Bush by the Numbers, as Told by a Diligent Scorekeeper
URL: washingtonpost.com
By Dana Milbank
Tuesday, September 3, 2002; Page A15
President Bush's trip to Pittsburgh yesterday was his 13th to Pennsylvania since taking office, his third to the Pittsburgh area, his second Labor Day appearance with the carpenters union and his 72nd domestic trip overall.
How do we know this? There is only one source: Mark Knoller, the leading collector of modern presidential arcana.
How many foreign leaders has Bush met with? Knoller's got it: 136.
How many states has Bush visited so far? Knoller's got it: 43.
How long did Bush's round of golf last on July 6? Knoller's got it: 2 1/2 hours.
The 50-year-old CBS News radio correspondent, who has been covering the White House on-and-off since the Ford administration and every day for the past 11 years, collects data about presidential activities as if it were baseball trivia. The bearded, often curmudgeonly Knoller can be found in the press filing center on most every presidential trip, his stentorian voice booming out 35-second takes for radio -- as many as 20 a day -- and shaping the day's news for dozens of journalists who can't help but hear him.
When he's not recording one of the more than 10,000 radio spots he's done over the past decade, he spends hours a week updating his famous statistical logs. Other reporters -- academics, too -- rely on them. The Clinton White House even asked Knoller for his logs; turns out the newsman kept better track of President Bill Clinton's travel than the president's aides did.
The statistics Knoller assembles produce many revealing portraits of the Bush presidency:
Bush has spent a whopping total of 250 days of his presidency at Camp David (123 days), Kennebunkport (12) and his Texas ranch (115). That means Bush has spent 42 percent of his term so far at one of his three leisure destinations.
To date, the president has devoted far more time to golf (15 rounds) than to solo news conferences (six). The numbers also show that Bush, after holding three news conferences in his first four months, has had only three more in the last 15 months -- not counting the 37 Q&A sessions he has had with foreign leaders during his term.
Bush has raised $114.8 million this year at 48 GOP events, surpassing Clinton's record of $105 million in 2000 from 203 events. The Bush White House has challenged his tally only once, and Knoller countered with voluminous evidence.
"The judge's decision is final," he says.
Knoller got a job out of New York University in 1975 with Associated Press radio, covering the last few months of Ford and also taking stints during the Carter and Reagan administrations. After moving to CBS in 1988, he covered the last year of the first President George Bush and just about every day since. Unmarried and without children, he takes almost every presidential trip and rarely stops working. "I find when I take a day off it takes so much time to get up to speed I'd rather work it and be easier on myself," he says.
As a reporter, Knoller rarely "breaks" news; there's no time to do investigative journalism when you're filing 20 times a day. But he exerts influence in another way: His powerful voice, inescapable to those within 50 yards of him, summarizes every speech or briefing within moments for all the other White House correspondents.
"Knoller's voice, booming out his quick and witty takes on the day's story, unconsciously settles into all our brains and no doubt finds its way into our copy," says Ron Fournier, the chief AP White House correspondent. "He may be the most influential and respected reporter in the press corps."
In addition to his impressive volume is his briefcase full of presidential statistics. Knoller walks around with a thick manila folder with printouts of his logs, which he also keeps on disks and a mainframe computer. For eight years, he has kept a log of every day of the president's schedule down to the smallest detail. Aug. 6 indicates that Bush "arrives TSTC [the airport near his ranch] with Spot, Barney and India (in pet carrier)." Knoller even notes that the cat, India, did not get to join the two dogs on Marine One.
During the Bush administration, which practices the none-of-your-business theory of public disclosure, the logs have become even more valuable. "They don't want to talk about their strategy themselves, but they reveal it by what they do," says the keeper of the stats.
Consider, for example, the seven states Bush has not visited. His absence from Washington, Vermont, Rhode Island and Hawaii might indicate Republicans have written off those states. His absence in Idaho and Kansas suggests those safely GOP states don't require his presence. And his absence from Nevada might indicate concern about local anger over his plan to ship nuclear waste there.
Bush's pattern of foreign travel is similarly intriguing for a president who frowns on the "intercontinental" set. Bush has visited 18 countries and the Vatican in nine overseas trips, keeping pace with Clinton, who took eight trips to 26 countries during his first two years.
Many of the reporters who borrow Knoller's numbers -- sometimes without crediting him -- believe the veteran correspondent is performing a crucial public service. "I do this for me, not for the public," he demurs. "I wouldn't be so immodest to think this is of great interest. A lot of the time I have difficulty even convincing my editors."
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