All the Presidents' Pets

by Mo Rocca

  “His name is Ernst Gephardtzenhopf,” said Candy. “We call him Gephardt. Gephardt the Albino.”

  It wasn’t just Gephardt the Albino’s milk-white skin and hair or his pink eyes that struck me. He was tall and hulking, looming over the three other aides. His mien was profoundly serious, no, make that angry. He was, in a word, terrifying. He gave the room a once-over, pausing ever so slightly when he came to me. After registering my presence he settled into his seat.

  I couldn’t help but notice an unnatural bunching around his right upper arm, just below the shoulder. What did he have tied up there? I wondered.

  Scott walked up to the podium and began listlessly reading his statement: “The President is currently reviewing troop movements in Sri Lanka and renewed tensions in the Golan Heights. The President and First Lady regret the passing of R&B legend Shirley Horn. The President will continue to press for a reduction in capital gains for our nation’s seniors.” No one bothered to write anything down. “Any questions?”

  A gasp came from the back corner. Everyone turned and saw a red-faced Joe Klein (Time magazine) pulling away from Andrea Mitchell’s grasp. Scott raised an eyebrow: “The President would like to advise the chairman of the Fed to spend less time watching the markets and more time watching his wife.” Everyone laughed.

  “Jesus, she’s horny,” said Candy, loudly enough for everyone to hear. “Looks like the only thing goin’ up with Greenspan these days is interest rates.” Candy raised her hand behind her, and Jim Angle, on cue, gave her five up top. This was a tough crowd.

  After a few halfhearted questions about the President’s forthcoming appearance on The Tonight Show—“Is the President afraid of getting ‘Jay-walked’?”—Helen raised her hand. With the biggest sneer he could muster, Scott called on her: “Yes, Helen?”

  “Why has the President refused to demand an explanation for Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf’s acquiescence to continued incursions by Pakistani militants into Indian-controlled Kashmir?”

  “Loser,” coughed NPR’s Nina Totenberg under her breath. Kate Snow cackled when David Gregory mimicked Helen from behind her.

  Dana Milbank couldn’t resist: “Excuse me, ma’am, can I get your autograph? My grandmother loved you on Murder, She Wrote.”

  Scott took a deep breath: “Well, Helen,” he began as if he were speaking to a learning-disabled child, “the President doesn’t condone such attacks. But, Helen, the President enjoys a close relationship with President Musharraf. So, Helen, the American people can rest assured that the American President will be very honest, Helen, with the Pakistani leader if warranted. Okay, Helen?”

  Helen, unafraid, looked Scott right in the eye. “That’s not okay, Scott. I need you to answer my question.” But Helen’s efforts to press her question were met by hisses from her fellow reporters.

  “Hello-o? Please shut u-up,” said Norah O’Donnell. A few reporters seconded her. Others laughed. Bill Moyers flung a Cheeto at her.

  Even the New York Times’s germ warfare expert Judith Miller joined in: “Looks like we found our WMD—Woman of Massive Dementia!”

  Helen pressed on. “If the American people are going to commit their sons and daughters to fighting terrorism, but a so-called partner in the fight continues—”

  “This is really getting old, Helen. Your insubordination has been well noted by this White House.” Scott scowled, then looked around for the next questioner. His face suddenly lit up. “Yes, Laurie!”

  Like an A student getting ready to deliver an A+ report, Laurie flipped her hair back, cleared her throat, and referred to her notes. “Mr. Secretary, the public has been made aware that yesterday Barney had tummy problems. Mr. Secretary, America wants to know: did he do a nice poopie today?”

  It was hard to believe that that question had just been asked in the White House Briefing Room. It seemed a violation of decorum and I was deeply embarrassed for Laurie. But rather than snickers and jeers, the only sounds were deeply concerned oohs and aahs.

  Scott became very solemn. “Laurie, the First Family appreciates America’s warm thoughts and prayers for Barney. Yesterday the First Dog indeed felt terrible. After an initial consultation, the White House vet wasn’t sure what would happen. Barney was subsequently sent to Walter Reed Medical Center. As of this morning Barney’s prognosis was unclear . . .”

  Kate Snow gasped, both hands to her mouth. The suspense was too much for her. Gil, the reporter from Agence France-Presse, wasn’t sure what was happening but he put his arm around Kate to comfort her. A tear came to the eye of the NASCAR Dads Daily correspondent. (He had a permanent seat in the Briefing Room.) The news must have been killing Laurie, but she kept her cool.

  Scott continued. “I can now announce that Barney is, after a brief scare”—and a big grin came over his face—“back to normal.”

  The pressroom broke into applause. Kate threw her arms around Gil, who bellowed “Vive le chien!” Everyone laughed, overjoyed. Laurie, a consummate pro, kept back the tears but couldn’t hold back her thousand-watt smile.

  “Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Thank you very much.”

  “My pleasure, Laurie. Thank you for restoring dignity to today’s gaggle. As for everyone else, please remember that everything I said today, have said in the past, or will say in the future is, of course, off the record. Now if there are no further questions, let’s adjourn this—”

  “No, I have a question.” Everyone had begun packing up, so I had to speak up loudly enough to be heard over the din. I was surprised that a poop should warrant so much attention from America’s top reporters, but right now I had to focus on making a good first impression. I needed to ask something, if only to register my presence. Scott gave me an impatient look. I froze.

  Candy nudged me. “Come on, big boy. Time to get it up.”

  I swallowed hard and dove right in. “Well,” I began. “It seems to me, I mean, it seems to many that the President’s strategy—or should I say, several leading historians—that’s right, several historians have recently suggested that the President’s initial congressionalist approach to economic policy, strikingly similar to President McKinley’s, has been largely re-formed due to the lingering economic troubles, so that what we see now is something much more activist, even Rooseveltian—fitting perhaps”—and here’s where I tied it all together—“when you consider that both this President and FDR had Scotties.”

  The silence was almost soothing, meditative. If it had gone on forever it might have seemed like the nirvana Buddhists pray for, an emancipation from worldly evils, a final absorption into the divine. But it was a state of nothing, a vacuum that needed to be filled. And ridicule and contempt poured in from every corner. First Scott’s laugh, then Terry Moran’s, then John Roberts’s. Kate Snow just pointed at me, laughing so hard her knees buckled.

  Scott wiped the tears from his eyes, that’s how hard he was laughing. “I’m sorry, but aren’t you the guy who wears the mustache on . . . MSNBC?!”

  “It’s Traficant’s bitch!” yelled the NewsHour’s Elizabeth Farnsworth.

  Candy put her arm around me. “You poor knucklehead.”

  Scott calmed everyone down and managed to stop smiling. “To answer your question, Maurice,” he chuckled, “let me say, for the record, that the President had no intention of ever adopting McKinley’s economic model.” And then the demonic grin crept back. “He’s always been more of a John Tyler type of guy!”

  The pressroom was roaring now.

  “But that’s not possible,” shouted David Gregory, always the comedian. “Unless Tyler had a Scottie, too, right?”

  “Tyler had two canaries and an Italian greyhound,” I calmly responded, unintentionally setting off another explosion of derisive laughter. The only one not laughing was Gephardt the Albino. He just fixed me with a cold stare.

  “Have a great weekend, everyone,” said a laughed-out McClellan. And he was out the door followed by his aides. Everyone got up and still giggling regroupe
d into their respective cliques and started out the front entrance. A large group followed after Laurie, copying off her notes.

  “You hang in there, tiger,” said Candy as she gathered her things and put a cigarette in her mouth. “But take it from me: Stick with the crap line of questions.” She snapped her fingers toward Angle. “Hey, rightie, got a lightie?” Angle lit her up and they exited. I began to pack my things in my backpack and made a mental note to get a briefcase.

  “I liked your question,” came a voice from behind. I quickly turned, assuming it was Andrea Mitchell.

  “Thanks, Andrea,” I said. “Oh, I’m sorry, Ms. Thomas. I thought you were—”

  “You don’t need to be so formal. It’s Helen.” Standing next to me Helen Thomas was nearly a foot shorter than I. “Want some trail mix?” She held out a bag of what looked like dried leaves and grass.

  “No, thank you.”

  “So I like the way you approached your question. It sounds like you know your stuff. You know, the only reason they gave you a hard time is because you had the guts to ask a tough question. A lot of them lost heart long ago.”

  “I don’t know. I’m afraid it was a bit of a convoluted question.”

  “Made sense to me. And don’t worry, the White House can handle smart questions, even if they try to make you think otherwise.”

  “Well, thank you for being so supportive,” I said. “Coming from you, I mean, you were a big reporter.”

  “I am a big reporter,” she snapped. “It’s just the typeset that got smaller.”

  “Forgive me, Helen,” I blurted. “I meant to say that you’re an institution. Not that you’re old or anything!” I kept fumbling with my words, I was so nervous.

  She smiled. “I’m just kidding, dear. Of course I’m old,” she laughed. It was a strange warbling laugh. “But let me tell you, some things never change around here. Believe it or not, James Garfield’s press aide was even meaner, so don’t feel sorry for me or yourself.”

  I appreciated her reassurance, although it seemed an odd example. If Helen were talking about a press secretary she actually knew—for instance, JFK’s Pierre Salinger—I’d have been truly impressed.

  “I probably should take more time to read about our nation’s press secretaries,” I said, not quite sure how to respond. Still I immediately had a good feeling about this woman. She could have blown me off and yet she seemed much more human than anyone else here, despite her unusual appearance.

  She was a short squat woman with a small, almost beaklike mouth covered in lipstick. Where the lipstick had smudged I could see that her lips were a pale yellowish white color. Helen’s eyes, her best feature, were closely set and dark brown, almost black. Attractive and modest, from certain angles she looked like a cross between Nancy Walker and Anna Magnani. From pictures I’d seen, she rarely wore anything that revealed more than her face and neck. Up close her skin was redder than it appeared on TV and her brunette hair stiff. The roots appeared to be red.

  More important than her looks, Helen Thomas was a witness to so much history. If she was willing to talk to me, I wasn’t going to waste the opportunity. “I’d love to pick your brain, hear some stories sometime, about all you’ve seen,” I said. “No one knows more about the presidency than you do.”

  “Oh, I love to share what I know,” she said before leaning in and lowering her voice. “The most important thing is to dig deeper.” She was awfully close, but I didn’t want to be rude.

  “Well, that sounds like great advice. Listen, I packed a couple of sandwiches—trying to save money—so maybe we could go across the street to Lafayette Park and talk some more.”

  “No, thanks,” she said. “Pastrami and sauerkraut on rye with Russian dressing isn’t for me.”

  “Wow, how did you know that’s what I packed?”

  Helen became skittish. “Well, you told me—a few minutes ago. Don’t you remember? Of course you do. Besides, I already ate.”

  “Well then maybe we can just get a drink or—”

  Then Helen began gagging.

  “Are you okay?”

  She looked terribly embarrassed but couldn’t stop herself. I was about to call someone for help when Helen finally coughed up a small pellet. It flew past me and landed on the floor.

  I turned around, then reached down to look at it. The pellet consisted of dried hair and bone material. I immediately recognized one of the tiny bone shards as that of a young muskrat tibia.

  “Helen, are you sure you don’t need to see a—?” But when I turned back around, Helen had vanished, flown the coop in a flash.

  7

  Vanity Fair and Balanced

  Candy was right. That night everyone who was anyone turned out to fete Laurie’s fifty-two weeks on the Times best-seller list. Washington’s ritzy Anderson House, home to the Society of the Cincinnati, was packed to the gills with stars of every stripe—from front-page politicians to Page Six celebs—and the sidewalk was crammed with camera-toting gawkers. Fox News was covering the event exclusively, though Eric had ordered me to try to get a piece of the action. But when Phil the cameraman and I showed up, we were told that we would not be welcome past the velvet rope. We would have to shoot from across the street.

  Fox’s Jimmy Olsen–like Carl Cameron was just outside the mansion wrapping up an interview with Senate majority leader Bill Frist and The Simple Life’s Nicole Richie, who’d just finished addressing a Senate panel on the need for increased ethanol subsidies, so I waited patiently before pleading my case. “Come on, Carl, can’t I bring the crew inside just for a second?”

  “Sorry, Mo. Mr. Ailes is in there,” he said, “and he just wouldn’t allow it.” Carl lowered his voice. “Look, why don’t you just shoot me interviewing some of the arrivals? I’ll pretend I don’t see you doing it.”

  Covering Fox News’s coverage of its own event didn’t feel journalistically right, but as everyone in cable understood, there was only so much breaking news to go around. On the bright side, maybe one day someone from CNBC would cover my coverage of Fox News’s coverage of . . . you get the idea.

  Of course before we could do anything I needed to get Phil’s attention, but he was back on the phone: “So, Norma, just guess where the President is campaigning tomorrow. Okay, I’ll tell you. Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Coincidence? I think not.”

  Naturally I wanted to get this done as quickly as possible so that I could get rid of Phil.

  Once we got our shot, I decided to stick around. I wanted to see inside this Washington power shindig for myself. With a nod from Carl to the doorman, I was waved through.

  It was Hollywood on the Potomac. An imposing Roger Ailes sat in a giant thronelike armchair chomping on a cigar. A newly platinum blond Greta Van Susteren, looking more like Jean Harlow than ever before, sat on one arm; Barbara Stanwyck look-alike Mara Liasson foxed it up on the other.

  The mixture of power and glamour created a cocktail so heady that artificial barriers—like network affiliation or party membership—evaporated. Bill O’Reilly, author of Stickin’ Up for You: Lessons from a Working Class Non-Partisan Populist from Levittown (#3 on the best-seller list) shared a drink with Senator Hillary Clinton, whose sequel memoir Living More History was stuck at #4 on the list. Both knew they didn’t stand a chance of knocking Laurie off the top spot.

  Nor did Bill Clinton (#2 on the list), who seemed especially upbeat. Grinning ear to ear this night, the forty-second President was wearing sunglasses and “double-fisting”—teen queen Hilary Duff under one arm and her archrival Lindsay Lohan under the other. “C’mon, girls,” whooped Clinton hoarsely, “if I could bring Arafat and Rabin together . . .”

  Everyone laughed, including conservative writer Bernie Goldberg. His latest effort, Diatribe, was stuck at #5, despite a blockbuster quote attributed to his nemesis, the liberal columnist Paul Krugman: “Americans 1 . . . should 2 . . . stab 3 . . . President Bush 4 . . . in 5 . . . the 6 . . . head. 7”

  Creating quite a stir we
re former NOW president Patricia Ireland and Fox News Special Report anchor Brit Hume, the two of whom were dancing a mean lambada. The two had bonded the year before, at a callback audition for HBO’s canceled series K Street.

  Surely these people had very real differences with each other. But they all seemed to understand that like supporting a White House at war, supporting the First Pet was a political must. And at a gathering like this, there was much to be gained. Former Dharma & Greg star Jenna Elfman might find a back-of-the-book quotation for her Scientology-themed celebrity children’s book, Sarah Clear and Tall. Senator Orrin Hatch might convince Snoop Dogg to sing a track on his next album of patriotic songs.

  Tart-tongued and ubiquitous defense attorney Gloria Allred was there, accompanied by wheelchair-bound physicist Stephen Hawking. Gloria had recently achieved the elusive Cable News Trifecta: in defiance of the time-space continuum she had managed to appear live in studio on all three cable news channels simultaneously. Hawking was convinced she held the secret to understanding the wormhole.

  Through his computerized voicebox Hawking enthused, “Laurie Dhue beautiful. Party great.”

  This was a great party, which was why the drab print media, generally so aloof when it came to television news events, couldn’t stay away. The New York Times’s reporter Linda Greenhouse came in Ugg boots and nearly fainted when Access Hollywood host Pat O’Brien told her what a fan he was of her Supreme Court coverage. (Yes, Ugg boots were so last year, but the Times was still playing catch-up on its style coverage.) Conservative mandarin and wordsmith William Safire was only too happy to explain to Tyra Banks that a Pekingese is not necessarily from the city currently named Beijing.

  Gliding through the room, decked out in vintage Givenchy and looking like Grace Kelly, Laurie beamed, graciously accepting a compliment from Queen Noor here, a “You go!” from Queen Latifah there. Henry Kissinger and Christopher Hitchens, friends after Laurie had brought them together, toasted her. “Laurie, I’m so happy for you I just feel like giggling!” tittered Hitchens.