Duncan, if you have not read this week's Newsweek, I would suggest that you do so. While for some reason I could not find it online, there is quite an extensive article about all the people who have rallied around the president "until the last dog dies", and their varying motivations. I found it repulsively fascinating.
I would say that the last dog may have contracted rabies already, but then that would bring out a lot of foaming at the mouth jokes, and I don't think we want to go there!!
What is this thing with Mike McCurry, anyway? I have thought since the beginning of this scandal that he was one of the more decent, honorable (and probably monogamous) men around Clinton, and that he seemed a little agonized by the proceedings. Now I am very conflicted about whether his statements yesterday reflect his underlying integrity, or whether "telling the truth slowly?", as one of the networks titled their reporting of McCurry's comments, is just the strategy of the moment, and everything that he said was carefully planned and rehearsed. One of the things the Newsweek articles this week point out is that the White House is floating trial stories and theories to see whether any journalists bite, trying to see the way out of this. Of course, telling the truth, something we are all taught as youngsters, is not even in the equation.
McCurry Comments Spur
Speculation on Strategy
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 18, 1998; Page A08
White House press secretary Michael
McCurry has set off a heated round of debate
and speculation by saying there appears to be
no "simple, innocent explanation" of President
Clinton's relationship with Monica S.
Lewinsky and that it could turn out to be "a
very complicated story."
McCurry's comments to the Chicago Tribune,
published yesterday, are the strongest
indication to date that some White House
officials fear the details of Clinton's
involvement with the 24-year-old Lewinsky,
when they are made public, could prove troublesome for the president.
McCurry said that the nature of the relationship between Clinton and the
former White House intern could be difficult to explain to the American
people.
"Maybe there'll be a simple, innocent explanation," he told the Tribune's
Roger Simon late last week. "I don't think so, because I think we would
have offered that up already. . . . I think it's going to end up being a very
complicated story, as most human relationships are. And I don't think it's
going to be entirely easy to explain maybe."
McCurry said in an interview yesterday that he was not floating some sort
of trial balloon for new Clinton disclosures. "I goofed," he said. "This is me
running my mouth. . . . I wouldn't read any grand theory into this."
McCurry said he had "no way of knowing" what Clinton would eventually
say about the relationship, and "I should not imply that I do."
But other strategists in and around the White House see signs of a nascent
effort to immunize Clinton against embarrassing disclosures he may be
forced to make, even if he continues to insist the relationship with
Lewinsky was not sexual. These strategists have spoken to reporters,
without attribution, about the need for the president to formulate what one
called an "alternate story line" about the relationship.
"A lot of people close to the situation believe [Clinton] is going to have to
explain the nature of the relationship at some point to the American
people," said one friend of McCurry. "All Mike McCurry may be doing is
to prepare people for that eventuality. There are trial balloons being
floated."
As reporters repeatedly pressed McCurry at yesterday's daily briefing, the
normally sure-footed spokesman admitted he had screwed up, blaming it
on a "lapse in my sanity."
"I speculated about matters that I don't know anything about . . . I said
what I said. I just shouldn't have said it," McCurry explained.
While no other White House official has scolded him about the interview,
McCurry said, "I've put myself in my own doghouse. . . . Only fools
answer hypothetical questions."
McCurry has made clear over the past two weeks that he does not have
the facts about the Lewinsky matter and does not want them, lest he face
a subpoena from independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr. While standing
behind Clinton's denial that he had sexual relations with Lewinsky or urged
her to lie about it, McCurry has proclaimed from the podium that he is
"out of the loop" on the scandal.
At a Harvard University forum early last week, McCurry first suggested
that he was worried that Clinton's explanation could be damaging. "If it
turns out what the president has said has not been fair and square with the
American people, that has enormous implications," he said. But if it turns
out that much of what has been reported is untrue, he added, the damage
to the press "will be grievous."
McCurry told the Tribune, in initial comments published Friday, that he
believed Clinton's denials, but that "truth to the contrary would be very
troublesome to me, to the press and the American people."
One longtime McCurry associate, noting his use of the phrase "to me,"
said: "It was the first time I saw him laying the groundwork for a
resignation. That makes it personal, not analytical." But another White
House official strongly disputed this scenario, saying McCurry, who had
planned to leave the administration before the scandal erupted, now
intends to stay for the foreseeable future.
"No one has defended the president more loyally than Mike McCurry,"
said Lanny J. Davis, who stepped down last month as White House
special counsel. "Anyone who thinks these comments reflect an effort by
Mike to distance himself doesn't know what he's talking about."
The official White House position is that Clinton cannot say more about
his relationship with Lewinsky because of Starr's investigation. McCurry
invoked this line of reasoning in the Tribune interview, saying investigators
might bring "enormous pressure on people to say certain things" once
Clinton's version was made public.
But McCurry also said what no White House official has publicly
acknowledged so far: that Clinton's explanation could be "complicated,"
not "innocent," and therefore politically damaging. Some former White
House officials, such as Leon E. Panetta and George Stephanopoulos,
have said there must be more to the relationship than Clinton has admitted
so far and that he owes the public a fuller explanation.
The episode underscored the degree to which the Lewinsky controversy
is taking a toll on White House staff. As the one White House official who
faces the news media each day, McCurry has made clear the difficulty he
faces in defending his boss and deflecting critical questions without
knowing the facts. "In order to do my job and make it through the day,"
he told the Tribune, "I have to believe there is some kind of explanation
that is consistent with what the president has said so far. I can't believe
any other thing."
McCurry said the Lewinsky investigation was "a classic case" of his
mission of "telling the truth slowly," a phrase he has often invoked to
describe his job.
The interview also shed light on the president's reaction to the scandal.
"Clearly this is something that bothers him; it would be inhuman if it didn't
bother him, if he didn't show any reaction," McCurry said. "But he's got
enormous discipline, and he doesn't allow himself to divert. The last thing
you expect to see around here is Bill Clinton walking around the halls
talking to portraits."
McCurry was referring to a scene in the book "The Final Days," by Bob
Woodward and Carl Bernstein, in which President Richard M. Nixon was
described as walking the halls at night and talking to pictures of former
presidents.
The spokesman also took a swipe at the news media, saying that
reporters were "excited" and "thrilled" at the prospect of driving a
president from office.
c Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company
|
