Presswatch/Press Secretary
Eastland, Bush Terry
PRESSWATCH PRESS SECRETARY BUSH t nine o'clock one Friday morning in October, President Bush wanted to hold a press conference. His top aides didn't, mainly because they feared questions on...
...he did okay on Panama, actually inserting into that short speech its most memorable if unpoetic line—i`That was enough...
...Just what Bush was trying to say...
...Actually, Bush isn't that bad a speaker...
...Five weeks shy of his first year in office, Bush had given thirty-one formal Terry Eastland is resident scholar at the National Legal Center for the Public Interest in Washington, D.0 He is writing a book about the lessons for conservative government to be drawn from the Reagan and Bush years...
...Why a radio interview...
...When Bush heard NBC's Tom Pettit was getting married, he invited Pettit and his fiancée, and a group of their friends, to the residence to lift a toast...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 1990 33...
...He also is knowledgeable about most everything and generally gives good answers...
...he is President, after all, and with the job goes the podium...
...One reporter got a note acknowledging she had won a bet between the two (Bush sent along what he owed, five bucks, which I hope did not violate some ethics provision...
...Well, good morning," Bush began one of his many press conferences recently...
...There isn't going to be such a deal," Bush told the reporters...
...Like any good press secretary, Bush speaks at all levels of attribution—on the record, off the record, on background, you name it...
...He also advises Bush at a level of detail that would have been of no interest and no use to Reagan...
...As he spoke, a reporter said: "Press conference is good...
...Take the Malta summit...
...W hile the press conference is the centerpiece of his communications effort, Bush does plenty of other things to strengthen his relations with the reporters who cover him...
...Rogich is part of no troika (Sununu is a unitary chief of staff...
...There's not the posturing going on," says Nelson of the Los Angeles Times...
...his press conferences, and his media relations in general, are not determined, at least not primarily, by the imperatives of the camera...
...Guess who won...
...Honeymoons don't last forever...
...The last time Bush was an articulate emotionalist, the last time he approached what came easy for Reagan, was when he gave his "thousandpoints-of-light" acceptance speech at the 1988 Republican Convention...
...On any given Saturday—maybe ten times a year—a radio network will air an interview with Bush...
...And, anyway, Bush's needs are different from Reagan's...
...Not only is there good humor, and not only is there self-deprecation on Bush's part...
...And I'm back again," he added, as reporters broke into warm laughter...
...Where the ratings will go post-Panama remains to be seen...
...Bush added: "I think we can get the message out by responding to questions...
...Bush is no Reagan, but give Bush his due: Reagan was no Bush, either...
...Just doing that improved it 100 percent...
...Bush settled the matter by taking on the job himself, Reporters summoned to the Oval Office watched the President of the United States criticize a wire service report suggesting that Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev would attend a summit only if he could do some serious business—like sign an arms control agreement...
...The difference between Reagan and Bush also involves something else...
...That's a total of forty-five press conferences of one kind or another...
...As for how reporters view Bush, the answer—not surprisingly—is that theyrather like him...
...Bush's intense dislike of leaks may seem out of character in a President who likes dealing with the media...
...Bush seldom employs speechmaking as an instrument of political strategy or as a means of expressing the collective sentiments of the nation...
...Nobody has ever accused me of being too daring...
...Because it fits Bush precisely...
...That fits...
...Last spring, for example, Bush invited Jack Nelson of the Los Angeles Times, Paul Duke of PBS, R. W. Apple of the New York Times, and columnist Georgie Anne Geyer to the White House for barbecue sandwiches and iced tea...
...Like any good press secretary, Bush is accessible, to say the least...
...The question is whether Bush can continue his approach over four years without being ground into political irrelevance...
...Bush likes dealing with the press...
...Plus, he admits when he does not know the answer...
...This is not to say that the officially titled press secretary, Marlin Fitzwater, is out of a job...
...Fitzwater doesn't just brief reporters daily, as he did for Reagan...
...The key factor concerns the intensity of support for Bush, which before Panama was consistently lower than it was for Reagan...
...Reagan often did...
...He usually does not have a general theme, and far be it from him to launch bold initiatives...
...The low-key interview is one...
...The press conference is a time when Bush can be Bush...
...He came to office to serve, which for him means to consolidate Reagan's achievements...
...Still, Bush cannot avoid public speaking...
...One reason is his accessibility...
...It's not...
...And journalists are among the many Americans who receive his hand-written notes...
...The weekend labor proved too much...
...On November 28, Bush and his aides debated how they might deflate rising expectations for the Malta summit...
...Bush had wanted to announce it himself and was upset that he did not get to...
...He rambles...
...Okay, there is Sig Rogich, the Las Vegas public relations man who did the Boston Harbor ads in the 1988 campaign...
...The fact of less television coverage probably reflects Bush's refusal to load up his schedule with "made-for-TV" events...
...Because of the light it sheds on this presidency...
...After a year in office, President Bush has also turned out to be Press Secretary Bush...
...Bush loves the techniques of politics," says one source close to him...
...But an additional and perhaps primary reason for Bush's dislike of leaks is that they can eliminate his public relations advantage as President...
...Bush and the media who cover him have not reached this point, although it has been suggested that they have...
...And Reagan became famous for his ability to capture a particular moment with just the right words, as he did in his speech after the Challenger tragedy...
...And I'll bet he's trying...
...He is relaxed...
...It is an inside-the-Beltway approach, just as Reagan's went outside...
...Hard to say...
...Bush by Terry Eastland also will seek out reporters to offer some on-the-spot remarks...
...Bush has chosen to communicate through the media that cover him, and the presidential press conference is his main way of doing it...
...Press work suits Bush just as, well, speeches do not...
...The transcripts show why...
...Don't count on it...
...W hy, you may ask, this column's in-depth reporting on the nation's Numero Uno Press Secretary...
...Bush does not see himself as any particular kind of force...
...Bush's idea of public service—even of private employment—entails loyalty to a superior of a kind that forbids talking to the media without authorization...
...We learned quite a bit about him," says Nelson, "and got a couple of good stories...
...Bush's communications effort, with its focus on the White House press corps, does not promise to forge the kind of bond with those beyond the Beltway that is necessary for major domestic success...
...In fact, most are conducted during daytime...
...As 1990 dawned, however, reporters and editors had not asked Bush to withdraw from their midst...
...And there is no Mike Deaver...
...In fact, Bush is the most accessible President since LBJ, who took to calling reporters in for lengthy sessions on Saturday mornings...
...And he holds his tongue whenhe should, as when, just two days before ordering troops to Panama, he was asked what his options were regarding Manuel Noriega...
...Remember that bag of N k...
...Several months into the Bush presidency, Herblock, the political cartoonist, drew a cartoon featuring a sleeping and presumably exhausted journalist (it was Lesley Stahl of CBS) whose rest is interrupted by President Bush, ready to answer still more questions...
...As that reporter said, "Press conference is good...
...Rogich's big achievement to date is not some Deaveresque media event, complete with just the right camera shots (Deaver once said he felt like Cecil B. De Mille, "always looking through the camera lens"), but something called "Any Saturday...
...Bush undoubtedly was thrilled that the secret mission to China stayed under wraps as long as it did...
...Bush agreed...
...A President has various ways he can choose to communicate to the huge audience beyond the Oval Office...
...But Rogich is no Deaver, precisely because Bush is no Reagan...
...His top aides didn't, mainly because they feared questions on abortion, a throbbing issue on Capitol Hill and in the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial campaigns...
...press conferences, dwarfing the Reagan average of six a year...
...Also by mid-December, Bush had given fourteen informal press conferences—such as those on Air Force One...
...The episodes tell a story...
...And Bush does not make the cardinal error politicians often make—of viewing reporters as some undifferentiated mass...
...In fact, it was Fitzwater's advice that helped make Bush what he is today...
...That, in turn, implies more of a substantive agenda than he has so far been willing to offer (or disclose to) the nation, as well as a willingness to draw lines and make political opponents...
...But Bush much prefers the one-on-one, give-and-take of the press conference...
...By the way...
...Fitzwater quickly corrected that...
...Clearly, he is in no danger of that right now...
...To the contrary, Fitzwater is more important to Bush than he ever was to President Reagan, whom he also served...
...But, as one might expect, few of his speeches are productions the way Reagan's were...
...There is another fact about his press conferences: they are seldom televised...
...This is purposeful...
...Pre-Panama-they were high less because of Bush's achievements than because of the state of the economy and the global demise of Communism...
...But they don't discuss what they might be...
...certainly it's world class...
...He not only knows the names of most who cover him, but also the names of their spouses and children, and even other details...
...I will not do anything imprudent," he told a group of editorial writers in December...
...The reporters Bush summoned to his office to hear his preview of the Malta summit heard him quibble about how the lead of a particular story was "a little off, by the way...
...His point was that the drug trade is so prevalent that it occurs even in his neighborhood...
...During his first year in office, for example, Reagan spoke to the American people on important occasions in order to rally support for his budget and tax initiatives...
...He and they are good at getting out what they want to get out—unless some leak erupts...
...Stephen Hess of Brookings has described Bush to me as "a print President...
...Bush's approval ratings have remained very high—higher than those of most Presidents (including Reagan) during their first year...
...As Hess says, Bush has "more regard for the written word than for the visual impression...
...he came to office to do something, and he used speeches and television strategically...
...wearied news organizations had to beg Johnson to stop...
...Fitzwater is more important in this White House, the speechwriters much less...
...He has five speechwriters, and he makes lots of speeches...
...Within the hour Bush met the White House press corps, fielding queries on a variety of subjects, including abortion...
...He doesn't declare a question out of bounds...
...Bush just doesnot like television...
...I asked him to read a speech aloud once, for a change," recalls one former aide, about an attempt to get the President to work on his delivery...
...He works at these relations, which are critical to his success as press secretary...
...Bush knows that reporters are human beings, too...
...Bush could not be more different from Reagan if he tried...
...What you see with Bush, you tend to get...
...During the press conference in Malta, he was asked how he was going to report to the American people on the summit, and whether he would do so in "an Oval Office speech...
...He'll jog with those who jog and invite reporters to watch movies...
...The first was on September 5, to announce his drug policy...
...If you really want to get his attention, mention a polling result to him or some development in the grass roots...
...He is good-natured...
...It boggles the mind to imagine Reagan as the press secretary, just as it boggles the mind to imagine Bush as the Great Communicator...
...At some point Bush may find that he has to acquire the aggressive mentality of the rhetorical presidency, which means making use of the bully pulpit for strategic political ends...
...Or some wire copy...
...The main negative for Bush, brought to light by the Center for Media and Public Affairs, is that he has received significantly less television coverage than Reagan did during his first year in office, and since August the coverage has been increasingly critical...
...The second was a Thanksgiving speech, on the eve of the holiday...
...neither does Barbara Bush...
...He doesn't worry that much about his image...
...Another is the contrast with Reagan...
...The day before the official announcement of the summit the news was leaked to the Washington Post...
...And during his first year only two were delivered to the nation on prime-time television...
...His press-secretarial approach fits this self-understanding...
...A]ll Presidents have options," said Bush...
...Bush was furious when he learned what had happened...
...It turned out that the Drug Enforcement Administration had to lure a guy to Lafayette Square to do his business in order to produce the necessary speech lines...
...The emotional part is hard for me to describe because I'm not an articulate emotionalist," Bush told reporters at Malta...
...It's another sort of press conference...
...Bush's authenticity and personal touch forces reporters "to give him the benefit of the doubt," according to one who covers Bush...
...T here is no question that Bush is an 1. excellent press secretary...
...Does the media's like for Bush affect their reporting...
...Bush pointed to the crack and said it was seized in a park across the street from the White House...
...Bush knows who he is and what he does best...
...Reagan saw himself as a force in the world...
...It's not contrived...
...Of course, we're starting from a pretty low baseline...
...N N N 32 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 1990 crack he held up during the speech...
...Bush responded, "Well, I just did one [the Thanksgiving eve address] just before going'!—as though he often gave such speeches—"and I don't want to abuse the hospitality of the airwaves...
...So do his aides...
...Bush has made only one mistake I can remember —when he said the Americans trapped in El Salvador had been liberated...
...During the transition Fitzwater drafted a press strategy for Bush that urged him to employ his personal ability to make people—in this case, reporters—feel comfortable and to meet with the press in a variety of ways, and often...
...Will this happen...
...The increasing criticism of Bush may reflect the natural presidential cycle...
...It is part of the nuts-and-bolts of politics, and Bush is a nuts-and-bolts kind of guy...
...Expect Bush to be back again and again and again...
...That experience wasn't a good one for the President...
...It's probably a presidential record...
...The difference manifests itself in White House organization...
Vol. 23 • February 1990 • No. 2
