and blah blah blah. Thats when I realized Bill Clinton was looking right at me.

You know why I can stiff you on press conferences? Because Larry King liberated me by giving me to the American people directly.

Everyone at the CNN tables chimed in with encouraging shouts of all right, Larry! and slaps on the back and applause, but let me tell you, the rest of the room turned cold real fast. I could feel the glare from everyone else on a single point on the back of my head, sort of like the red laser that falls on a person in video games or the movies before someone else pulls a trigger. So much for the advice about keeping a sense of humor.

After Clinton finished and while we were all standing and applauding, some yahoo I didnt know yelled from a few tables away, Hey Larry, are you the teachers pet? I smiled and looked back toward the podium. And once again my mind was at work thinking how wonderful it is for a poor Jewish kid from Brooklyn to be recognized by the president of the United States while at the same time thinking how horrible it is that a poor Jewish kid from Brooklyn was recognized by the president of the United States. Bill Clinton had talked for about ten minutes and the entire room had only heard one line.

The room was still freezing when the dinner came to an end and I decided to just get the hell out of the Washington Hilton and walk to my car. The March air felt balmy compared to where I had been for the past three hours. And I realized something as I walked: Bill Clinton was right.

Something happened in 1992 that changed American politics. Instead of a president holding a prime-time news conference and being asked questions by the same people who always ask questions, the venue had changed. I know it wasnt the result of a bunch of media experts sitting around a table saying lets bypass Sam Donaldson and all the other White House correspondents and have our guy talk directly to the lady in Des Moines. Media experts arent that smart. It was different now. Presidents, and candidates for president, all of whom are quick to tell you they represent the American people, could now answer questions directly from viewers or listeners and therefore circumvent the Washington correspondent filter altogether. It happened when Ross Perot had appeared on my show a year earlier and it happened when Bill Clinton took questions on