White House Press Secretary Lashes Out at Reporter: "There's a Difference Between Trashy Rumors and Journalism"
Scott McClellan finally lost it Friday, according to White House reporters. He doesn't see it that way.
The White House press secretary had kept his cool all week as reporters pounced on him about President George Bush's 1970s service in the National Guard. Facing perhaps his toughest week as press secretary, McClellan got testy Tuesday under questioning by CBS correspondent John Roberts during the televised briefing. He then blew up at old pro Helen Thomas during the private "gaggle" for reporters on Friday.
Thomas had gotten a tip that Bush might have been absent from duty in Alabama because he was performing court-ordered community service in Texas in 1972. She asked McClellan if that was accurate.
According to reporters in the press room, McClellan got red-faced and became so angry, it looked to some as if he were ready to pounce. He characterized the question as coming from "gutter politics."
Thomas, who has covered every president since Dwight Eisenhower and now writes a column for Hearst, was not fazed. "I think they are getting pretty nervous about this," she said Friday afternoon. "I've learned over the years that when you put out records, it often leads to more questions."
Some questions are out of bounds, McClellan told The Washingtonian: "Helen was asking about trashy rumors. There's a difference between trashy rumors and journalism. I will not dignify them from the podium."
And he says he'll try not to lose his cool. "I hope to keep a smile on my face," he said.
The confrontation created talk among White House correspondents as to whether McClellan could stand the pressure as it builds during the 2004 campaign season.
"Scott is trashing reporters for asking questions," says one veteran correspondent. "He's dissipating the goodwill he had for not being Ari Fleischer. He's proving to be as testy and disdainful as Ari."
The White House press-secretary job is one of the most contentious in politics. Every day its holder has to stand in front of hostile reporters and give them enough information without giving them too much. McClellan's job arguably is harder because the Bush White House has tried to control information and stay "on message" more than most administrations, according to veteran reporters.
"I think he's doing what they want him to do," says National Journal's Carl Cannon, president of the White House Correspondents' Association. "But no matter how much you want to stick to the party line, the job entails thinking on your feet. They don't want their guy thinking on his feet."
Says CBS correspondent Roberts: "We don't get our questions answered most of the time. He's toeing the party line quite ably."
McClellan was expected to be a kinder, smoother Ari Fleischer. Where Fleischer was a product of the capital and knew how to use back channels to help reporters at major papers, McClellan is part of Bush's Texas entourage, worked with the President when he was governor, and is not playing by Washington rules.
Fleischer put on a tough public face, reporters say, but was willing to deviate from "the message" in private. McClellan sticks to the message all the time.
"He has a long relationship with these folks," John Roberts says of McClellan and the Bush people. "He doesn't want to blow it."
In Friday afternoon's televised press conference, reporters pressed McClellan with questions about the coming presidential campaign. He parried each query by telling the reporter to ask Bush campaign officials.
There reporters will encounter press secretary Terry Holt, who has a reputation of sometimes being funny and being less tied to the inner circle. Then again, he has yet to be tested by a voracious press corps-and Helen Thomas.
-HARRY JAFFE