My Fall Into Disabuse
Hume, Brit
BRIT HUME: Mr. President, the withdrawal of the Guinier nomination, sir, and your apparent focus on Judge Breyer, and your turn, late it seems, to Judge Ginsburg, may have created an impression,...
...unabridged text of presidential news conference after Bill Clinton's introduction of Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg as his nominee for the vacant seat on the Supreme Court, Rose Garden, June 14, 1993 W hen President Clinton blew up at my now-famous question about the "zig-zag quality" of his decision-making, I wasn't sure what had set him off, but I knew one thing: the fifteen minutes of fame that Andy Warhol had promised me were about to begin...
...Equally to the point was Dorothy Freeman of Livermore, California, who wrote: Couldn't you have let the judge bask in her glory for one minute in time...
...You are an ass and a clod," said one anonymous note, adding: "Pig Media personified...
...Campbell's letter put an end to all that...
...How you could ask a question like that after the statement she just made is beyond me...
...You are an arrogant bastard, and thanks to the zapper I won't have to listen to you anymore...
...And you did it as though you had a natural right to patronize people...
...The reactions fit a predictable pattern: Clinton-lovers thought I had behaved outrageously, and Clinton haters thought he had...
...He cut your hair...
...Thank you...
...Campbell called me a man, like Bush, who wears arrogance, as Bush does, as naturally and unselfconsciously as you wear a suit...
...Your fine suit, your smirking smile, your insincere face...
...The most surprising thing, though, was not the ratio...
...Your EGO was huge...
...And not other women you knew...
...My favorite in this category came from one Sidney Pepper of Ada, Oklahoma, who identified himself as a "Ph.D...
...Never again...
...K. Campbell of San Francisco...
...I'm writing because I just saw the Donahue Show...
...You patronized Helen Thomas and were rude to her...
...I wonder, sir, if you could kind of walk us through it, perhaps disabuse us of any notion we might have along those lines...
...John E. Puelle of New York City asked: When all is said and done, I'm curious whether the choice of your wife was done in a zig-zag manner, or whether there were any disappointed girlfriends who felt jilted when it was all over...
...In fact, you are lucky that the person was not a sixteen-year-old from the Ozarks, because if he were, your honeymoon might have ended with a broken nose...
...Jere Irby of Midlothian, Virginia, was similarly encouraging: "You'll still be around doing a magnificent job when Mr...
...he president, to be sure, had his share of detractors Tamong my correspondents...
...Campbell again after the Ginsburg episode and had little doubt what she would say...
...Thank you...
...Clinton is back in Arkansas working for his wife's law firm...
...Even a "sixteen-year-old from the Ozarks," he said, would have spotted the bad faith in the question...
...I expected the margin to be about eight or nine to one critical, but it ended up about three to two, which I found surprising...
...If Dr...
...I supported President Clinton last fall...
...You are worthless and evil and it's about time someone told you so...
...Since what immediately followed was the sound of my voice asking the famous question, my identity seemed obvious enough...
...I know you are a personal friend of George Bush's and therefore I take your reporting with a grain of salt...
...She was, after all, a person deeply concerned with manners who plainly did not like me...
...But some viewers took this as a sign of reluctance to own up...
...Couldn't you have acknowledged her accomplishments before dumping s--t on them...
...And after the president patched things up by calling on me for a "follow-up" the next day and jesting about my recent marriage ("You got a honeymoon, and I didn't"), my fifteen minutes were up, except for one thing: the mail continued to pour in for a week or more...
...There were, I confess, moments in the days just after the incident when I wondered if perhaps my question had been inappropriate...
...It was wonderful...
...In January 1991, following an appearance with several other White House correspondents on "Donahue," I received a card from Mrs...
...Another non-fan, Robert Ellrich of Seattle, said my question "displayed a remarkable composite of snideness, disingenuousness, false politeness, and self-promotion...
...He said he'd never before written such a letter but had been motivated by "your rudeness to President Clinton, Judge Fineburg [sic] and the television audience...
...Keep up the good work...
...Campbell made my wall again: "You were terribly RUDE to Andrea Mitchell," she wrote...
...He is a bumbler, incompetent, testy, vain and has surrounded himself with a too-young inexperienced staff...
...I despise you, but I watched ABC for the first time in months to see you crawl...
...In the pro-Clinton camp, there was a prominent subgroup: those who were especially impressed with Judge Ruth Ginsburg and moved, as Clinton was, by her remarks...
...Like the callers, the letter-writers fell mostly into two categories: ardently pro- and ardently anti-Clinton...
...President, the withdrawal of the Guinier nomination, sir, and your apparent focus on Judge Breyer, and your turn, late it seems, to Judge Ginsburg, may have created an impression, perhaps unfair, of a certain zigzag quality in the decision-making process here...
...Naturally, I expected to hear from Mrs...
...Perhaps she served your purposes the most...
...Another nameless writer asked, "How could you...
...By the next afternoon, there were forty-three messages on my answering machine at the office, and the correspondents' reception desk at ABC News had fielded at least a dozen more...
...The world is not about you...
...Here, though, is what she wrote: President Clinton was RUDE to you and he should apologize...
...I liked it so much I tacked it on the wall of the ABC booth at the White House...
...The calls fell off sharply after the first day or so...
...I loved it...
...Wrote David, Slick of Indianola, Iowa, "Don't worry, there are a number of things that are beyond this president...
...wrote another, who signed off, "Have a nice day...
...Most were from talk-show producers wanting to set up interviews, but there were a lot of messages from viewers who had watched the event live...
...Another writer began with congratulations, then said: Hopefully during the toasts to the bride, someone wasn't gross enough to ask you why you picked her...
...Don't you just hate it when Bill Clinton makes you look like an even bigger jerk...
...nlike anchors and U talk-show pundits, news correspondents don't normally get much viewer mail, so we pay a lot of attention when we do...
...To have that moment shattered by your crude and insensitive question was shocking...
...In my report on "World News Tonight," I referred to myself only as "a reporter...
...Mary Anderson of Kalamazoo, Michigan, wrote: I saw Mr...
...Clinton kick your little butt on C-Span and I'm writing to add fuel to his fire...
...Clinton: I think your response to Brit Hume's question was disgusting...
...It was the content of a single letter from someone I had heard from before...
...Last April, following an embarrassing incident in the Rose Garden, in which NBC's Andrea Mitchell and I got into a shouted competition for the president' s attention, Mrs...
...In the words of your predecessor: "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen...
...Typical was Marian Sherman of Maple Valley, Washington, who said of the judge's statement: I found myself crying and was glad that I was alone at the time...
...You forged an image of yourself as a rude, ill-bred bully...
...Applause.] Goodbye...
...Other writers didn't bother to quibble with my question or its wording but made clear that their complaint was with me personally...
...Pepper really did attend Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism, he must have heard the old editor's dictum about keeping copy "tight, light, bright and (most of all) right"—in other words, more like the card from an anonymous soul identified only as a "non-fan," who said simply, "You, Sir, should be horsewhipped...
...BILL CLINTON: I have long since given up the thought that I could disabuse some of you of turning any substantive decision into anything but political process...
...Then I saw you lying on ABC trying to act like you weren't the person who got mopped up...
...Most of the letters, though, were critical of me, which is normal...
...Another writer, anonymous, who'd seen the event on CNN, had strikingly similar feelings: "So I watched you on ABC News for the first time in months...
...I admire your poise, but I'm wary of your views...
...Go Bill...
...CI...
...You even patronized Donahue...
...Clinton's selection of Judge Ginsburg...
...People usually write to reporters to complain...
...The very most important thing that President Clinton has done—he could have spit in your face...
...Madill [sic] School of Journalism, '50...
...Several writers made clear they don't regularly watch ABC News, but did so on the night of June 14 to see how the episode was handled...
...There were other references to my recent marriage, with some writers seeing in it a parallel with Mr...
...Roy Glassberg of Oakland, California, sent me a copy of his letter to Mr...
Vol. 26 • September 1993 • No. 9
