Press conference manners
(On the occasion of George W. Bush's 12th press conference, I'm reposting
a piece I wrote in March, 2003, after Mr. Bush's last prime-time press conference.)
Mr. President! Mr. President! Helen, no
Who’s afraid of an 82-year-old woman? A powerful world leader 26 years her junior, it appears, a remarkably fit-looking fellow who could easily outrun, outwrestle, or otherwise trounce the feisty doyenne of the White House press corps in less time than it takes to holler, “Mr. President! Mr. President!” He could take her, easy, without even calling for backup from even one of the hundreds of thousands of troops at his disposal as Commander in Chief.
We didn’t hear anybody hollering that traditional greeting at last night’s press conference, did we? But that wasn’t the only innovation in this apparently scripted session. George W. Bush did something predecessors Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Bush, and Clinton never, ever did: he ignored Helen Thomas.
Traditionally, the most senior White House correspondent asks the first question at a presidential press conference. Traditionally, ever since her very first press conference in 1960 — when she was the most junior correspondent, not to mention the first female — Helen Thomas has ended each and every presidential press conference by saying, “Thank you, Mr. President.” She was the one who added that polite phrase to the ritual, and presidents, press secretaries and reporters alike have honored that custom, and her with it, for more than 40 years.
Not last night. It wasn’t in the script. Last night the press corps spoke not a word, raised not a hand when the man himself strode regally into the East Room and took his place at the podium for the second prime-time news conference of his presidency. He began the proceedings with a five-minute overview of recent events and hints of future ones, somberly repeating many of the same things he’s been saying for months, especially the phrase “regime change.”
He already knew which reporter would get to ask the first question: it was written on the paper in front of him. And the next, and the next, and the next. At one point, he even explained, “this is scripted,” although for some reason the early versions of the transcript came out as “this is unscripted.” Helen Thomas was not on the list. And when the last question was asked, it was not a reporter at all, but George W. Bush himself who said, “Thank you,” thus signaling not only the end of an event but the end — or at least interruption — of an era.
A leader who seems bent on breaking the longstanding American tradition of not attacking first might not even think twice about violating a news-conference custom. But Mr. President? Mr. President? With all due respect, sir, you blew it — bigtime. Yes, I know the press conference has been over for hours, but as they say in the White House press corps, I’d like a follow-up.
What harm could Helen Thomas possibly have done to you or your cause? Why was it necessary to break with a tradition of good manners that your own father always respected, along with seven other presidents, both Democrat and Republican? Especially, sir, especially when you could just as easily have used it to further your own cause? You’re telling Saddam Hussein that you’re a-comin’ in after him, you’re making it clear to our longterm allies on this continent and elsewhere, not to mention the United Nations, not to mention the American people, that while you’ll listen and nod politely for awhile as they express their views, ultimately they have no say in this. You have the courage to take a stand like that, and yet you’re afraid to let a little old lady ask you a question?
Yes, I know that month after month, day after day, Helen Thomas has been asking the same kinds of questions lately, questions about the looming war on Iraq, downright heckling White House Spokesman Ari Fleisher at times with queries about how much the war might cost, whether oil is the main reason we’re so interested in Iraq, whether war is inevitable. She has nothing to prove anymore, not to anyone. She can say — and ask — what she pleases. Lately her style has been a bit more adversarial than usual, but she still isn’t nearly as abrasive as her late colleague, Sarah McClendon of McClendon News Service, who joined Ms. Thomas in the White House press corps in the mid-60s and gained fame by brusquely and persistently hounding Presidents Johnson and Nixon about Vietnam, among other matters. But the questions she’s asking these days are no tougher than the questions she’s been asking all along. And they’re pretty much the same questions that people all over the nation, all over the world, are asking.
I have no way of knowing whose decision it was to shut Helen Thomas out of that conference, but if I were a White House strategist, I would demand a word or two with that person. And I would begin by asking a question of my own: “When a reporter asks a politician a question, no matter what the question, it means only one thing. Do you know what that is?”
Do you?
When a reporter asks a politician a question, it means it’s the politician’s turn to talk. That’s it. No matter who the reporter is, no matter who the politician is, no matter what the question. Think of it as a tennis game. The reporter serves, the politician returns, the ball goes back and forth. The politician is under no obligation to aim the ball in a direction that is convenient for the reporter, and vice versa. Both players are trying to score. You can’t hit the ball if it’s not coming at you. (At most press conferences outside the White House, the best reporters ask no questions at all. They stand in the shadows and let the TV reporters, and anybody else who likes to hear the sound of their own voice, ask anything they want. They take good notes. Then when the lights go out and everybody else heads back to the office to file identical reports,
the best reporters move in, catching up with their quarry in a less formal moment to ask questions the other reporters don’t even hear. Under the controlled circumstances of the White House, however, the closest thing to an opportunity like that is the traditional shouting of questions over the roar of helicopter blades on the White House lawn, which is not much of an opportunity at all.)
Any question, or questions, or follow-ups, that Helen Thomas might have asked had she not been silenced would have been a perfect opportunity to address the questions everybody’s asking about this impending war, a chance to use a skeptical, even cynical customer as a foil for the hard sell.
But in addition to her impertinent questions, Helen Thomas made a statement a few months ago, a statement that a Canadian newspaper, the Globe and Mail of Toronto, used as the basis for a poll in which 51 percent of respondents agreed. That statement: “George W. Bush is the worst president in all of American history.”
Ms. Thomas never covered William Henry Harrison (who refused to wear a hat at his inauguration, caught cold and died a month later) or Warren G. Harding (look up “Teapot Dome”); if so she might (or might not) have a different opinion. But in thumbing its nose not only at the most respected veteran in the press corps, but traditional and harmless courtesies that have been honored for decades, the current administration did nothing to discredit her controversial statement. Au contrere, as some of our former longtime allies might say.
