Ex-Spokesmen Speak Out on Clinton
By LINDA DEUTSCH AP Special Correspondent
dailynews.yahoo.com
ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) _ Two former presidential press secretaries said Friday they would have refused to lie if they'd been working for Bill Clinton and would have resigned when he admitted lying to them and the American people about Monica Lewinsky.
But George Christian, spokesman for Lyndon B. Johnson, and Larry Speakes, who handled press for the Ronald Reagan White House, said they believe Clinton spokesman Mike McCurry escaped with his credibility intact.
Christian and Speakes, appearing at the Associated Press Managing Editors annual conference, said they were dismayed that the president misled his cabinet for so long about his relationship with Ms. Lewinsky.
Christian said he is surprised cabinet members didn't resign en masse.
''The way President Clinton has hung his folks out to dry for months is unconscionable,'' Christian said. ''It's still bubbling in the cabinet and elsewhere _ that they went out and lied for him.
'' ... Today there's numerous persons working in the White House that are so unhappy they're talking big,'' Christian said. ''It hinders the White House and makes it difficult for (the President) to function. But it's his own fault.''
Christian was asked by moderator Ed Jones, managing editor of The Free Lance-Star of Fredericksburg, Va., if he would resign under those circumstances.
''Oh, I would have to,'' Christian said. ''I think anyone hung out like that would have to quit. I'm surprised members of the cabinet haven't quit.''
McCurry had considered leaving the administration earlier this year but delayed his departure to support the president as the Lewinsky scandal developed. He left earlier this month.
Speakes said a press secretary who was lied to would be forced to resign.
''You make a choice: You're either going to bend your morals or resign,'' he said.
If he learned the president had lied to the American people, what would he do?
''I'd be mad as a hornet and yes, I think I'd probably resign,'' Speakes said.
The press secretaries gave high marks to the press for accuracy, and another member of the panel, Kevin Merida of The Washington Post, said the criticism of press coverage was predictable.
''It happens every time we get involved with sex. It happened in '92 with Gennifer Flowers and going back to Gary Hart,'' Merida said.
One panelist, political analyst Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, said the crisis has empowered the cabinet.
''It appears to me that (Secretary of State) Madeleine Albright and the secretary of the treasury now have incredible opportunity to do policy,'' Jeffe said. ''The White House is too busy dealing with Monica.''
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