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As I sat in the White House briefing room, and heard reporters declaring their love for Molly Ivins and questioning the honesty of President Bush even in first week after September 11, I thought Ari's job was one I would never want to have. Let's break down just the briefing to its rudiments: 1. As the voice for the federal government, you must be prepared to answer questions on everything from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to anthrax to the latest scuffles in Kashmir. To amuse a group of journalism students last year, I tried to play Fleischer and let them ask me questions. It didn't take long for me to crumble. Must...know...everything. Now add to this barge-load of government details the fact that the news is constantly in flux, and you're supposed to keep on top of all of it. Oh, and unlike the vast majority of past White House press secretaries, you must do this live on three cable news channels. 2. As the voice for the conservative government in a liberal-dominated briefing room, you have to be prepared not just to handle the spotlight-hogging rhetorical assault by Helen Thomas. You have to swim calmly around the sharks when they see blood in the water and say no, that's an unfortunate spill of Cherry Kool-Aid. On January 10, 2002, when two Cabinet secretaries admitted they were approached by Ken Lay to help Enron with its credit ratings. Fleischer endured 53 Enron questions in 30 minutes, calmly dodging fastballs. (This rule did not apply to a Democratic press secretary like Mike McCurry, who could proclaim a policy of intentionally learning nothing about impeachable offenses so no one would expect him to answer a question with any authority, and the briefing room crowd seemed fine with that.) 3. Through these tasks, you have to keep your cool, betraying neither anger nor anxiety. You are there to hand out only the assigned cup or teaspoon of information the White House wants released, and no more. It's not easy being boring for three years straight, but it's essential to managing an unmanageable press. This was the area where you most had to admire Ari's skills. How many times did regular Joes want to tell Helen Thomas to go jump in a vat of hummus? He did eventually realize that he could rib Helen, saying after the 2002 elections "you sound like a commercial that didn't work." Even Helen gives Ari high marks for calm: "On the whole, Fleischer was fairly unflappable as he went about his task of defending the president, explaining away administration goofs and striving to put a positive spin on every news development. His style in the White House briefing rooms reminded me of a patient school teacher who always tried to stay in full control of the classroom of unruly correspondents." By contrast, the gaffes listed as Fleischer's contributions to historical memory are lame and eminently forgettable. For example, when then-ABC star Bill Maher proclaimed that the World Trade Center bombers weren't "cowards," unlike our military pilots in the Balkans, Fleischer was asked by Baltimore gadfly Les Kinsolving what it all meant: "They're reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do." It was widely misinterpreted as an attack on "dissent," or "free speech." But the remark alienated viewers en masse and insured the end of Maher's ABC tenure, so obviously Maher should have watched what he said. The oddest gaffe occurred in a discussion of Bill Clinton's desperate attempts to force Ehud Barak into a massive combo plate of concessions to the Palestinians, when Fleischer said: "Actually, I think if you go back to when the violence began, you can make the case that an attempt to shoot the moon and get nothing, more violence resulted." This was odd because it violated one of Rove's Rules of Order: Thou Shalt Never Criticize the Clintons. Rove knows the media still carry pitter-pattering hearts for them and that by failing to comment on them, it made Bush seem less partisan, above the passion of the previous era's fray — and perhaps even suggested that to demote the Clintons in history into Mr. and Mrs. Millard Fillmore, you have to stop talking about them as if they mattered. As Campaign 2004 starts to kick into gear, Scott McClellan has a tough act to follow. He seems to have built good relationships not only with the Bush team, but with the top dogs of the press corps. But the ride is going to get bumpy, and matching Ari's lullaby of dullness is not going to be easy. — Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center. He was White House correspondent for World magazine during 2001 and 2002. |
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oday
is Ari Fleischer's last day as the White House press secretary. After
watching him in action for years briefing a White House press corps that
is both very hungry for any new information and as a whole, instinctively
opposed to the administration's generally conservative thrust (meaning
new and damaging information is the best scoop), it would be appropriate
to joke that now he can try a less stressful job, like deactivating mines.
