4
THE PRESIDENT AND HIS ENTOURAGE WERE standing in the anteroom located behind the White House Press Room. They could hear Ann Moncur explaining to the White House press corps that the president had a busy afternoon and would not be able to answer a lot of questions. Stevens was a little nervous. It had been almost four months since his last press conference. The honeymoon between him and the press had ended in the middle of his second year of office. During the first year and a half he could do no wrong. The press had backed him during the election, and he had in turn given them unprecedented access. The honeymoon soured when certain members of the press corps remembered that their job was to report the facts and keep the public informed. Several potential scandals were uncovered, but before they became full-blown stories, Stu Garret stepped in and put out the fires. Documents were shredded, people were paid to keep quiet or lie, and everything was emphatically denied and denounced as a ploy by the opposition to smear the president. When the scandals finally died, Garret laid out a new strategy for the president when it came to dealing with the press: act hurt, betrayed, and keep your distance. The president gladly complied with his chief of staff’s plan, and the new strategy had partially worked.
Some in the press were in awe of the
president and yearned for the relationship they had had with him
during his first year in office, but the hardened reporters saw
right through the scam. Too many documents had miraculously
disappeared, and too many sources had changed their story
overnight. The old guard of the press corps had been around too
long to be taken in by the feigned isolation of the president. They
were cynical, and to them, professional politicians did nothing
that wasn’t calculated. If the president was isolating himself from
the press, it wasn’t because his feelings were hurt. It was because
he had something to hide.
Garret had pulled the president away from
the rest of the group and was reminding him which reporters he
should steer clear of during the question-and-answer period. “Now,
Jim, don’t forget, no more than four questions, and whatever you
do, don’t recognize Ray Holtz from the
Post
and Shirley Thomas from
the Times.” The president nodded in agreement. Garret
grabbed him by the shoulder and started to lead him toward the stage.
“I’ll be right there if anyone backs you into a corner, and
remember, only four questions and then you have to go meet the new
premier of Ukraine. If they whine about how short it is, just smile
and tell them you’re sorry, but you’ve got a full calendar and
you’re already running behind.”
The president smiled at Garret. “Stu,
relax, I’ve done this before.”
Garret smiled back. “I know, that’s what
makes me nervous.”
Ann Moncur was still addressing the
gallery when she noticed the reporters look to her right. She
glanced over and saw the president standing in the tiny
doorway.
“Good afternoon, Mr. President. Are you
ready to take over?”
The president bounded up the two small
steps and walked toward the podium, extending his right hand.
“Thank you, Ann.” The two shook hands, and Moncur went to join Stu
Garret and Mark Dickson, who were standing against the wall. While
the president organized his notes, the photographers were busy
snapping shots. After a brief moment, he cleared his throat and
looked up from the podium. With a slight smile he greeted the press
corps, “Good afternoon.”
The press responded in kind, and the
president’s slight smile turned into a big one. Like most
politicians, Stevens knew how to work the crowd, and his most
successful tool of all was his larger-than-life smile. What most of
the people in the room didn’t know was that the smile had been
rehearsed. Few things in this administration happened by accident. Stu
Garret made sure of that. The smile had its desired effect, and the
majority of the people sitting in the gallery smiled back. The
president placed his thin, well-manicured hands on the edges of the
podium and cleared his throat again. “I have called this press
conference to announce a victory for the American people. During
the past week, this administration has battled partisan politics,
disinformation, gridlock, and a thirty-two-vote deficit to secure
the successful passage of my budget in the House of
Representatives. As of noon today, we have obtained two hundred
twenty votes, enough for a narrow margin of
victory.
“I would be remiss if I did not take this
opportunity to thank the esteemed Speaker of the House, Mr. Thomas
Basset, for all of the hard work he has done to ensure passage of
this budget. His hard work will help put us another step closer to
getting this country back on the road to a speedy economic
recovery.” The president glanced down at his watch, then brought
his gaze back to the reporters. “I’m sorry for being so brief, but
I have an extremely busy calendar today, and I’m already running an
hour behind. I have a couple of minutes to field a few brief
questions.”
Hands immediately shot up, and a dozen or
so reporters started to shout questions.
The president turned to his right and
looked for the familiar face of Jim Lester, the ABC White House
correspondent. Lester was sitting on the edge of his chair, right
hand raised, obediently waiting to be called on. Stevens pointed in
his direction and called his name. The rest of the reporters fell
silent as Lester rose from his chair.
“As of this morning, sir, it was reported
that you had secured approximately two hundred ten votes. How did
you pick up the remaining ten so quickly, and are any of those new
votes coming from congressmen who were previously committed to
voting against your budget?”
“Well . . . we picked up the ten so
quickly because there are a lot of people up on the Hill who know,
despite what the opposition has been saying, that this is a good
budget. There are a lot of people in this country who need the
relief this budget will provide, and there were several congressmen
who, after taking a more serious look at the budget, realized it
would be mean-spirited not to vote for it.” The president turned his head
away from Lester, and the hands shot up immediately. He rested his
gaze and forefinger on another friendly face, Lisa Williamson, the
White House correspondent for the Associated
Press.
“Mr. President, are you worried that with
such a narrow victory in the House, your budget will have a harder
time getting through the Senate, where the opposition holds a much
higher percentage of seats?”
Stevens wasted no time responding. The
question was anticipated and the answer prepared. “Not really. The
American people want this budget, and our senators know that. They
will do what is right and they will pass the budget.” Stevens
started to turn to find another reporter before he finished
answering the question.
More hands shot up, and this time the
president turned to find Mick Turner from
CNN.
“Mr. President, the successful passage of
this budget through the House will be a political home run for your
administration. How much do you think it will improve your position
when negotiating with the Japanese during next month’s trade
talks?”
“Well, the Japanese have a history of
walking away from these talks in a better position than when they
entered them. This is somewhat ironic when one considers the fact
that they have been running an ever-increasing trade surplus with
us for the last fifteen years. The trade deficit that we run with
them is hurting American labor. We are putting out high-quality
products and the Japanese refuse to open their markets. This trade
deficit is stifling our economy from reaching its full potential,
and most importantly, it is costing us American jobs. There is no
doubt that the passage of budget will be a signal to the Japanese
that we are finally ready to reverse a trend that previous
administrations let get so out of
control.
“I have time for one more
question.”
While Stevens was talking, his head
swiveled to take in the whole press gallery. He noticed a stunning
brunette sitting in the section usually reserved for foreign press.
He decided that since voters cared little about foreign affairs, he
would be safe calling on her. He pointed toward the back of the
room. “The young lady in the back row.” The president was expecting
to hear a foreign accent and was somewhat shocked when she stood
and spoke perfect English.
“Mr. President, Liz Scarlatti from
the Washington
Reader. Congressman Michael O’Rourke from Minnesota has said
that even though he thinks your budget is, quote, ‘stuffed with
more pork than a Jimmy Dean sausage,’ he would still be willing to
vote for it if you shut down the Rural Electrification
Administration, an agency that is estimated to cost the American
taxpayer five hundred to seven hundred million dollars a year. This
agency was founded in 1935 for the sole purpose of bringing
electricity to rural America. . . . My question is this: Mr.
President, I know that the leaders of our country are very busy,
but have you or anyone else in Washington noticed that all of rural
America has had electricity for over twenty years? And now that
you’ve been informed, what are you going to do to shut down this
wasteful program?”
Many of the reporters in the audience
started to chuckle.
With a forced smile, the president pulled
out his best, good-old-boy drawl. “Well, Ms. Scarlatti, first of
all, this budget is one of the leanest budgets that any president
in the last twenty years has sent to the Hill.” Eyes started to
roll in the audience. The cynical members of the press were getting
sick of hearing the factless rhetoric of the president. It was cute
for the first year, but they’d grown tired of it. “And second of
all, I have been trying to shut down the REA ever since I took
office, but the hard fact remains that if I killed the REA, my
budget would never make it out of
committee.”
Before the president could continue, the
fiery brunette shouted again from the back row. “Mr. President,
don’t you think it is a harsher fact of reality that your budget is
forecasting a one-hundred-billion-dollar deficit and you are still
funding federal agencies that are obsolete? Not to mention the fact
that you have done nothing to control the growth of Social Security
and Medicare!”
Stu Garret could see that the president
was in trouble, so he stepped forward and touched his elbow. The
president turned and Garret pointed to his watch. Stevens turned
back to the press and said, “People, I’m running very late. Let me
finish the young lady’s question and then I’m going to have to
leave. . . . This administration is very concerned about finding
and getting rid of government waste. Vice President Dumont is
heading up a task force right now that is vigorously searching for
ways to cut government waste. This has been a major priority of my
administration and will continue to be one. Thank you all very much
for your time and have a good day.” The president stepped back from
the podium and waved good-bye. Reporters continued to shout
questions as Stevens walked off the
stage.
Once backstage, Stu Garret grabbed him by
the arm and pulled him close. “What in the hell were you doing
calling on someone you didn’t know?”
“She was sitting in the foreign-press
section. I called on her because I thought she would ask me a
question on foreign affairs. Relax, Stu, I handled it
fine.”
Garret frowned deeply. “Foreign affairs,
my ass. You were thinking of another type of affair. You know which
reporters to call on if you want a question on foreign affairs.
That was stupid. From now on, stick with the
program!”