Leaks About Foes Seen As Routine in Campaigns
By Howard Kurtz and Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, April 29, 2004; Page A04
On Monday morning, Sen. John F. Kerry was confronted with a 1971 videotape that appeared to contradict his past accounts of whether he had thrown away his military medals as a Vietnam War protest.
This was no accident, not in a campaign season in which opposition researchers are constantly trying to unearth damaging material about the Massachusetts Democrat and President Bush. In this case, copies of the tape were provided to two news organizations by the Republican National Committee, according to several media staff members familiar with the situation who, not surprisingly, said they could not be identified while discussing confidential sources.
Jim Dyke, the RNC's communications director, said he could not "discuss what information we discuss with reporters" and added: "It is interesting that John Kerry, confronted with his own words, blamed the RNC. Where the tape came from, the place to start would be the National Archives."
Stephanie Cutter, Kerry's communications director, said she believes the Bush campaign orchestrated the story, noting that former presidential counselor Karen Hughes raised the issue of Kerry and his medals Sunday on CNN and that within an hour two news organizations called her about the subject. "Things like this don't happen by coincidence," Cutter said. Bush campaign spokesman Terry Holt responded that the Kerry controversy "is of his own making."
The political climate has changed since 1987, when John Sasso had to resign as presidential campaign manager for Michael S. Dukakis after admitting that he had leaked an "attack video" to NBC News, the New York Times and the Des Moines Register. The video, which showed rival candidate Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) using another politician's words without attribution, contributed to Biden's withdrawal from the race.
These days, political professionals view such tactics as routine.
"That's how campaigns work," said Chris Lehane, who funneled intelligence to reporters as a consultant to the Kerry and Wesley K. Clark campaigns. "Good campaigns provide information to news outlets. . . . I don't think there's a strong argument that they have to say where they got it from."
"In fairness," said Democratic National Committee spokesman Jano Cabrera, "both sides are going to look and see what politicians are saying and how it corresponds with what they said in the past."
A media furor erupted after ABC News and the New York Times each reported that it had "obtained" -- without saying from whom -- a tape of the 33-year-old interview with Washington's WRC-TV in which Kerry said he had tossed away as many as nine medals in the Vietnam War protest. Kerry, who defended himself in a testy interview on ABC's "Good Morning America," has long maintained that he threw away his ribbons, not his medals.
"We never discuss our sources," said ABC spokesman Jeffrey Schneider. "The tape itself was newsworthy. We vetted it, aired it and gave Kerry ample time to respond."
Philip Taubman, the Times's Washington bureau chief, said he could not discuss the tape's origin but added: "I'm always very sensitive to where the material is coming from, what the motivation is of the person providing it and how they're trying to use the newspaper." If the leaked material is used, "you have to be as clear as you possibly can be in helping the reader understand where the information is coming from." Times staffers say they had to decide whether the tape was sufficiently newsworthy even though the source would not agree to even a vague attribution.
Partisan sources are legitimate, said Steve Roberts, a professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University, but journalists must negotiate with them "to provide as many identifying details as possible. At a minimum you should tell readers the information comes from people with a political ax to grind."
Republican consultant Scott Reed maintained that "Kerry kicked this into high gear in the ABC interview," especially with his overheard comment "God, they're doing the work of the Republican National Committee."
Cutter said Bush strategists often launch attacks against Kerry at the beginning of a week in which they are expecting bad news. This week's schedule includes a Supreme Court hearing on Vice President Cheney's secret energy task force, today's joint appearance by Bush and Cheney before the commission investigating the 2001 terrorist attacks, and the first anniversary of Bush's landing on an aircraft carrier with a "Mission Accomplished" banner.
Cutter acknowledged that all campaigns engage in "oppo" research and share it with the news media, but she said her operation rarely does it on an off-the-record basis.
Democratic strategist Jim Jordan, a former Kerry campaign manager, described various techniques for placing a story: "You can start small, with a local market, and then flack the result from there. Sometimes it's better to start with a national outlet and move it down there. Then there is the outlet of last resort, which is the Internet."
The natural competitiveness of the media makes it easier for campaigns to peddle information without being identified, Jordan said. "For a really good story, no-fingerprint ground rules are extremely easy to get," he said.
During the 2000 campaign, recalled Mark Salter, a top adviser to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), stories began appearing suggesting that McCain did not have the temperament to be president. These stories were fed initially, he said, by some congressional Republicans supporting Bush and hostile to McCain's campaign. To defuse the controversy, the campaign gave Associated Press reporter Ron Fournier McCain's medical records -- "every scrap of paper from the Navy we could get our hands on," Salter said.
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