Source Code: The New Republic
The New Republic Online
WHITE HOUSE WATCH
Source Code
by Ryan Lizza
Post date: 08.06.05
Issue date: 08.15.05
Hours before President Bush announced his Supreme Court nominee, a White House reporter from a major daily newspaper was on the phone with one of "the four horsemen." The horsemen--former White House Counsel C. Boyden Gray, Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese, Federalist Society pooh-bah Leonard Leo, and Jay Sekulow, best known as Washington's most prominent Jew for Jesus--had earned their nickname because they were the four outsiders who worked most closely with the White House on the Supreme Court nomination. If anyone knew who Bush was about to pick, it would be one of them.
The reporter declined to identify which horseman he spoke with, but the source confidently provided the scribe with what seemed like confirmation of the scoop of the day--that Bush's choice was Edith Brown Clement. "He was talking about the pros and cons of Clement, and why it was such a brilliant pick," says the reporter.
Elsewhere in Washington, other "sources close to the White House" were also fanning the Clement flames. Up on the Hill, Senator John Cornyn, another self-styled Bush adviser wired into the White House, e-mailed reporters an embargoed statement praising Clement as an inspired choice.
The horsemen and Cornyn were obviously wrong about Clement, but the episode underscores how much reporters now rely on GOP operatives outside the White House to tell them what's going on inside of it. These sources and their ilk fed the frenzied, daylong speculation that Bush would pick Clement, and they now shape the coverage of every major White House story. Whether they are called "sources close to the White House" or "Bush advisers" or "GOP strategists familiar with White House thinking," their role in Washington is the same. They act as an essential lubricant in the daily clash between the White House and its press corps.
This is partly the White House's own fault. The Bush administration has promoted an explosion in the use of "sources close to the White House"--or scttwh. The phrase shows up in news databases more times for Bush's four and a half years than it does for the eight years of the Clinton presidency. This White House's stinginess with information has sent reporters scurrying to find knowledgeable outsiders, even if those sources don't always know what they're talking about. "They fill a vacuum," says Richard Wolffe, who covers the White House for Newsweek.
As a service to readers, and in an effort to demystify the anonymous source phenomenon, I asked 15 of the finest Bush White House reporters to help assemble a guide to the secret society of sources close to the White House. Despite the swelling ranks of scttwh, interviews revealed that there is indeed a core membership that might be called the Usual Suspects: a cadre of lobbyists, congressmen, ex-officials, and other hangers-on who seem to be programmed into every cell phone on the White House beat.
For reporters, they represent Washington's shadow White House, a place filled with slightly more accessible sources armed with dramatically less knowledge.
The Übersource
The first name to come rolling off the tongues of reporters when it comes to scttwh is Ed Gillespie. "He is the top guy I would put on that list," says a newspaper correspondent. Gillespie is Washington's omnipresent GOP operative. His core business is his multimillion-dollar lobbying firm, Quinn Gillespie, but he spins through the revolving door between the Bush world and K Street at a dizzying rate. Over the last few years, his lobbying career has been interrupted by stints on Bush's first campaign, as party chair, and, most recently, as a strategist working out of the West Wing on the John Roberts nomination.
Almost everyone agrees that, if the veil of anonymity were magically lifted from all White House coverage, Gillespie would be the single most frequently cited source close to the White House or a Bush adviser. He is a rare creature in Bush's Washington, someone genuinely close to the key players in the White House, as well as someone who talks regularly and semi-candidly with the press.
Notably, Gillespie's replacement as party chair, Ken Mehlman, is also a frequent nominee, although, having been raised in the hierarchical Rove machine rather than the more entrepreneurial Beltway culture that spawned Gillespie, Mehlman is regarded as more journalistically useless. Still, White House reporters say he is a top scttwh.
The Troika
Nipping at Gillespie's heels for scttwh dominance are three Republican lobbyists: Charles Black, Ken Duberstein, and Vin Weber. Black, chairman of the lobbying firm bksh and co-chairman of Civitas Group, which helps corporations extract homeland security dollars from Uncle Sam, is a pioneer in his field. He was a senior adviser to both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, but, more importantly, he is credited with destroying the stigma once attached to public servants who shift back and forth between politics and lobbying, clearing the path for the Ed Gillespies of today. When he is named, Black is alternatively described as "close to the Bush family," "an informal adviser to Bush," "a Republican strategist with close ties to the White House," and "a longtime Cheney friend." He has gained a reputation among some reporters as one of the few genuine scttwh willing to dollop out the occasional criticism.
Others disagree. "Black touches more bases than Duberstein does, but he's also singing from the choir book," says a White House wire reporter. Duberstein, Ronald Reagan's chief of staff and a regular scttwh in daily Bush coverage, is seen as less knowledgeable about the White House's inner workings, but quick with a quote. "He's perfect for attributing something that you already know," says one political reporter. "But, on the other hand, if Ken Duberstein told me Edith Clement was the choice, I would never go with it."
The final member of the troika is Vin Weber, who served a six-term stint in the House before launching his career as a lobbyist. Discreet and influential, he is the source close to the White House whom reporters are most likely to call for an outside perspective on how Bush's legislative agenda is faring. "He has a good sense of what the market will bear there," says a White House reporter, "a good sense of when the administration is pushing the Hill too far on an issue."
Hill Dwellers
White House correspondents recently suffered a devastating loss. Representative Rob Portman was sworn in as the U.S. trade representative in May. Reporters agree that Portman was the most helpful scttwh in Congress. "Portman was as close as anyone else on the Hill to the White House," confirms one correspondent. Adds another, "Portman was the classic example" of a scttwh. With ties to several Bush aides that go back to his own days as a staffer in the first Bush administration--and a penchant for returning calls and speaking honestly to reporters--he was the king of the Hill for White House scribes.
A small sample of reporters nominate Cornyn as a replacement. "He's often at the White House and will often tell you he was there," explains a newspaper reporter. But that press release on Clement has severely damaged Cornyn's reputation as a budding scttwh. "He was duped," says the reporter. Adds another, "It's the perfect example of how he's close to the White House but not in the loop."
With Cornyn on the sidelines, there is no other member that has risen to the level of Usual Suspect. "It's not the leadership. It's not Hastert and DeLay," says a longtime White House reporter. "And Frist and his staff are much more yoked to the White House. They are more taking orders." The lack of a real Hill scttwh underscores the fact that Bush--unlike his father, who was famously chummy with members--is in fact not close to anyone on the Hill, as well as the fact that his White House has never made cultivating members a priority. "Does Bush have any genuine friends in the Congress?" asks Ed Chen, who covers the White House for the Los Angeles Times. "I'm not sure he does."
Ex-Bush Spokesbots
The second Bush term has contributed to a rise in former officials dotting the Washington landscape, and reporters are lassoing them as they exit the White House. The same list of people is mentioned by numerous reporters and consists largely of former communications operatives who continue to talk to the press after they leave the campaign or the White House. Opinions about the value of each varies widely. At the top of the list are two former Bush campaign operatives: strategist Matthew Dowd and ad-maker Mark McKinnon. Dowd is generally seen as the more wired scttwh, his line to Karl Rove during the campaign having earned him a unique cachet. "Last year, Dowd was probably talking to Karl 17 times a day," says a reporter. But the fact that McKinnon exercises with the president is noted by several reporters, though critics dismiss the mountain-bike connection, claiming, "The circle has gotten big enough that [McKinnon] seems less plugged in."
Also in the top tier of former Bush officials likely to show up anonymously in your morning paper is Mary Matalin, who left her perch as a chief aide to Dick Cheney in December 2002. She receives fairly warm reviews from several reporters. Says a newsweekly correspondent, "She still talks. She is still very much on the circuit." A daily scribe adds, "Matalin is actually a really good one. She's a little more able to talk now that she doesn't work there. Still spewing the company line, but somewhat helpful." Such are the scraps that White House reporters have been reduced to coveting.
A click below these big names is Stuart Stevens, a former Bush ad-maker who is well-liked by the press and therefore suspect to Bush aides. "He is much more likely to say something zesty, although that is one of the reasons he is not in the inner, inner loop," explains a White House reporter.
Finally, there is a small faction of minor league ex-staffers who might sometimes claim to be close to the White House but who really aren't. "These are people who have to dine out for months on a single phone call. They are not in the real loop, but they once were," says the same reporter. In this group, White House reporters place former press aide Adam Levine, onetime Bush campaign spokesman Terry Holt, and former Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer. Shockingly, not a single reporter interviewed believes Fleischer is a true scttwh. Asked if Fleischer should be on the list of Usual Suspects, Chen simply responds, "No." A wire reporter adds, "If he knows stuff, it's because he asks, not because he's told. He's not in the inner circle and never was."
The longer Bush is in office, the more sources close to the White House there seem to be. The culture of fear that the Bushies have instilled in Republicans who speak ill of the administration--or who speak candidly--has forced more of them to hide behind veils of vague attribution. In fact, the epidemic has now migrated into the White House itself. At least one reporter recently granted a White House official the cover of a scttwh. Reporters say that this practice of officials inside the White House trying to disguise themselves as outsiders is becoming more common. Which means there's a whole new category of sources close to the White House: liars.
Ryan Lizza is a senior editor at TNR.
Copyright 2005, The New Republic
Link to Article Source
WHITE HOUSE WATCH
Source Code
by Ryan Lizza
Post date: 08.06.05
Issue date: 08.15.05
Hours before President Bush announced his Supreme Court nominee, a White House reporter from a major daily newspaper was on the phone with one of "the four horsemen." The horsemen--former White House Counsel C. Boyden Gray, Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese, Federalist Society pooh-bah Leonard Leo, and Jay Sekulow, best known as Washington's most prominent Jew for Jesus--had earned their nickname because they were the four outsiders who worked most closely with the White House on the Supreme Court nomination. If anyone knew who Bush was about to pick, it would be one of them.
The reporter declined to identify which horseman he spoke with, but the source confidently provided the scribe with what seemed like confirmation of the scoop of the day--that Bush's choice was Edith Brown Clement. "He was talking about the pros and cons of Clement, and why it was such a brilliant pick," says the reporter.
Elsewhere in Washington, other "sources close to the White House" were also fanning the Clement flames. Up on the Hill, Senator John Cornyn, another self-styled Bush adviser wired into the White House, e-mailed reporters an embargoed statement praising Clement as an inspired choice.
The horsemen and Cornyn were obviously wrong about Clement, but the episode underscores how much reporters now rely on GOP operatives outside the White House to tell them what's going on inside of it. These sources and their ilk fed the frenzied, daylong speculation that Bush would pick Clement, and they now shape the coverage of every major White House story. Whether they are called "sources close to the White House" or "Bush advisers" or "GOP strategists familiar with White House thinking," their role in Washington is the same. They act as an essential lubricant in the daily clash between the White House and its press corps.
This is partly the White House's own fault. The Bush administration has promoted an explosion in the use of "sources close to the White House"--or scttwh. The phrase shows up in news databases more times for Bush's four and a half years than it does for the eight years of the Clinton presidency. This White House's stinginess with information has sent reporters scurrying to find knowledgeable outsiders, even if those sources don't always know what they're talking about. "They fill a vacuum," says Richard Wolffe, who covers the White House for Newsweek.
As a service to readers, and in an effort to demystify the anonymous source phenomenon, I asked 15 of the finest Bush White House reporters to help assemble a guide to the secret society of sources close to the White House. Despite the swelling ranks of scttwh, interviews revealed that there is indeed a core membership that might be called the Usual Suspects: a cadre of lobbyists, congressmen, ex-officials, and other hangers-on who seem to be programmed into every cell phone on the White House beat.
For reporters, they represent Washington's shadow White House, a place filled with slightly more accessible sources armed with dramatically less knowledge.
The Übersource
The first name to come rolling off the tongues of reporters when it comes to scttwh is Ed Gillespie. "He is the top guy I would put on that list," says a newspaper correspondent. Gillespie is Washington's omnipresent GOP operative. His core business is his multimillion-dollar lobbying firm, Quinn Gillespie, but he spins through the revolving door between the Bush world and K Street at a dizzying rate. Over the last few years, his lobbying career has been interrupted by stints on Bush's first campaign, as party chair, and, most recently, as a strategist working out of the West Wing on the John Roberts nomination.
Almost everyone agrees that, if the veil of anonymity were magically lifted from all White House coverage, Gillespie would be the single most frequently cited source close to the White House or a Bush adviser. He is a rare creature in Bush's Washington, someone genuinely close to the key players in the White House, as well as someone who talks regularly and semi-candidly with the press.
Notably, Gillespie's replacement as party chair, Ken Mehlman, is also a frequent nominee, although, having been raised in the hierarchical Rove machine rather than the more entrepreneurial Beltway culture that spawned Gillespie, Mehlman is regarded as more journalistically useless. Still, White House reporters say he is a top scttwh.
The Troika
Nipping at Gillespie's heels for scttwh dominance are three Republican lobbyists: Charles Black, Ken Duberstein, and Vin Weber. Black, chairman of the lobbying firm bksh and co-chairman of Civitas Group, which helps corporations extract homeland security dollars from Uncle Sam, is a pioneer in his field. He was a senior adviser to both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, but, more importantly, he is credited with destroying the stigma once attached to public servants who shift back and forth between politics and lobbying, clearing the path for the Ed Gillespies of today. When he is named, Black is alternatively described as "close to the Bush family," "an informal adviser to Bush," "a Republican strategist with close ties to the White House," and "a longtime Cheney friend." He has gained a reputation among some reporters as one of the few genuine scttwh willing to dollop out the occasional criticism.
Others disagree. "Black touches more bases than Duberstein does, but he's also singing from the choir book," says a White House wire reporter. Duberstein, Ronald Reagan's chief of staff and a regular scttwh in daily Bush coverage, is seen as less knowledgeable about the White House's inner workings, but quick with a quote. "He's perfect for attributing something that you already know," says one political reporter. "But, on the other hand, if Ken Duberstein told me Edith Clement was the choice, I would never go with it."
The final member of the troika is Vin Weber, who served a six-term stint in the House before launching his career as a lobbyist. Discreet and influential, he is the source close to the White House whom reporters are most likely to call for an outside perspective on how Bush's legislative agenda is faring. "He has a good sense of what the market will bear there," says a White House reporter, "a good sense of when the administration is pushing the Hill too far on an issue."
Hill Dwellers
White House correspondents recently suffered a devastating loss. Representative Rob Portman was sworn in as the U.S. trade representative in May. Reporters agree that Portman was the most helpful scttwh in Congress. "Portman was as close as anyone else on the Hill to the White House," confirms one correspondent. Adds another, "Portman was the classic example" of a scttwh. With ties to several Bush aides that go back to his own days as a staffer in the first Bush administration--and a penchant for returning calls and speaking honestly to reporters--he was the king of the Hill for White House scribes.
A small sample of reporters nominate Cornyn as a replacement. "He's often at the White House and will often tell you he was there," explains a newspaper reporter. But that press release on Clement has severely damaged Cornyn's reputation as a budding scttwh. "He was duped," says the reporter. Adds another, "It's the perfect example of how he's close to the White House but not in the loop."
With Cornyn on the sidelines, there is no other member that has risen to the level of Usual Suspect. "It's not the leadership. It's not Hastert and DeLay," says a longtime White House reporter. "And Frist and his staff are much more yoked to the White House. They are more taking orders." The lack of a real Hill scttwh underscores the fact that Bush--unlike his father, who was famously chummy with members--is in fact not close to anyone on the Hill, as well as the fact that his White House has never made cultivating members a priority. "Does Bush have any genuine friends in the Congress?" asks Ed Chen, who covers the White House for the Los Angeles Times. "I'm not sure he does."
Ex-Bush Spokesbots
The second Bush term has contributed to a rise in former officials dotting the Washington landscape, and reporters are lassoing them as they exit the White House. The same list of people is mentioned by numerous reporters and consists largely of former communications operatives who continue to talk to the press after they leave the campaign or the White House. Opinions about the value of each varies widely. At the top of the list are two former Bush campaign operatives: strategist Matthew Dowd and ad-maker Mark McKinnon. Dowd is generally seen as the more wired scttwh, his line to Karl Rove during the campaign having earned him a unique cachet. "Last year, Dowd was probably talking to Karl 17 times a day," says a reporter. But the fact that McKinnon exercises with the president is noted by several reporters, though critics dismiss the mountain-bike connection, claiming, "The circle has gotten big enough that [McKinnon] seems less plugged in."
Also in the top tier of former Bush officials likely to show up anonymously in your morning paper is Mary Matalin, who left her perch as a chief aide to Dick Cheney in December 2002. She receives fairly warm reviews from several reporters. Says a newsweekly correspondent, "She still talks. She is still very much on the circuit." A daily scribe adds, "Matalin is actually a really good one. She's a little more able to talk now that she doesn't work there. Still spewing the company line, but somewhat helpful." Such are the scraps that White House reporters have been reduced to coveting.
A click below these big names is Stuart Stevens, a former Bush ad-maker who is well-liked by the press and therefore suspect to Bush aides. "He is much more likely to say something zesty, although that is one of the reasons he is not in the inner, inner loop," explains a White House reporter.
Finally, there is a small faction of minor league ex-staffers who might sometimes claim to be close to the White House but who really aren't. "These are people who have to dine out for months on a single phone call. They are not in the real loop, but they once were," says the same reporter. In this group, White House reporters place former press aide Adam Levine, onetime Bush campaign spokesman Terry Holt, and former Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer. Shockingly, not a single reporter interviewed believes Fleischer is a true scttwh. Asked if Fleischer should be on the list of Usual Suspects, Chen simply responds, "No." A wire reporter adds, "If he knows stuff, it's because he asks, not because he's told. He's not in the inner circle and never was."
The longer Bush is in office, the more sources close to the White House there seem to be. The culture of fear that the Bushies have instilled in Republicans who speak ill of the administration--or who speak candidly--has forced more of them to hide behind veils of vague attribution. In fact, the epidemic has now migrated into the White House itself. At least one reporter recently granted a White House official the cover of a scttwh. Reporters say that this practice of officials inside the White House trying to disguise themselves as outsiders is becoming more common. Which means there's a whole new category of sources close to the White House: liars.
Ryan Lizza is a senior editor at TNR.
Copyright 2005, The New Republic
Link to Article Source
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, August 09, 2005 at 12:58.
