Presswatch: We Are Family
Corry, John
"Presswatch: We Are Family" by John Corry We Are Family Never was it given to mortal man To lie so boldly as we women can —Alexander Pope, 174 William Safire said Hillary Clinton was a "congenital liar," and...
...he did not say no...
...The White House had overflowed with obfuscation...
...In the best tradition of the extended family, though, the Post also said that the evidence "suggested that Mrs...
...But family ties get strained...
...On ABC, Cokie Roberts did a brief analysis...
...33 percent felt negatively...
...This wasn't true, either...
...McCurry had rehearsed his statement, and Jennings was pretending to clairvoyance...
...She went on to say that no documents were taken out of Vince Foster's office on the night he died, but even if there were, she had not known they were there, and that if the administration seemed slow iri producing records it was only because "there were millions of pieces of paper in the White House...
...Walters observed the first rule of celebrity journalism: Never rough up your source...
...McCurry then warned Hume...
...Bennett was only playing with words, which, as a high-priced Washington mouthpiece, he might be expected to do, although it was an indication of the shabbiness of his case that when he mentioned Billy Dale he disgraced himself...
...Bennett went on to say that outside accountants had found "tremendous misconduct and irregularity" in the travel office, and that this justified the staff's firing...
...Hence the value of a lawyer like Robert Bennett: he deflects things...
...Here is one exchange, with Walters going first: "Were you aware of any shady practices or actual wrongdoing on the, of this, savings and loan for which you did legal work...
...Cokie Roberts asked Robert Bennett, Mr...
...Clinton turned in a very good performance...
...Clinton on "Larry King Live...
...After a quick deliberation, however, a jury acquitted Dale on all charges...
...Clinton had resurrected the character issue...
...Absolutely not...
...Mrs...
...Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich was having a snit on CNN, pointing out that the Republicans did not want to cut Medicaid, only slow the growth in its spending...
...The American Spectator • March /996 45...
...Safire, however, got "congenital liar" into the first sentence of his column in the New York Times, and then worked in "lie," "lied," "lies," and "lying" thirteen times thereafter...
...Clinton is media savvy, and Gingrich isn't...
...This, though, was only entertainment...
...It was his first in five months, and it might have been assumed he would have a hard time...
...Shortly after that, the press conference was over...
...On NBC, Tim Russert found the paucity of questions about Mrs...
...Whitewater and its tributaries are choked with arcane details about banking laws and the regulatory process...
...Walters appeared to be asking tough questions, but she wasn't...
...Brit," he said, "be careful with that...
...This had less to do with what he said than with his having had the audacity to say it...
...The family was corning undone...
...Clinton's other personal lawyer, talked about "active financial mismanagement, maybe misconduct...
...On ABC's "Nightline," David Kendall, Mr...
...No, absolutely not...
...The important thing was that Safire had disdained the routine euphemisms, and called a spade a spade...
...He said an "accounting firm came in and verified that...
...But he wasn't...
...But then came the more comprehensible evidence about lying...
...You did not know —" "Absolutely not...
...Bennett is big and bluff, and he knows how to play the game, never giving an inch, while he calls the television correspondents by their first names, and adroitly mixes fact and fiction...
...Indeed, as David Brock reported in these pages over eighteen months ago, even the White House's own review of the travel office firings had found nothing other than lackadaisical record-keeping and clerical errors...
...Hume then asked if there was any reason for her having such a large number of guests, "apart from warding off process servers...
...Sincerity, affability, and self-confidence flowed...
...The day after that, an administration spokesman had summoned a Washington Post reporter to the White House to prove otherwise...
...He was right, but no matter...
...The L-word had hung over Mrs...
...This is key...
...Obviously, the answer was yes...
...If Mrs...
...Clinton would be there with "her lawyer...
...Clinton "quite striking...
...Surely he would be asked about that...
...Clinton, and take on the budget...
...Safire's nose...
...He led King down a Whitewater tributary...
...In fact, he wasn't asked much at all...
...She said he had practiced "financial mismanagement...
...Clinton wanted the travel office staff "to be fired because of the mismanagement," he declared, "so what...
...Clinton's critics as "partisans" and "political assassins...
...In the middle of Mrs...
...Clinton on NBC's "Today" show two days later...
...The Justice Department refused the offer, and the case went to trial...
...if you do, no other celebrity will talk to you again...
...It was reasonable to think they might have discussed the Thomason take-over, although Clinton previously had denied he knew anything about it...
...Jim Miklaszewski, NBC's White House correspondent, had reported the week before that the book was "primarily written by a ghostwriter, not Mrs...
...To make room for Thomason, the director of the office, Dale, was fired...
...A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll in early December found that 46 percent of the respondents had "positive feelings" about Mrs...
...Then, only hours before the press conference, new documents showed that Clinton had met twice with Harry Thomason the week before the travel office staff was fired...
...The outside accountants had not found "tremendous misconduct and irregularity," only sloppy record-keeping...
...That was no small thing...
...A Wall Street Journal/NBC News 44 March 1996 The American Spectator poll a month after the first one found the earlier numbers almost exactly reversed: .44 percent of the respondents had "negative feelings," about Mrs...
...The ghostwriter issue was not mentioned...
...Clinton stayed loose...
...the basic issue was mismanagement...
...Do you feel that the Republicans actually know what they're playing with...
...Harry Thomason, the Clintons' Hollywood friend, wanted to take over the travel office...
...He now faces a $500,000 legal bill, and has had to refinance his house to begin payment...
...To avoid a trial, he said he would plead guilty, although not toembezzling, as Bennett claimed, but to putting money in the wrong account—a misdemeanor...
...But Bennett did a little two-step — mumbling something about "double hearsay" — and then, adopting an authoritative tone, said he wanted to get to the "basic issues...
...Bennett also represents Harry Thomason...
...Therefore, it was unlikely the Senate committee was suppressing FBI reports about irregularities...
...Clinton, and only 35 percent felt positively...
...It was a contradiction, and clearly someone was JOHN CORRY is The American Spectator's new senior correspondent...
...Clinton's personal lawyer, if this was not a "direct contradiction" of a previous White House denial that Mrs...
...The two-for-one president is comfortable with a two-for-one attorney...
...Everyone, though, knows about lying...
...ndeed, the press seemed relieved to get off the subject of Mrs...
...No one really wants to embarrass anyone else, and so some things are left unsaid, or at least not pursued with much passion...
...Safire was right...
...Clinton for days, but media etiquette demanded that it not be used...
...an earnest young woman asked...
...Neither press nor public understands them...
...Bennett did not say yes...
...None of this was true...
...So let's not all cry about Billy Dale...
...Also, Sam, don't forget," he told Sam Donaldson, "Billy Dale was willing to plead guilty to embezzlement and spend four months in jail...
...Even in their real estate deals...
...If Mrs...
...Mrs...
...The day before the Safire column appeared, the topic of discussion on "This Week With David Brinkley" was the memo by a former White House aide that said there "would be hell to pay" if the travel office staff was not fired "in conformity with the first lady's wishes...
...Walters did not interrupt, and eventually Mrs...
...Chilton were just another first lady, this might not matter, but when her husband campaigned he promised a "two-for-the-price-of-one presidency," and as she goes, so goes he...
...The accounting firm, Peat Marwick, had never mentioned mismanagement or misconduct...
...Prominent politicians and their spokesmen are adjunct members...
...And so on, although if Mrs...
...Clinton talked about the "cuts" the Republicans want to make in Medicaid...
...It was as if no one wanted to upset anyone else or look pushy, and disturb the family ties...
...When Mike McCurry briefed White House correspondents on Clinton's State of the Union address, Brit Hume of ABC asked if Mrs...
...Clinton talked about her book, It Takes a Village...
...that was esoteric...
...Clinton had been involved in the firing...
...It characterized them as "not true," "not just the truth," "just less than the truth," and "something other than the complete truth...
...lying...
...It is expressly forbidden in the Ten Commandments...
...Larry King asked Bennett about Mrs...
...Very significant you did not have more questions on the first lady and Whitewater," she said...
...People fall out and bicker...
...there had been no irregularities to begin with...
...Clinton said to the reporters, "Thank you, and God bless you," and managed to look almost humble...
...Financial stuff looks more weighty, and nobody gets embarrassed...
...Then, after an i8-month investigation by the Justice Department, he was charged on two counts of embezzlement...
...Thus the lying disappeared in a puff of smoke...
...Clinton tells lies, and the misrepresentations about the travel office were only meant to disguise that...
...Associated Press reported that Clinton, impressed by his performance on "This Week With David Brinkley," told him he "did a great job" and asked him to do even more...
...The press took a dive, and other than Rita Braver of CBS, reporters did not ask follow-up questions, which are usually the only questions worth asking...
...The next day, Mike McCurry, the White House press secretary, said Bill Clinton wanted to deliver a "forceful response to the bridge of Mr...
...Then he said the Senate Whitewater committee was suppressing FBI reports about the travel office irregularities...
...The Washington press corps operates like a big extended family...
...In your opinion, she's totally clean in this...
...Peter Jennings was at least partly right when he said Clinton was "furious...
...Safire had loosened the bonds...
...McCurry said no...
...Clinton was allowed to answer with generalities and not particulars, and Walters only feinted on the follow-up...
...Clinton's other attorney, David Kendall, according to AP, was thought to be "less media savvy...
...Clinton's bad week, just after Safire said "congenital liar," Clinton held a formal press conference...
...That night Peter Jennings dutifully reported that "it is very clear the president is furious...
...He took a risk when he said, "I've said before, I'll say it again, if everybody in this country had the character that my wife has, we'd be a better place to live" — but he might have calculated that the best defense is a good offense, and nobody burst out laughing...
...Bennett's spurious attack on Dale was echoed by Mrs...
...Clinton's much publicized interview with Barbara Walters was the same...
...she would be there with seven distinguished guests...
...On the "Today" show, he attacked Mrs...
...The Post story about this said the alleged ghostwriter, a journalism professor, had received $120,000, signed a confidentiality statement, worked through the summer and fall, sometimes seven days a week, vacationed with the Clintons in Wyoming, and even spent nights at the White House...
...PRESSWATCH by John Corry We Are Family Never was it given to mortal man To lie so boldly as we women can —Alexander Pope, 174 William Safire said Hillary Clinton was a "congenital liar," and set off a great fuss...
...As Byron York documented in the Weekly Standard, Thomason and a business partner could use it as a springboard from which they could go on to control a large chunk of government aviation...
...She might have hoodwinked banking regulators, dummied up phony loans, and even obstructed justice...
...Clinton was unaware of any shady practices she may have been the only lawyer in Little Rock so unenlightened...
...Clinton did write her book...
...ABC's "World News Tonight" had actually led its program the night before with a rundown of his wife's more ambiguous statements...
Vol. 29 • March 1996 • No. 3
