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White House Spins The Boy Who Yawned
Lisa de Moraes
The White House, trying to get out in front of the Yawning Boy story, is now in charge of media access to the young man who was seen on David Letterman's show this week yawning his way through one of President Bush's less robust speeches.
Letterman's Worldwide Pants television production company has booked 13-year-old Tyler Crotty -- son of Orange County, Fla., chairman and major Bush fundraiser Richard Crotty -- as a guest on tonight's CBS late-night show.
"He's a young person who strongly supports the president and is excited about getting a chance to talk about it," White House assistant press secretary Reed Dickens told The TV Column yesterday.
Dickens has been named go-to guy for anyone wanting to interview Tyler, who gained national prominence when Letterman introduced a new segment on his show Monday called "George W. Bush Invigorates America's Youth."
What followed was a videotape of clips from a recent speech Bush gave at the Orange County Convention Center in which the then-12-year-old Tyler can be seen yawning uncontrollably, stretching, fidgeting and checking his watch while standing behind the president.
Tyler's father told The TV Column that his son was very tired because he had stayed up late the night before and then got up at 6:30 a.m. to accompany him to the convention center, where Crotty was also scheduled to speak that day. "Tyler was escorted onstage and was up there at least a total of three hours," Crotty says; Bush didn't speak until about 12:30 p.m.
Crotty says his son was eager to meet the president. Tyler did get to shake hands with Bush for all of his trouble, but, Crotty reports, the scene had a "rock star atmosphere," with Bush high- and low-fiving many people, so Tyler did not get to speak with the man he had inadvertently upstaged.
Turns out that Tyler has a history of upstaging speakers.
Two years ago, he introduced his dad before his annual state-of-the-county speech. Tyler ended by jamming his fist up into the air, which earned him a standing ovation.
"Tyler's peppy introduction earned louder applause than most of what his father said," recalls Orlando Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell, who blew the lid off this week's story of the video kid's identity.
When asked how he landed the scoop, Maxwell told The TV Column, "We had some sources close to the Crottys who knew who the kid was and who thought it was too funny to keep to themselves." The elder Crotty, Maxwell says, "was anxious when I first talked to him; he was deadly serious about this, saying, 'I accept full responsibility; I should have prepared him better.'
"Maybe he thought the wrath of the Bushes was going to come down on him. . . . Then he started to loosen up."
"I think whatever problems the Bushes might have had with the [Crotty] son they got over with pretty quick as soon as Dad reached 'Pioneer status,' " Maxwell says. That's the hokey title given to anyone who raises more than $100,000 for the president's reelection effort.
"Crotty goes way back with the Bushes; he worked on the dad's campaign in the '80s," Maxwell says. And according to the Orange County government Web site, Richard Crotty was appointed county chairman by Gov. Jeb Bush in 2001.
Turns out Tyler may have been destined to become a late-night TV star, but he wasn't supposed to be standing right behind the president.
Crotty says he and Tyler were seated a dozen or so seats from the podium. But when event organizers discovered two no-shows in the row right behind Bush, the local party chairman took Tyler and they sat in the empty seats, Crotty said.
"They saw a cherubic-faced kid," Maxwell said.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
Dickens said the family has been swamped with requests to interview Tyler, but as of late yesterday, the plan was to do only Letterman's show.
Meanwhile, CNN apologized on the air to Letterman yesterday for having reported Tuesday that the White House said his videotape had been altered to put the boy right behind Bush.
That honor fell to Daryn Kagan, who first reported on CNN that the White House was calling the tape a fake; Kyra Phillips said something to the same effect later, only she said "We're told that" without citing any source. CNN retracted that report Tuesday night, but only after Letterman had shown the clip of Kagan telling viewers that the White House said the tape was doctored, and only after Letterman had called the White House a bunch of liars. Twice.
"It turns out, due to what we might say a misunderstanding among the folks who are usually so fantastic behind me here in the newsroom, it turns out that was not true," Kagan said yesterday. "The White House, it turns out, I guess never did call us about the tape. . . . And we've been looking through our tapes and apparently we now see no evidence that it was faked.
"So Dave, we apologize for the error. I hope that makes things good with us. If you need me to come up and do a stupid human trick or a stupid pet trick, I have that, too. But hopefully we're just okay. We apologize."
Last night, Letterman called it "a landmark day, because for the first time in 25 years of network television broadcasting, the first time ever since I've been doing this, someone has apologized to me."
Crotty senior, who says he got a big laugh out of the videotape, expects it to show up again when his son decides to get married and has his bachelor party.
Dickens says the Bush campaign was tickled about the whole thing: "We think it's all in good nature, very good-humored."
Letterman's not so sure.
"This whole thing just smells. Doesn't it smell a little bit?" Letterman asked his audience last night.
"I mean, it just seems all just a little too tidy, just a little too neat. And now, the guy, the kid in Florida -- and his old man -- was really upset in the beginning. . . . Well, now everybody down there loves it. Everybody couldn't be happier; everybody thought it was hilarious. So you see, it's just a little too tidy. Stuff like this never ends happily, certainly not happily for me. I was waiting for the lawsuit, I was waiting to be arrested, I was waiting to be beaten to a pulp, and now, oh . . . we couldn't be happier."
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