Spinning Class

White House press corps is a pack of Pavlovian dogs

by Alan Bisbort

Source: Hartford Advocate, September 16, 2004.

When Ari Fleischer left the White House as press secretary in July 2003, a collective sigh of relief was heard inside the Beltway. Fleischer was the grand master of spin, weaving elegant semantical tapestries out of the flimsiest material. Members of the White House press corps knew they were being lied to but they were never sure how or where. Fleischer reached virtuosic levels during the "yellow cake" discussions (e.g. "My statement was based on the predicate of the yellow cake from Niger. So given the fact that the report on the yellow cake did not turn out to be accurate, that is reflective of my broader statement. So, yes, the broader statement was based and predicated on the yellow cake from Niger ...").

The daily strain of maintaining his low standard took its toll on Fleischer, especially as it became clear the WMD claims were lies, a blatant pretext for a preemptive war that increased the threat of terrorism, compromised homeland security and, in effect, aided al-Qaida. Even Fleischer couldn't spin that away.

Enter Scott McClellan. Like stray dogs at the pound, members of the press corps bayed pitifully for their new master to stroke their necks, toss them treats, put them on leashes and walk them around the block. But Scotty took a different tact: he was openly hostile. After whimpering a bit, the press corps went dutifully into a corner, rolled over, put their feet in the air. The only member not cowed was 83-year-old Helen Thomas, the only person in the room with a spine. She could not be ignored forever. Scotty had no choice but to call on her. The transcripts of Scotty's and Helen's various contretemps are worthy of Edward Albee or David Mamet ("That's not what I asked you ...," "Next question," "Aren't you going to answer my question? What are you afraid of?," etc.).

Along comes Dan Bartlett, now sharing duties with McClellan. Splitting the difference between Fleischer and McClellan, Bartlett is neither as crafty as the former or supercilious as the latter. Nonetheless, you have to hand it to the guy for gall. This past week, for example, was not a good one for his boss. CBS News got hold of some of the Commander in Chief's previously hidden military records. The facts show that Lt. Bush was grounded for "failure to perform." Even the normally compliant AP reported, "Newly unearthed memos state that George W. Bush failed to meet standards of the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam war, that he refused a direct order and that his superiors were in a state of turmoil over how to evaluate his performance after he was suspended from flying."

A memo by Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, Bush's commander, read: "I ordered that 1st Lt. Bush be suspended from flight status due to failure to perform to [US Air Force/Texas Air National Guard] standards and failure to meet annual physical examination (flight) as ordered."

That's a tough one to spin. Bush screwed up, then disobeyed a direct order and offered no suitable explanation for doing so. Bartlett was not daunted. He played on the fact that Killian is dead. He told CBS: "For anybody to try to interpret or presume they know what somebody who is now dead was thinking in any of these memos, I think is very difficult to do."

No one was, of course, presuming anything about what Col. Killian was thinking. His memo states explicitly what was on his mind. But the story got worse. The records also indicated that Bush left his post and did not notify his superiors where he was going (to any soldier other than a Bush, this is "absent without leave" and, during wartime, it's "desertion"). Turns out he'd flown off to Harvard Business School.

Bartlett again: "So he went to school. The Guard knew, at federal, state, and local level, where he was ... There was no reason for President Bush to take a flight exam if he wasn't going to be flying."

Bartlett kept spinning his landing gear: "The fact of the matter is, is that just because they weren't flying the F-102 anymore doesn't mean they were not flying a new, modern aircraft. The point was, is that it didn't make sense for the Texas Air National Guard to train President Bush in a new aircraft at the end, toward the end of his service."

"The fact of the matter" is Bartlett lied. As Eschaton, one of the more tenacious weblogs out there, points out, the guard continued to fly the F-102, the plane on which Bush was trained, until 1975. Calling Lt. Fleischer! Report for duty!

© 1995-2004 New Mass Media
reprinted from The Hartford Advocate