Salvation Through Quotation
Dan Rostenkowski has been
making public appearances in Chicago, dining at his old haunts with politicians
like Dick Durbin, the Illinois senator, and meeting with potential clients of
his "consulting" business. Though he has yet to visit Washington since his
release from prison, he aspires to return to respectability in the city's eyes.
The strongest sign that he will accomplish this task was buried on Page A12 of
Monday's New York Times . In a story about who deserves credit for
balancing the budget, Rostenkowski was quoted as saying, "George Bush had as
much to do with reaching out to balance the budget as anybody I know. He
finally recognized that there would have to be revenue increases."
The
significance lies not in the substance of this quote but in the fact of it. For
Rostenkowski, who is referred to only as "the Illinois Democrat who headed the
Ways and Means Committee in 1990," being treated by the Times as an
authority on politics, rather than as a news story himself, marks a giant step.
Obligingly, the author of the article, Robert Pear, did not find it necessary
to remind readers that the former chairman is on parole after a stretch in
prison. Nor did he dwell on the irony that Rosty did his own modest part to
unbalance the budget by stealing $600,000 from the government, a crime for
which he has yet to voice any apology or regret. The Times simply
treated him as a thoughtful elder statesman.
Well-versed in the ways of Washington, Rostenkowski knows
that for someone in his position, quotation is more important than contrition.
It is a lesson he might have learned from Michael Deaver, Lyn Nofziger, Tony
Coelho, Elliott Abrams, or Bob Packwood. All these figures, brought down in
political scandals, have nonetheless managed to re-establish themselves as
players in Washington. The drill is fairly simple. First you resign, get thrown
out of office, and go to jail, community service, detox, or whatever. Then you
visit Quote Rehab, and come out as a Beltway citizen in good standing.
The fallen
politician and the reporter are engaged in a reciprocal stroke. For the
politician, being quoted means respect and acceptance. What ties you to the
Washington community--inside knowledge, social connections, the common
enterprise of governing--turns out to be stronger than what drove you away from
it--getting caught with your fingers in the till, committing perjury, or what
have you. For the reporter, a humbled politician is always great copy. Someone
who has been brought low by scandal will tend to be more daring in his
utterances, because he is trying to recover status rather than preserve it. He
has nowhere to go but up. The reporter is happy to help elevate him in exchange
for a good quip or even a few bland words.
The Betty Ford of Quote Rehab is Dick Morris.
In record time, Morris managed to change the story from what he did--whispering
secrets to a prostitute, etc., during the1996 campaign--to what he knows and
what he thinks. He has thrown himself at the feet of reporters as promiscuously
as he once threw himself at the feet of ... well, never mind. Morris has been
quite open about what he is trying to do. In September, he told Roll
Call : "I guess a lot of it is that I want people to see that I don't have
horns--even if I was horny." He has been remarkably successful. In most of the
stories that quote him as an expert, he is referred to simply as a former
Clinton adviser or a political consultant (with no mention of the fact that his
only known client is in Honduras). In a Times story about New York City
politics, Morris is described only as "the former White House political
consultant who has worked regularly over the last 25 years in New York
politics." In a Washington Post story about Madeleine Albright's good
relations with both parties, he is called "Dick Morris, a political consultant
to both Democrats and Republicans."
In these
stories, as in countless others, Morris serves reporters by playing what they
call a "trained seal"--a glib source who can be counted on to deliver an
apposite quote to substantiate the thesis of any story. In a Washington
Post story about how John Hilley, an administration official, was crucial
to the budget deal, Morris offers: "Without him, there never would have been a
budget deal. Literally." In an AP story about Al Gore's weaknesses as a
successor to Bill Clinton: "He does the steps, but he doesn't hear the music."
Part of Morris' appeal for journalists is that he is willing to teach it round
or teach it flat to suit the needs of their stories. He will defend Clinton as
a political genius and a man of integrity. But if the reporter wants him to say
that Clinton signaled Janet Reno not to appoint an independent counsel, as the
editors of National Review clearly did last April, he's happy to oblige.
"Definitely, I think that happened," he told them. In a New York Times
story about Clinton's disloyalty to subordinates, Morris offers: "There is a
certain empirical truth to what [James] McDougal is saying. Just look at the
carcasses." Never mind that Clinton was unaccountably loyal to Morris himself
after his self-induced downfall.
The point is not that disgraced politicians must be treated
as unquotable pariahs forever. But they should be used sparingly, and much more
skeptically, as a last recourse rather than a first. Rostenkowski is a proven
thief and liar. Morris' views are almost always totally worthless, because he
obviously will say anything, to anybody. Though he used to pride himself on
never being quoted in the press, he now scurries to return calls from the
St. Louis Post Dispatch and Investor's Business Daily . Morris
gets much more out of the transaction, in terms of selling copies of his book
and putting ignominy behind him, than the readers of the papers that quote him
do. I called him to ask about the phenomenon, but for once he didn't want to
play. It violated his policy, he said, of "not talking about the scandal or its
effects." He would be happy, however, to discuss politics or policy.
At the very least, a decent
interval and a reminder of what these folks did wrong would be appropriate. But
reporters might ask whether they need to quote them at all. One of the irksome
conventions of American journalism is the pretense of superneutrality: A
knowledgeable and reliable reporter is not allowed to make even obvious or
uncontroversial points directly. If you're going to say the sky is blue, you'd
better find a meteorologist to say it for you. Most of the time, this is merely
inefficient, a waste of time and newsprint. In the case of Quote Rehab,
however, the trustworthy reporter puts his own observations in the mouth of
someone far less credible. Dan Rostenkowski and Dick Morris end up speaking for
the New York Times .
