All Too Human: A Political Education

by George Stephanopoulos

  My Waco error stemmed from inexperience and misplaced sentimentality. Other missteps, like the failed nomination of Lani Guinier for associate attorney general for civil rights, were the product of sloppy staff work coupled with an overactive desire to appease our liberal base with appointments because we couldn't deliver on policy. The defeat of our economic stimulus was the price we paid for legislative arrogance. Thinking we could roll right over the Republicans in the Senate, we rejected a moderate compromise offered by Senators Breaux and Boren, and lost everything. That was Republican Senate leader Bob Dole's turn to show us who was boss.

  So much for opening like FDR or JFK. Our first hundred days were no honeymoon — and the president hadn't even had his hair cut yet.

  It's the kind of thing you'd never plan. Clinton was finishing a long day in Los Angeles. Returning to the airport, he decided that since he was in his favorite barber's neighborhood, he might like a trim. A normal person might act on a similar whim, but if it took too long he'd miss his flight. A normal person might also request his favorite barber, but he couldn't get Christophe, hairstylist to the Hollywood stars, to pay a visit to his private plane. For a president's personal comfort, however, almost anything is possible. What he requests, the world provides, and the public tends to accept without question or resentment. Until that invisible line is crossed: Nixon's plumed guards, Nancy Reagan's new china, Clinton's $200 haircut on Air Force One.

  The first I heard about it was when my deputy Jeff Eller called me from the plane to say that the members of press on board were grumbling about being late because of Clinton's haircut. “What haircut?” I asked. Jeff filled me in, and although we both thought it might turn into a problem, we didn't do anything, hoping it would pass into the ether of late-day events on Pacific time. What we should have done was issue a preemptive apology. Even if he didn't mean it, Clinton should have walked to the back of the plane and said, “Sorry about the delay, folks, I screwed up.”

  But we missed our chance. By filing time the next day, we were in crisis mode. Aided by some inaccurate leaks from the Federal Aviation Administration, the press reported that thousands of air travelers had been delayed for the sake of the president's personal convenience. Clinton and Hillary demanded a hard-line response. “They are lying,” Clinton spat in the tone he usually reserved for complaints about the press. “I had the agents check, and I was told that there would be no delays.”

  “I know, Mr. President,” I replied. “And that's exactly what I told them, but the FAA's not really backing us up on this.”

  The truth is that while the reporters traveling with the president were delayed, no other air traffic at LAX was affected. But that didn't stop the paralyzed-airport myth from hardening into accepted fact. The perception was more powerful than the reality, and the underlying truth — that Clinton had been self-indulgent and insensitive to the image of having a Hollywood hairstylist cut his hair on a busy airport runway, and that his staff had been too stupid to stop it from happening — was bad enough. The controversy also created new leads for the press, such as, Did the president pay for his pricey haircuts? Finances were Hillary's department, and her staff said I was supposed to tell reporters that the Clintons had a “personal services” contract with Christophe. Oh, that'll help. Naturally, they next wanted to see the contract, which nobody would give me — because it probably didn't exist.

  The haircut might have been just another embarrassment if we hadn't simultaneously declared war on the press corps. The formal declaration was issued a little before noon on May 19, when Dee Dee announced that seven members of the White House travel office — the people whose job it was to care for the press on the road — had been fired.

  At the time, I was receiving an award at the commencement exercises of Columbia University, my alma mater. Sitting on the steps of Low Library in front of thousands of graduates and their families, I felt my beeper buzzing ceaselessly beneath my gown. All hell was breaking loose back at the White House, and I had to get back. I raced through my speech and flagged a cab to the airport. As I rode, I pulled out my cell phone and started to return calls. The first was to Andrea Mitchell of NBC. “George, what are you guys doing firing the travel office?” she asked in mild disbelief, letting me know without saying so that we were making a big mistake.

  “Andrea, believe me,” I replied. “Don't start defending the travel office. You'll be embarrassed.”

  But we were the ones who ended up with egg on our faces. All I knew at the time was that we had uncovered some sloppy accounting in the travel office and that we were taking swift action. In hindsight, it's obvious that we should have quietly eased out the office director, Billy Dale, and his colleagues; summarily firing them created a story about our management style rather than Dale's accounting practices. The more the press dug, the worse the story looked: Clinton's distant cousin Catherine Cornelius was angling to replace Dale, and a company run by Clinton's friend Harry Thomason appeared to be lining up for a piece of the White House travel business. The whole episode looked like small-time Arkansas self-dealing.

  I should have been paying enough attention to prevent the firing. After all, the office that made travel arrangements for the press was technically part of my department. But the issue involved two areas I did my best to avoid: administration and Arkansas. I knew that the Clintons' old Arkansas friends David Watkins and Harry Thomason were examining how the travel office was run, but my deputy Eller was handling it. After the story broke, I compounded our problems by asking the FBI public affairs officer to attend a meeting in my White House office so we could coordinate our public statements. Three White House lawyers attended the meeting, and I was only trying to make sure that what I was saying from the podium was true. But assured of my own good intentions, I was blind to how the meeting looked to the press. How could they possibly think that we are doing what Nixon did?

  Within a few days, I resembled Nixon's infamously incredible press secretary, Ron Ziegler. In the briefing room, I did the Clintons' bidding — giving no ground, aggressively pushing back the inquiries, taking perverse pride in my daily pummelings as proof of my loyalty to Clinton and our cause. But much of what I said from the podium about the travel office matter turned out to be, as Ziegler used to say, “inoperative.”

  In the Oval, however, I was taking a different tack, arguing for more concessions, an apology here, more access there. That only made the Clintons believe I was going soft, pandering to the press at the president's expense. In the end, I wasn't strong enough to convince the Clintons that we were making a mistake, or skillful enough to give the press what they needed even if it wasn't what the Clintons wanted. There was plenty of blame to go around: The Clintons were intransigent, and the reporters were self-absorbed. But they could all agree on at least one point — that George was doing a poor job. And they were right.

  Which meant that by Memorial Day I was in the same condition as Zoe Baird on inauguration day. All through the spring, tensions had simmered between the Clintons and the press. The haircut and travel office debacles brought them to a boil, with me as the proverbial experimental frog who didn't realize that his warm bath was becoming frog soup.

  I should have seen it coming. A few weeks earlier, on a sunny afternoon in early May, Clinton's secretary, Betty Currie, had buzzed me on the intercom and said the president wanted to see me on his putting green. She didn't say what he wanted, but that's where Clinton went to calm his nerves or wrestle with a problem he couldn't figure out how to handle.

  I strolled down the sloping lawn to the manicured patch behind the Oval, where Clinton was hunched over in shirtsleeves. His suit coat lay by the side of the green, several golf balls were at his feet, and he was aiming at the farthest tiny flag. Without looking up, the president asked me what I thought of David Gergen, the former Reagan aide turned pundit. “He seems like a good guy,” I answered, unaware of what Clinton was getting at. “I don't know him that well, but we had dinner once at Doe's.” />
  “Well, I was talking to him,” Clinton continued, still putting. “He thinks maybe you're doing too much, and that you should think about dropping the briefing.”

  The president doesn't like personal or personnel conflict. But here he was being a pretty good guy. He was letting me know what he wanted in a nice way, but I was too proud to take the hint. Back in Clinton's Little Rock family room during the transition, we had agreed that I would ease out of the briefings after the first six months. Now I resisted for fear it would look like a demotion. Although I wasn't very good at it, I liked the press job. It was public, it was concrete, and the briefer could always argue for a seat at the table. I didn't have to fight for access or worry about whether the president was listening to me that day. The briefings were also a challenging game of wits, but I wasn't playful enough from the podium. I failed to learn how to deflect difficult questions with humor or to develop an ironic “wink” — the successful press secretary's ability to serve two masters, to defend the president while giving the press the impression that he's on their side too. The Clintons perceived the press as the enemy. Instead of co-opting reporters, they wanted a confrontational stance — and I took it.

  After my tip-off from the president, I should have prepared a graceful exit from the press room. Instead, I slipped into the passive-aggressive stance that had worked for me in the campaign. But my lucky streak was over. White House Chief of Staff Mack McLarty was worried about his own job, and he knew that if he didn't make a high-profile change, then he would pay the price. First he contacted Bill Moyers (whom Clinton had invited to Little Rock in December to discuss the chief of staffs job), but Moyers wasn't interested. Then Mack started serious talks with Gergen.

  On Thursday night, May 27, just as our economic plan passed its first hurdle in the House, Mack reached a tentative agreement with Gergen to join the White House staff. Part of the deal was that I would give up the White House briefings and move into an undefined advisory role. Right after we won the House vote, Mack pulled me aside by the grandfather clock at the entrance of the Oval Office with the news. “George,” he said, “David Gergen's going to be joining us. Don't worry, we'll make it work for you.” Then he hurried out the door to meet with Gergen. The president was back in his study, and all I could do was go home. My high from the House victory was now dampened by how I knew the Gergen appointment would look — as if I'd been fired.

  The next morning, Mack told me he hoped to announce the appointment after the long Memorial Day weekend. Then he left for Arkansas. Hoping to minimize the appearance that Gergen was coming in to replace me, I started to think about ways we could separate any announcement of my job shift from the news of Gergen's appointment. But once a decision like this is made, the details rarely hold for more than a day. By midday Friday, CNN's Wolf Blitzer had the story. “What's this about David Gergen coming in?” he asked. With nothing to say, I had to stall. “I'll get back to you, Wolf.”

  Then I tried to find someone who knew what was going on, but it was futile. Mack was in Arkansas, and Clinton was traveling too. Gore told me everything would work out but said I had to talk to Mack or the president for the details. Dee Dee called from the road with Clinton, where she was picking up the same rumors. “What's going on, George?” she asked. “Are we OK?” From the little Mack had told me the night before, I knew there were no immediate plans to move anyone else, and that's what I told her. As for me, I still didn't know what my job would be, what my title would be, where my office would be, or who would take over the daily briefings. The only other news Dee Dee had was that the president had told her he would talk to me when he got home that night.

  My staff drifted through the office the rest of the afternoon, looking to console me and be consoled in turn. Many of them were friends who'd worked their way up with me on Capitol Hill and the campaign. We were “the kids”: once celebrated, now scapegoats. I was angry and hurt, but I knew I couldn't show it. My position was tenuous. In the conventional-wisdom culture of Washington, any disappointment I displayed would become self-fulfilling. If I acted defeated, I would be defeated. “This will be a good thing,” I told my staff with more hope than conviction.

  With Clinton not scheduled to call until late, I killed some time over an Indian dinner with David Dreyer. Only here did I vent my resentment. So it's all the kids' fault. It wasn't the kids who chose Zoe, or Kimba, or Lani. It wasn't the kids who got their hair cut or fired the travel office. No, we kids hadn't made all those decisions, but we were part of the problem — I was part of the problem — and our headstrong clash with the Washington culture was obstructing the rest of our agenda. Here's where Gergen would help; he was the ultimate establishment man. That much I understood. But why did it have to be a Reagan guy? We were elected to reverse the Reagan revolution, not celebrate it. What's wrong with Mayers or Hodding Carter? Choosing Gergen was adding ideological injury to personal insult.

  Obviously, the president didn't think so. He liked the bipartisan glow that Gergen would add to our team. While I was crying in my curry with Dreyer, Clinton was sealing the deal with Gergen over dinner at the White House. I went back to my apartment and called my parents to let them know what was coming. “There might be some stories in the paper tomorrow that will look bad,” I told them. “But I think it will turn out OK.” This was the hardest conversation of the day. It's no fun to think about having your parents read about your failure on the front page of the Times.

  I finally went to bed around midnight, with no word from Clinton. As far as I knew, the official announcement was days away, and I was heading to California for the rest of the holiday weekend. In late March, I had met the actress Jennifer Grey on a blind date brokered by our assistants. We began dating after that, and I was looking forward to my first full weekend off since starting work in the White House. But my phone rang at 1:36 A.M. It was the president.

  “George, I'm sorry to wake you,” he said in his most soothing voice. “I know you already talked to Mack about this Gergen thing. But I wanted to call now because we have to do this tomorrow. I know this is for the best, and I want you to believe it. I need to have you close by me.”

  “I need to have you close by me.” Exactly the words I needed to hear. I fell asleep feeling better.

  The words the rest of the world would hear were another story. The announcement was scheduled for the ridiculous hour of 7:30 on a Saturday morning. (Gergen had convinced Clinton that we had to get it done fast.) I went to my office around 6:30, booked myself on a later flight to California, and walked into Mack's already crowded office. Gergen was at the table, sipping coffee, and he got up immediately to pull me aside for a few gracious words. The vice president was sitting at a word processor in the outer office, tapping out the president's statement, with Dee Dee and new communications director Mark Gearan standing over his shoulder to watch out for my interests. Knowing that the press would dissect the statement for clues to my new status the way Kremlinologists used to study May Day photos in Pravda, I wanted the same title as Gergen — counselor. But Gergen resisted, so my new title was the nebulous “senior adviser for policy and strategy.” Only time would tell what it would mean.

  A little after 7:30, the president arrived in the Oval. Before heading to the Rose Garden, he approached me first and congratulated me on my new job. What new job? Nobody's really said what I'm going to do. Clinton's touch was perfect. Now if only I could convince the rest of the world to congratulate me. I hadn't prepared a statement of my own, but my actual words wouldn't matter much. My mission was to look like a man who was getting promoted.

  Inside, I felt like a little kid who was being punished for something that wasn't all his fault. Standing next to Clinton and Gergen didn't help; they both had nearly ten inches on me. I fixed a big smile on my face and stared straight into the cameras, determined not to look like a loser. But when Clinton started to compliment me, my reflexive reaction was a modest, momentary bow of the head. The sound of a thousand cica
das ravaging through a field snapped my head back up, but the photographers had the shot that told the story: “Brash young presidential aide, head bowed in humiliation, the agony of defeat etched on his face …”

  My comeback strategy could wait until Monday. Now I just wanted that weekend off. But I hadn't lost all my chutzpah. Before I headed to the airport, Mack asked me if there was anything he could do for me. “Thanks for asking,” I replied. “Can we start with a raise?” He laughed, but I got the money — and a small piece of evidence that I really had been promoted. Then I got on the plane and slept. The flight attendants woke me when we landed.

  Right then, Malibu was the best place for me to be. At a diner by the beach, a group of college kids who were listening to the radio came by my table to congratulate me. Hey, maybe this is going better than I thought. Wrong. I might have been playing OK in the town where only no publicity is bad publicity, but on the East Coast my public double was taking a beating. For every winner in a Washington power play, there must be a loser, and that weekend it was me. The Times story was headlined “An Offering to the Wolves.” A pissy piece in the Post style section claimed that I broke up with Joan for Jennifer Grey and speculated that my new status would lead Grey to throw me over for Gergen. My whole life was fair game now. Live by celebrity, die by celebrity.

  But my ritual sacrifice also created a mildly surprising sense of relief. If ancient myth, modern political culture, and my professional failings had all ordained a fall — and they had — better that it happen when Clinton still claimed he needed me by his side, before I was too shot up to have any chance of recovery. Public humiliation also had its private consolations. My answering machine was packed with “hang in there” messages from all my friends. The old bull Dan Rostenkowski tracked me down on the Pacific Coast Highway to ask: “Are you OK? Because if the president didn't treat you right, he's going to have to answer to me.” The only call I didn't return was from a headhunter who thought I might be interested in joining the private sector.