Presswatch/Welcome to the Major Leaks

...Most, in this case, are "Bush aides," another camouflage...

...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 1989 23 n November 4, on the Post's Federal Page, Judith Havemann wrote a story about a draft report by the General Accounting Office (GAO) critical of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM...

...Indeed, while no trend lasts forever, there are few signs that the record Reagan expansion will soon come to a halt without grievous policyerrors...

...As I write, the hands-down winners are John Sununu and John Tower...

...Unexpected, expected . . . what gives here...

...There is no question that the economy is in generally good shape, and certainly so by comparison with the mess inherited from Jimmy Carter...

...Transition sourcesah, more anonymity—told the Washington Post that the leaking has made him go "bananas," which Bush later denied...

...A footnote: the implication of the Journal's editorial is that leaks can and should be prevented...

...Hadar defends "Quayle Watch" but says her newsroom colleagues misunderstood it...

...He is currently resident scholar at the National Legal Center for the Public Interest...

...Because other spending was not cut, deficits soared, even though government revenues continued to grow, despite (some would say because of) the Reagan tax cuts...

...Baker didn't want a single chief of staff for Bush but a troika, as in the one he formed for Reagan with Michael Deaver and Edwin Meese III...

...Leaking has political consequences...

...So, press reports to the contrary, Reagan is not bequeathing to his successor an economy in crisis...

...Early in the Reagan years, the government ran large deficits as a consequence of the recession that seemed necessary to wring almost runaway inflation out of the economy...

...But at least as originally drafted, that wasn't any leakers' provision...

...Tower has been around the blockbefore, and the anonymous defenses of him in media accounts surely had his blessing...

...The next day the Post, reporting the announcement, wrote: "As expected, Bush said yesterday that .. . Thornburgh . . . will remain in [his post...

...This appointment, the Post told readers in the story's second sentence, "was unexpected...

...against conservative personnel choices, and you can expect leaking during the Bush Administration to wash against conservative policies...

...Real growth is in the 3.3 to 3.5 percent range, unemployment is low, new jobs are being added at an incredible rate, and prices are what passes for stable these days...

...O n November 10, the Post's Style section published something called "Quayle Watch...

...But the economy is healthy, if not perfectly so, and indiscriminate regulation is likely to create more problems than it solves...

...I called a plausible suspect, Andy Feinstein, Pat Schroeder's chief aide on civil service matters...

...But what's at least equally interesting is the story behind the story...

...I'm talking about those stories based on "informed sources" or sources that spoke "on condition that they not be identified...

...Leading questions are asked, suggestive answers are given, andvoila!—a major story appears...

...Then came the defense buildup, a game of catch-up that even the departing Jimmy Carter, chastened by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, agreed had to be played...

...You can debate who's right so far as the merits go: GAO or OPM, which sharply disagrees with the accounting office's critique...

...Sununu and Tower supporters point to James Baker, perhaps working through surrogates, as the ultimate source of the leaks against their men...

...These are worthy questions, reserved for another...

...Newspapers can be as mindful of the precedents they establish as courts of law, and they can discard them just as quickly...

...But policies to reduce both are clearly taking shape, and they need not involve the courses of action being pressed on Bush by an by Irwin M. Stelzer assortment of congressional leaders (an oxymoron if ever there was one) and media pundits...

...The Journal then quoted what it called "the leakers' provision": "I will hold in confidence any nonpublic information provided to me in the course of my duties with the transition and ensure that such information is used exclusively for purposes of the transition...

...With this in mind, consider who's been most leaked against...

...And the Post could say on November 22 that what Bush did was "expected" because on November 21 it had reported that the "unexpected" would come to pass...

...That's how I and many other readers took it...

...that airline schedules should be regulated to eliminate delays...

...As of mid-December, the number of people Bush has been able to appoint before reading about his selections in print is low...

...By that I mean the tendency of the ^ Review Issue Order ^ Input to Subscriber List ^ Publications Order Mailed 24 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 1989 Congress to subordinate its historic role as legislator to that of overseer of the executive branch...

...And Sununu, who was criticized by "informed sources" as insufficiently schooled in Washington ways, may well have leaked the story of his own appointment...

...Probably because, as Feinstein told me, the Post's Havemann is about the only reporter who shows "much interest" in this kind of issue...

...You saw it here first...

...More important for the long term, business investment is rising smartly, productivity seems to be picking up a bit, and America's unit labor costs now are more or less competitive with those of its trading partners...

...And—here's a prediction to do John McLaughlin proud—at some point within the next year or two, upon Fitzwater's retirement, Beckwith will be elevated to the presidential league, to take questions for the left-hander...

...This has led to the charge that Reagan has saddled future generations with enormous debts...

...One would think the economy was in crisis, that some latter-day Franklin Roosevelt was needed to save it, and that increased regulation and spending Irwin M Stelzer is director of the Energy and Environmental Policy Center of the John F. Kennedy School, Harvard University, and an American correspondent for the London Sunday Times...

...Schmooze," New Republic, October 17, and Mark Shields's "The Teflon Campaign Manager," Washington Post, November 15...

...Yet I think the Post writer who described the item to me as "a catty little, smirky little thing" had it about right...

...Indeed they are, and since George Bush's victory on November 8, it has been impossible to follow the news about his transition without understanding the nature and purpose of the leaks producing much of it...

...OPM told GAO it was way off base, but on October 21, when officials from the two agencies met again to discuss what was now in draft form, it was clear that GAO hadn't changed its views...

...e peaking of Quayle, Time cone-I...3 spondent David Beckwith is the Vice President's press secretary...

...The press is filled with story after story about the need for expanding the government's role in the economy...

...Style editor Mary Hadar said "Quayle Watch" was "temporarily suspended" after a meeting she had with managing editor Leonard Downie...

...Why was the draft report leaked to the Post...

...were the instruments best suited to the job...

...Time noted in its December 5 issue that Sununu may have tipped off reporters, thus denying Bush the chance to change his mind...

...It was a promise not to capitalize personally on nonpublic information...

...The best leakology (the study of leaks) that I can practice suggests they may be right (although in Tower's case, his former wife seems to be behind the domestic stuff...

...And that happens rarely...

...Given its initial causes, this is unsurprising...

...Perhaps they are emboldened by the allegedly "pragmatic" team Bush has assembled into believing that the election was, after all, not about ideology...

...And the day before Sununu's appointment was formally announced, he gave an interview to the Wall Street Journal in which he sounded for all the world like the guy who had been selected...

...But behind the story, maybe even the real story, is that of how a supposedly nonpolitical agency, the GAO, works toward the same political end as congressional staff, using the Post's Federal Page as a sort of billboard to be read by the new administration...

...This man, Style told readers, had eaten "pancakes for breakfast on his first day as the man soon to be a mere brain wave away from leadership of the Free World...

...Harvard's Benjamin Friedman, for example, accuses Reagan of violating "the basic moral THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 1989 25...

...Hard to say...

...On November 17, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, whose staff has some pretty good leakologists, decried the transition leaks, commenting that they foreclose options, sap an administration's morale, and undercut presidential deby Terry Eastland cisions...

...Both are more conservative than Bush's other choices, who have endured few, if any, negative leaks...

...That kind of leak happens infrequently...

...In this capacity, Congress tries to administer the executive branch, a task that of course entails "influencing the transition...

...Perhaps the leak didn't come from the Hill, but from GAO...

...A preliminary scoring of this leak seemed to be Tinkers to Evers to Chance: GAO to the Hill to the Post...

...n November 21, the Washington Post reported (on the basis of "informed sources," of course) that Bush planned to announce that day his decision to retain Richard Thornburgh as attorney general...

...The Journal noted that Bush seems to understand this because he required aides to sign a "standards of conflict...

...Bush appointed Sununu as his chief of staff and Tower as his secretary of defense...

...She wrote that such action "reflects an obvious politicization of what is supposed to be a nonpartisan study...

...Both had the same intentions...

...My guess is that Beckwith is taking infield practice in the Vice President's office (just as Fitzwater once did...

...IWo recent pieces of note are Fred Barnes's "Mr...

...The anonymous, boxed offering consisted of (1) a photo showing the Quayles at Andrews AFB, with their hands cupped over their ears, presumably because of the noise from Air Force TWo, George Bush's plane...

...First, the economy...

...But neither is he leaving him an economic utopia...

...Danforth Quayle...

...Don't think, however, that those leaked against don't know how to leak...

...It's a product, first, of the reporters' intense interest in who is going to be named to which position, and second, of the informed sources' intense interest in currying favor with the media and advancing agendas that may or may not be the same as the principal's, here George Bush's...

...Back in the spring it briefed OPM officials on its preliminary findings, which were decidedly negative...

...Cartoons belong on the editorial page, and surely they ought to be signed...

...In late 1987, GAO, which is an agent of Congress but is supposed to be politically neutral, decided, on its owninitiative, to conduct a management review of OPM, which is part of the executive branch...

...Even Reaganomics' severest critics agree that those deficits were both inevitable and good economic policy...

...Beckwith didn't know Quayle...

...Quayle Watch" drew some newsroom critics who thought that the featuretrivialized the office of Vice President, that it was unfair to Quayle, and that, in any event, it couldn't be sustained on an everyday basis...

...Actually, it doesn't much matter whether the leak came from Hill staffers or GAO officials...

...Bush aides" have done most of the talking for Bush...

...if so, score it without the middleman, simply GAO to the Post...

...According to GAO, the morale of federal workers has declined since 1978, as have standards, oversight, training, and recruitment...

...Quayle Watch" should be permanently suspended...

...The leaking from the Bush transition ship thus washes Terry Eastland The American Spectator's new Presswatch columnist, worked for newspapers in North Carolina, California, and Virginia before serving as director of public affairs in the Justice Department in 1985-1988...

...OPM, which that day saw the draft for the first time, was told that GAO had done the review in order to "influence the transition," and that GAO would release the draft report to congressional staff, this being, as one GAO official put it, "standard operating procedure," even though no one from the Hill had asked GAO to conduct such a review...

...In short, the President-elect is being Bushwhacked by the media and the Democrats, both having forgotten that the late-confessing liberal candidate lost...

...Horner expected the draft to leak (this is the less frequent kind of leak), and sure enough it did...

...Criticism of Baker in the media typically comes not from anonymous sorts but from opinion writers...

...On October 28, a GAO official placed a "heads-up" call to a senior OPM official to advise that indeed the draft was now up on the Hill...

...Bush likes Beckwith and considered hiring him as his press secretary but wound up retaining the White House incumbent, Marlin Fitzwater...

...Who leaked the draft report...

...Reporters find Baker accessible and likable...

...These are "leaked" stories...

...Indeed, as the financial markets signaled immediately after the election, Bush will have to attend to America's budget and trade deficits...

...We are told that financial markets should be regulated to avoid excessive price volatility...

...and that corporate takeovers should be regulated to prevent excessive use of debt...

...I put the key word in italics...

...THE BUSINESS OF AMERICA SAVE US FROM THE REREGULATORS It is suddenly getting difficult to re- member that Mike Dukakis lost the election...

...That suggests many Bush aides are Baker allies (if not Baker aides...

...I wanted to focus the Bush people on the problems at OPM," he says...

...A request [to serve] isn't a formal request until the tall, thin guy sings," he told the Journal...

...he got the job because he knew Bush...

...Havemann duly reported Homer's letters to Bowsher and comments of various third parties...

...They understand that who gets which job will have an impact on Bush Administration policy...

...More text of this kind followed...

...On November 11 and 12, the Style section continued the lampoon...

...From between 5 and 6 percent of GNP a few years ago, it has dropped to 3 percent today—about the same as Japan's...

...Within an hour of that call, OPM Director Constance Homer sent a letter to Comptroller General Charles A. Bowsher, who heads the GAO, expressing her disappointment over the release of the draft report to congressional staff...

...The Post characterized the appointment as "unexpected" on November 21 because the day after the election it had reported, out of Houston, that Bush advisers (anonymously, of course) were saying that Bush was considering other folks for Thornburgh's job...

...They're not the same kind of leaked story as occurs when someone drops, say, an internal memo in a reporter's lap...

...Quayle was referred to as, in that orotund manner that demeans, "J...

...What happened...

...Beat-to-the-leak Feinstein called the Post because he, too, wanted to influence the transition...

...The document said that OPM, which replaced the old Civil Service Commission in 1978, hasn't done the job...

...On the eve of publication, as Homer aides fielded Post calls to get OPM's "side" of the story, she fired off another letter to Bowsher, blasting GAO for its handling of the report...

...T he budget deficit, it should be I noted, is coming down, perhaps absolutely and certainly in relation to the size of the economy...

...As far as I can tell, Bush aides have kept that promise...

...In addition, we hear about a host of new spending programs, all of them urgently required to make up for the so-called neglect of the Reagan years...

...Then, without explanation, it disappeared...

...Meanwhile, the leaking gurgles along...

...I tried to leak it, but someone beat me to it," he says, noting that he had called Havemann to tell her about it but got "the distinct impression she already had a copy...

...Beckwith had covered the White House during the Reagan years and Bush during the campaign...

...and (2) three short paragraphs on Quayle's November 9activities, the idea being to keep watch on this particular, well, bird...

...As secretary of state, he has incentive to have someone of lesser political stature than Tower working the related field of defense...

...And the tall thin guy hasn't sung publicly...

...Far more common is this "informed sources" kind...

...He is rarely a victim of leaks...

...Here is an instance of the strong impulse in today's Washington towards congressional government (a woefully underreported phenomenon...

...The key players in this collaborative game are the anonymous sources...