Press Secretary from 1995-1998 Michael Mccurry

DATE January 16, 2001 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Mike McCurry talks about his experience as White House
press secretary under Bill Clinton
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

President Clinton is wrapping up his final week in the White House. Last week
we began a series of interviews with some of the people who served in the
Clinton White House. Today we here from two press secretaries who had to deal
with, among other things, the Monica Lewinsky scandal. We begin with Mike
McCurry. He was the president's second press secretary, replacing Dee Dee
Myers in 1995. McCurry resigned in 1998 and was replaced by his deputy press
secretary Joe Lockhart at the beginning of the impeachment proceedings. We'll
here from Lockhart a little later. I asked Mike McCurry to describe the major
stories that he dealt with.

Mr. MIKE McCURRY (Former Clinton Press Secretary): Well, remember, I began
in January of '95 and went through the balance of 1998 and though most will
remember the Mike McCurry press secretary show as having to do with mostly
Monica, in that same time we really handled all of the things that I think are
sort of pivotal in understanding the Clinton presidency: the showdown with
Newt Gingrich and the Republican Congress, beginning in 1995; the effort to
balance the budget consistent with some of President Clinton's overall federal
budget priorities; the ongoing war in Bosnia; the awful incident of bombing in
Oklahoma City at the Murrah Federal Office Building; really, the kind of
ongoing struggle to define what America's role in the post-Cold War era should
be, which was dominated more than a little bit of the briefing time that I had
at the White House. So it was a calender and a menu much fuller than that
associated with the one episode that I think is kind of memorable: the Monica
Lewinsky era.

GROSS: Now you took over from Clinton's first press secretary Dee Dee Myers.
What were the problems between the press and the Clinton White House when you
took over?

Mr. McCURRY: Well, the relationship between the press and the presidency is
always kind of a frosty one, but it lacked a little of the professionalism
that I think needs to exist at the White House. There was not a great deal of
respect on the part of the press for the young White House aides who worked in
the press office and elsewhere. And, correspondingly, there wasn't a lot of
respect on the part of the White House and its staff for the press. I think
there was some sense that this adversarial relationship was far less amicable
than it needed to be for people to just kind of get on with business every
day. So we made some effort early on, in January 1995 and going forward, to
really restore some measure of civility in the relationship, even though it
was never going to be a relationship of true love.

GROSS: What were some of the changes you made?

Mr. McCURRY: I think just really responding more quickly and adeptly to
inquiries, respecting the time of reporters who, of course, have to work on
deadlines every day and face professional requirements. Understanding that
they are people, that they have creature needs and that sometimes work at the
White House is not very conducive to having a fun lifestyle. I think a lot of
people would be surprised the White House beat for reporters is far less
glamorous than one might imagine. Lot's of early morning pool duties, lots of
late night travel to get from one place to the next and not nearly as much fun
as a lot of people would think.

GROSS: Creature needs are--what?--food, bathrooms and chairs.

Mr. McCURRY: Yeah, food and drink, primarily, and sleep, when available.

GROSS: Now did you try to talk to either the president or other members of
the administration about how to improve relations with the press?

Mr. McCURRY: I did. And I got a commitment from both the president, from
Mrs. Clinton and from others to really try to do a little bit better job of
respecting the needs and the time of reporters. And I think, by and large, we
did pretty well. We couldn't always accommodate the schedules of reporters,
we probably weren't always as forthcoming and as useful with information as we
needed to be but I think we began to improve flow of information that went
from the White House to the American people. Ultimately, the White House and
the press probably care about the same thing, which is getting as much good
information in the hands of the American people. The press, because that's
their job, the White House, because I think they believe that if you can get
information about what you're doing into the hands of the American people,
they will believe that what you're doing is right. So I try to build on what,
at least in theory, should be some common interest between both sides of this
adversarial relationship.

GROSS: One of your conditions for taking the job as press secretary was that
there had to be another press contact for Whitewater. Why didn't you want to
deal with Whitewater?

Mr. McCURRY: Well, it would be very easy for the White House to kind of
mimic the news organizations that were pursuing the Whitewater matter. One of
my old bosses, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, is fond of saying that organizations
in conflict become like one another. And it would have been very easy for us
to just get sucked into doing nothing but Whitewater all the time. But I
recognized this, that all the news organizations pursuing Whitewater and
related subjects, had specialists, had investigative reporters and others who
were focusing only on that matter.

And I said, well, why doesn't the White House respond in kind by creating a
place where those questions can be dealt with, be dealt with sort of offline
away from the press briefing room, away from, you know, the other work that
needed to be done: understand what the day-to-day work of the White House was
about. And I think that worked satisfactorily. The other thing was we had a
good group of lawyers and then recruited lawyers who could serve the function
of being press spokesmen for the team that was really working on that
particular set of issues. So you had people who could work with the
confidence of the lawyers and the attorneys who are on the Whitewater matter,
and I think that led to more professional treatment of some of the media
inquiries that came in.

GROSS: That sounds like a smart and clever approach and it got Whitewater off
your hands, but then you got Monica. Did you ask the president to tell you
whatever he could or did you want to know as little as possible?

Mr. McCURRY: Well, I think I wanted to know as much as possible but I also
recognized that if I walked into the Oval Office and said to the president,
`What's the deal with you and this young lady?' he would have then forfeited
his right to have confidential communications with attorneys. You know, the
president, it was often said during the whole Lewinsky matter, is not above
the law but the truth is, he's not beneath the law either. He had certain
rights and, obviously, one of them was to confer, in private, with his
attorneys and to really get some sense of how to shape a defense to what was,
after all, a very aggressive and direct prosecution aimed at his direction.
So we had to labor in the very peculiar circumstance of referring back to
lawyers, referring to statements that had been drafted for the president, by
his attorneys, and really not budge much beyond that set of parameters that we
were given for response.

GROSS: Now your approach during the Monica Lewinsky story was to say what the
president said and say that the president said, so and so, and not offer your
own opinions. Why was that your approach and can you give us an example of
how you'd phrase an answer?

Mr. McCURRY: Well, I think the reason for that--and that was my approach
because I didn't know anything: In the great words of the character from
"Stalag 17" or whatever the show was, `I knew nothing.' And I kind of
remained in that state of not knowing, by design, on purpose, for the reasons
I said. But it was very important to me not to do anything that would make
matters worse. I think White Houses, when they face scandal or crisis, very
often start dissembling and that usually ends up putting everyone in a worse
spot that if they just stuck to what they knew for sure to be true. What I
knew for sure was that I had been handed a piece of paper that had the words
on it crafted very carefully by lawyers and I wasn't going to budge from that
statement. And I think, in a lot of different ways, I managed to say, `I'm
not going to parse this statement further,' which was very interesting. I
heard from a lot of English teachers around the country saying, `Oh, thank
goodness, someone who remembers what the discipline of parsing sentences was
all about.'

GROSS: So what press conference was the worst ordeal for you?

Mr. McCURRY: Well, the worst ordeals where those things that dealt with real
tragedy, not farce. Monica was mostly farce. Tragedy was when Ron Brown died
tragically on a mission to Bosnia, when we saw that awful explosion at the
Murrah Office Building in Oklahoma City, when we saw the devastation and
ethnic cleansing that came to dominate life for those living in the Balkans,
those were the things that were truly awful to deal with because the United
States of America, for all of its greatness in the world, couldn't control
things like that. And dealing with death, dealing with that kind of tragedy
was, I think, the hardest, personally to deal with. Particularly in a case
when it's someone that you knew and respected and had a great fondness for,
like Secretary Brown.

GROSS: But in a situation like that, the really hard part is the fact of what
happened...

Mr. McCURRY: Right.

GROSS: ...as opposed to questions that you're being asked that you have to
strategize a way to deal with and maybe dodge.

Mr. McCURRY: Well, that--I mean, that's the natural instinct of press
secretaries, to bob and weave. But to deal with the raw-gut emotion when you
feel it and keep your professionalism and keep your sense of--you know, keep
the sense of being circumspect about these things that otherwise would cause
you turmoil. I mean, that, personally, was very, very hard to do, to not get
overemotional on the podium.

GROSS: Getting back to the ordeal question: Let me ask you specifically from
the Monica era, which press conference was the worst ordeal?

Mr. McCURRY: I mean, they all kind of--it was a long time ago now, they all
sort of run together. You know, it was just like, for a period there in
January of 1998, it was, you know, it was mostly this kind of almost comic
soap opera every day. And, in fact, it was pretty much soap opera and I don't
think one was any more memorable than the next.

GROSS: You say comic. I mean, you were often very funny.

Mr. McCURRY: Well, I tell you, by design, if you didn't have information and
didn't have anything that you could use by way of an answer, you ought to do
something, at least entertain the masses.

GROSS: What jokes got the best reactions?

Mr. McCURRY: The ones that were carefully designed in advance. I think that
the line that was memorable that, frankly, was not mine and we came up in
advance of a briefing was because you knew what circumstance would be, I
wouldn't be able to say much of anything: I kind of looked the side at one
point, to my staff and said, `I feel I'm double parked in a no-comment zone.'

GROSS: So you didn't write that. Who wrote it?

Mr. McCURRY: I think we sat around, just sort of--I begged my staff, `Sit
here with me and come up with some clever one-liners that will get me off the
stage sooner rather than later.'

GROSS: Do you think the reporters empathized a bit?

Mr. McCURRY: Yeah, I think they understood. I mean, they didn't enjoy
covering the story any more than I enjoyed answering the questions about it.
You know, the White House press corps consists of some of the best journalists
anywhere in the world, people who know incredible amounts of things, who are
capable of covering foreign policy, domestic policy, popular culture, they
really are some of the best in the business. And to be reduced to sort of
chasing this particular story day after day after day with, seeming no end,
was, I think, very frustrating to the press.

GROSS: Did the Monica story put a strain on your relationship with the
president because there were things that he really couldn't tell you, there
were things you were probably better off not knowing? And he was under such a
great strain and you were under such a great strain. Did that strain manifest
itself in your relationship as well?

Mr. McCURRY: I think everybody was under strain, but everybody knew that we
had to get our jobs done and had to stay focused on what mattered the most.
And it was not questions about Monica, it was the things that the president
was elected to do and that as long as we stayed focused on that, and let our
energy go into the work we had to do, things would hopeful come out all right
in the end.

GROSS: Now the president did his best to stay focused on issues he was
working on, what about you? Was it possible for you to stay focused on those
issues at press conferences?

Mr. McCURRY: I walk into the briefing every day with a big black book filled
with things that I think that we had anticipated there'd be lots of questions
about because there were things going on in government or around the world
that might require some comment from the White House. And I think every day I
walked out, somewhat surprised and really, in a sense, concerned that so
little of the questioning had never gotten off that other matter.

GROSS: You were the first press secretary to handle all briefings on
television. How does it change things when you're doing it on TV?

Mr. McCURRY: You know, in retrospect, I don't know whether if I would have
ever made that change because it does change the dynamic of the briefing. It
creates way too many instances in which I think journalists have to posture
for the cameras, or at least, you know, for their editor somewhere may be
watching their performance, just as they're looking for their answers from the
podium. So it kind of create more tension in the briefing room than I think
needs to exist. And there probably has to really be a better way to really
get good information in the hands of reporters so they can report on what's
happening.

GROSS: You were press secretary during one of the most bipartisan moments in
recent American history and I'm wondering if the partisan nature of what was
happening in Congress affected the kinds of questions you were getting asked
by the press? Do you think that the press was getting partisan at the same
time?

Mr. McCURRY: I think that there was a lot of partisanship in Washington and
it's the way in which we deal with information overload sometimes. The fact
that there's so much news all the time, 24-seven, you know, running non-stop,
that the only context for understanding a story line is to make it all black
and white. It's us vs. them. It's the Democrats vs. Republicans and so
everything gets turned into sort of verbal mud wrestling. And I plead guilty
to that. I think probably I injected way too much partisanship into the
commentary at the White House and, in the end, I think Americans appreciate it
when they just get as much solid, good information as possible and they like
it when they see people trying to work out differences, rather than
exasperating differences. So I'm not so sure any of serve the American public
well by being that partisan. Marlin Fitzwater, one of my predecessors, once
told me that any time you were standing at the podium and you were talking
about the opposition leaders in Congress, you could probably be pretty certain
that you were on very dangerous terrain. And I think that was good advice on
his part.

GROSS: What do he mean by that?

Mr. McCURRY: I think he meant that you're not, as a government spokesman--as
a spokesman for the White House--you can get too political, that it's really
up to those who work in campaigns and those who represent our political
parties to do the business of politics that, you know, the presidency has to
be about doing the people's business at the end of the day. And you know,
we're one of the only countries on the face of the Earth where the spokesman
for the leader has both a political role and an official capacity as a
government employee. In most other democracies, that job is split between the
spokesman for the political party and then maybe the spokesman for the prime
minister or the president, who has more of an official role. In our political
culture, we've blended those two roles in the person of the press secretary.
And that might be something that we want to rethink.

GROSS: Now I just want to ask you briefly about a real turning point for the
Clinton presidency, and that's when Clinton refused to sign the Republican
budget and the government was shutting down and Clinton wasn't going to budge.
And so the Republicans finally had to back off. It was really important for
you, as press secretary, to put out the right interpretation of this, to give
your story a positive spin and not a negative one. Tell me a little but about
how you handled that and the importance for you of using the right language in
figuring out how you were going to frame the story for the press.

Mr. McCURRY: Well, you know, it's interesting because that's an instance in
which I think I didn't exactly do the job the way the president wanted because
I tended to be a little too partisan, I tended to paint the story as, `Our
budget is better than theirs. Here's why.' And I think the president felt
that I might have been a little too sharp and too partisan in the way I spoke
about Speaker Gingrich and about the Republican majority in Congress. He,
very frequently, sort of dialed me down a little bit and told me to not get
out there as far as we got sometimes. The reason was simple, you know, he was
doing the very careful business of trying to negotiate with those same
Republicans and he knew that they were watching very carefully what the White
House said on his behalf and I think he wanted us to be very, very careful
because, at the end, he was the guy who got elected, not any of us. And he
was the one that wanted to be in the position to actually try to compromise or
negotiate the deal and he didn't want to have a lot of public statements out
there that would complicate his job.

So I think we had to be careful, at the same time, you know, we were in a
desperately important political fight. Probably, in a way, the most
important political fight of the presidency and it was important for us to
prevail because we believed in the values and the priorities that we were
defending. But I think there again it's a very careful line to walk and I
think it's hard to get it right all that time. And I think that's when you
have to be exceedingly sure that you're reflecting exactly what the president
himself wants said. Because, again, he's the one that counts and not the
staff.

GROSS: So would you usually have meetings with the president, after press
conferences, to go over your performance.

Mr. McCURRY: I'd hear about it if he wasn't satisfied with the performance.
I mean, we didn't do a debrief because, frankly, the president didn't have
enough time to watch my briefings every day but if something went wrong, he
usually very quickly knew about it.

GROSS: What do you think President Clinton should be most remembered for?

Mr. McCURRY: Well, I think, in time, he's going to be remembered most for the
growth of the Internet and the changes that have occurred in our economy and
communications technology. Twenty years from now, I doubt anyone will--you
know, they might remember who Monica Lewinsky is. They'll probably remember
that Bill Clinton got impeached, but they'll be a little vague on the
circumstances. What they will remember for sure is at the end of the 20th
century and the late-1990s, this thing called the Internet really took off,
developed, became a real factor in the lives of the American people and I've
got to believe that in time those changes in technology in our society are
going to be much clearer and they will be associated with Bill Clinton and
Bill Clinton will get some of the credit that he rightfully deserves for
having created the conditions that those changes could occur.

GROSS: When you left the White House, what advice did you give your successor
Joe Lockhart?

Mr. McCURRY: When I left, I was dead wrong about everything. I said to him,
`Joe, you're going to have a good two years here to really help promote the
president's agenda because the Democrats are going to do well in the mid-term
election in 1998 and, of course, the Republicans are going to drop impeachment
and never go on with that. So just remember to stay focused on all those
things that we were talking about during the 1996 re-election campaign and
you'll be home free.' It ended up being exactly wrong.

GROSS: Right. Mike McCurry, thank you so much for talking with us.

Mr. McCURRY: Thank you very much.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Interview: Joe Lockhart talks about his experiences as White House
press secretary under Bill Clinton
TERRY GROSS, host:

Joe Lockhart took over from Mike McCurry as White House press secretary, just
in time for a White House nightmare: the impeachment. Lockhart was White
House press secretary from October of '98 to October 2000. In addition to the
impeachment, he handled such stories as the bombing of Kosovo and the custody
battle for Elian Gonzalez. Lockhart had been McCurry's deputy press
secretary. I asked Lockhart to describe what happened, the day he took over
as press secretary.

Mr. JOE LOCKHART (Former Clinton Press Secretary): The day I took over, it
turned out to be the first day of the official impeachment. It was the day
the House Judiciary Committee held their first formal hearing on the subject.
So in addition to going up and standing in front of the cameras at the White
House with a somewhat hostile press corp, there was actually an important
piece of news that day. So I like to describe my first briefing as an
out-of-body experience because, through most of it, I felt like I was standing
four feet to my side, watching me screw it up. But, you know, as with
anything, after you do it a couple times, you get a little more comfortable.
And I think we all, at the White House, got more comfortable in that fight, as
it proceeded because, you know, I think we knew that the public was generally
on our side, that the Republican leadership was pushing things too far and too
hard.

GROSS: Looking back, do you think you did screw up during that first press
conference?

Mr. LOCKHART: Oh, probably not. I mean, I think--the president said to me
some months later, and I took it as a compliment, something along the lines
of, `You know, it's really nice that you've lost that deer-in-the-headlights
look.' And, you know, so I think there was an element of that. There was an
element of sort of establishing my own credential with the press core to be
able to speak authoritatively for the president. And all of those things are
natural for anyone coming in new. This was just accentuated a little
bit--actually, not a little bit, a lot by the fact that we were beginning the
formal impeachment proceedings.

GROSS: Did you and the president advise each other on how to handle the
press, how to talk to the press during the impeachment?

Mr. LOCKHART: Well, we had a constant back and forth. So the answer would
be, yes. But it would also be yes on a number of other subjects, including
policy. And, truth be told, we both did a little bit of listening and a
little bit of ignoring. Because if I did everything the president thought I
should do during that time, I don't think I would have been effective. But he
certainly had insights from time to time that were quite helpful. And the
same is true, I think, of him. I would give him advice on a daily basis:
which issues to talk about, which were best ignored or left alone. And there
were certainly many days he took my advice and I think things worked out
better. But there were certainly days when he ignored my advice and it's, you
know, kind of a mixed bag of, you know, whether it was better or worse.

GROSS: Where there lessons that you feel you learned during the Monica part
of the story, that preceded the actual impeachment: lessons you learned by
handling part of that story yourself and by watching how your predecessor as
press secretary, Mike McCurry, had handled it?

Mr. LOCKHART: Well, you know, I think I learned lessons that I was able to
put into practice, when I took the job, about being sure about being skeptical
of incomplete information and trying to really get at the bottom and have
several people confirm to me the facts of any given story or any given
accusation that was made. And that was difficult during the investigative
part of this saga. But I think that is what I took most and probably learned
most in the time that I worked as the deputy under Mike McCurry.

GROSS: What's an example of a story where you didn't have as many sources as
you should have and the information was wrong and you didn't realize it?

Mr. LOCKHART: Well, there's one story that--it's not an important story, as
far as this case or anything or even the government--but, you know, it was a
weekend and there was a question about whether the lawyers for the president
had ever retained a private investigator because there was a controversy about
the independent counsel spending, I think, upwards of $1 million on private
investigators. And it was a weekend where Mike worked on a Saturday and I
worked on a Sunday. And on Saturday, the reporters who asked got one answer,
on Sunday, they got a different answer. And the difference was, Mike was
smart enough to ask the right questions and push a little bit harder than I
pushed to get a completely accurate answer.

And so, you know, it was an example of having to do the work and, secondly,
what's really damaging, I think, to people who try to do this as a press
secretary, is that sometimes, you ask a question and you want the answer to
be a certain way. And when you're in that position, you can hear the answer
the way you want to hear it. And that's something that I learned that
weekend: learned particularly from Mike about, you know, `Don't presume the
answer. Don't have an answer you want. Just go get the answer.'

GROSS: So what was the difference between the information you got and the
information McCurry got?

Mr. LOCKHART: His was a, you know, `Yes, but.' You know, it's not like what
has been reported what the independent counsel had done. Mine was, I had
asked the question, just sort of, you know, `Are we doing what they're doing?'
And the answer was, `No, of course, we're not doing what they're doing.' So I
said, `No, you know. We're not employing private investigators.' And it was
an answer, you know, I didn't feel mislead by the person. I felt like I
hadn't done the work properly to get at the truth and the proper answer. And
the reason that it was so stark for me was, you know, both of us went at this
not knowing the other one was doing and he just did a better job on it.

GROSS: So did you give the wrong information to the public?

Mr. LOCKHART: I did and I owned it and, you know, had to, you know, stand up
Monday morning and say that, you know, I gave the wrong information and it was
my fault.

GROSS: What are the consequences of that?

Mr. LOCKHART: Well, you know, you don't go to jail but a press secretary is
only as good as their credibility. And something like that does not help your
credibility. It's not terminal. Reporters didn't stand up and say, `We're
not going to believe another word you say.' I had had a track record with
this group for two years and I think that they understood that, sometimes, we
make mistakes. If their preconception or their experience with me was that I
was fast and loose with the truth, it would have been a much more serious
event for me personally.

GROSS: Is there an example of a statement you made or the way you handled a
turn in the impeachment story that you think was particularly effective in
framing the story?

Mr. LOCKHART: Well, I'll give you one that may seem trivial but to me it was
an important one and this was near the end where, you know, I think we'd
beaten back the charge of impeachment and it looked like it was finally going
to die under its own weight in the Senate. And immediately there was a
groundswell of concern and stories about, `Well, will the White House be
doing, you know, a celebratory dance and will they gloat?' And, you know, I
heard this for two days in row from the reporters and just, you know, out of
nowhere, just decided and said and unilaterally declared that post-impeachment
the White House would be a gloat-free zone. And I, you know, sort of took
some heat for that from inside about being so glib.

But it, actually, like many things here in town, it's not what happens, it's
the lead up and the anticipation that sort of took the issue off the table. I
mean, that's a small sort of anecdotal--I think, to answer the larger
question, you know, every single day of the impeachment battle, I felt my
challenge was to frame this as a political power issue. `The Republicans were
doing this because they had political differences with the president and were
exercising their political power. And I think, by and large, that is the way
the majority of the public ultimately viewed this. And that is one of the
reasons that the president, you know, enjoyed increasing support through this,
rather than decreasing support.

GROSS: Shortly after the impeachment, you had to handle the story of the
bombing in Kosovo.

Mr. LOCKHART: Yeah. You know, people ask me what was the hardest thing that
I had to do during my tenure as White House press secretary. And I think they
don't believe me when I said it wasn't impeachment. And I think they think
I'm just trying to put it on something that ended better or was more favorable
for the president. But it really wasn't impeachment, because impeachment was
a raw political battle which, from a communications point of view, we were in
a pretty good position to fight. Kosovo was much more difficult. You know,
this was something that was very important and most of us felt very strongly
that it was the right thing to do. And we did a miserable job initially of
convincing people that what we were doing was right and that it was going to
work. And there was a lot of reasons for that. One was that this wasn't like
the Gulf War, where you had the ability to show what you were doing. We were
doing this in a place where Milosevic had control of state television there,
had control of all the pictures, so really could dictate the story line out of
there.

We had a, you know, really unprecedented political environment here in
Washington where, even before we started, there was not the general bipartisan
support for a military action. There was partisan sniping that started, you
know, even before we started. And there was, within the military, people who
did not believe that an air campaign alone would work. They argued that
strongly internally and many of them argued it anonymously, and just as
strongly in the newspapers, externally. So there was a real challenge there
that--and very frustrating because we knew what we were doing was right. We
were reasonably certain what we were doing would work. But almost from the
moment that it started, it faced very deep skepticism.

GROSS: Now you were press secretary during the Elian Gonzalez story and, you
know, everyone remembers the pictures of the agents with guns taking Elian
away from his relatives. It was one of the most spun photos of the recent
past. What were some of the problems that photo presented for you?

Mr. LOCKHART: Well, you know, this was a situation where--the White House
had generally stayed out of the Elian Gonzalez issue, allowing Justice and INS
to do it. When it became a super-overheated political problem, there was a
point were the White House could not stay out of it and I think it was our
view and we expressed it, internally within the justice system, that, you
know, if the family wouldn't cooperate, the boy would have to be taken and
returned under circumstances that would be controversial.

That was all done that morning, you know, about 5 AM in the morning and was
done safely with no one hurt. And, in fact, in many ways, it was a flawless
operation. And from about 5 till 7 in the morning, we were feeling pretty
good about it until that picture came out. And that picture completely
changed the dynamic of that morning because no matter how right we knew we
were, no matter how much the law supported and what we thought--you know, your
basic family rights supported what we were doing, that picture did more and
told a far different story than anything we could do or say.

So, you know, again the story changed a couple hours later in the day when the
lawyers for the Gonzalez family released a series of pictures showing the
young boy with his father in very pleasant and happy setting. So it really
exposed, one more time, how important a visual image is and how it can drown
out even the most compelling of stories, whether it be based on the law or
based on what's right vs. what's wrong.

GROSS: Did you put out the word, `We need a photo that will make this
decision look good to counter the photo of the agents with guns?'

Mr. LOCKHART: Well, let's just say, in my conversations with the Justice
Department, I asked the question, because it was important for me to know, `Is
the boy safe? Is he happy? You know, are things going well there? Is he
happy to be back with his father?' And the answer to all of those questions
for hours--hour after hour was, `Yes.' Because, you know, they had
people--the marshals were there and I was trying to help coordinate how
marshals would get out and talk to the media. You know, that was all good
information and it would be nice to be able to say, but it was something that
you would ultimately have to visibly show.

So I think, you know, it was one of those weird things where, you know, if I
could have gone to where they were and brought a camera with me, I would have.
But even the television anchors sort of openly saying, you know, `It would be
really nice if we had a picture of what was going on.' So, you know, it took
a while for them to pull all of it together. But it was a, you know--it's an
example of how, you know, words are important but visual images can trump even
the best composed argument.

GROSS: Joe Lockhart is my guest. He was White House press secretary from
October of '98 to October of 2000. You would often joke with the press at
briefings. Did any of your jokes ever get you into trouble?

Mr. LOCKHART: Occasionally. You know, I made a joke--one of the first
things I did after I was announced as new press secretary, is I missed a
flight. And I made a joke about it at the expense of the president. And...

GROSS: What did you say?

Mr. LOCKHART: Oh, it was during the period where he had said something quite
serious about, you know, trying to make up for the damage he had done to his
family during this period. And I sort of used those words to talk about, you
know, the damage I had done in missing the plane, something the reporters all
thought was hilarious. I don't think that the president thought it was that
funny. But, you know, you don't get in trouble in the sense that you
actually--you know, somebody comes and tells you to go sit in the corner. You
just realize afterwards that, `Boy, that probably wasn't the smartest thing to
do.' And you learn from it.

You know, it's a fine line. You know, humor is probably, if not the best, one
of the best weapons you can use in sort of disarming an aggressive press corp.
It's particularly useful if you can do it at your own expense rather than
someone else's expense. But there are times when, you know, in trying to
loosen things up, that you go a little bit over the line and, you know, you
generally have to pay for those.

GROSS: What are your impressions so far of how the Bush campaign is speaking
with the media?

Mr. LOCKHART: Oh, you know, it's hard to judge when you're in this sort of
phony period of transition. They will ultimately fail or succeed on their
ability to articulate clearly what they're doing, provide solid information,
provide enough information about what the government's doing and where they
want to take the country. You know, that's not what's going on now.

You know, I think that the biggest thing that they face is understanding the
difference between being in a campaign and being in government. And the fact
that, in the campaign, you're trying to win a rhetorical battle. And in a
government, you're actually dealing with facts and you're dealing with things
that succeed and fail. And I think the people that do the best are the ones
that can acknowledge their failures and highlight their successes in a way
that builds support. But it really is a very different challenge than what a
communicator tries to do in a campaign.

GROSS: One last question: Because the press secretary now is on TV all the
time, holding briefings, you become something of a celebrity yourself. And
I'm wondering when strangers meet you in the street and recognize you, what
are the one or two things that they most often say to you about yourself or
about the president?

Mr. LOCKHART: The odd thing is that most people who you come up to in the
street think they know you but don't know why they know you. They think that
you went to high school or college with them and a lot of them are very
surprised when you tell them, you know, `Well, this is why you know me.' The
ones that do recognize you, generally, 95 percent of them are self-selected
positive people who will tell you they enjoyed your work or they loved the
president. There's very few people that come up and are nasty. But I think
the overwhelming response over the last year, at least, or the overwhelming
question is--and no matter where I am in the country, I get this--is, `What do
you think of C.J. and is "West Wing" realistic?' And luckily, I guess, for
C.J. and "West Wing," I think she's great and I like the show. So, you know,
I tell them that.

GROSS: That tells us something about television, doesn't it, that you could
be--there's press secretary during impeachment but what people really want to
know is, `What's C.J. like?'

Mr. LOCKHART: Well, it is an amazing thing--I believe that the press
secretary's job has fundamentally changed since cameras were introduced and
they're now covered all the time. It has really changed the nature of the
briefing. It's increased the importance of the job, through visibility.
There's this very strange phenomena in America where you can be a Nobel Prize
scientist and say something and no one really cares or you can be someone like
me, and because I say it on television, they really think you know what you're
talking about. And there's something that's probably wrong about that, but,
you know, it's just the nature of our culture, that we glorify that that we
see on, you know, whether it's a 19-inch or a 35-inch, you know, box in our
living room.

GROSS: Well, Joe Lockhart, I thank you very much for talking with us.

Mr. LOCKHART: Thank you.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Review: Alan Jackson's new CD, "When Somebody Loves You"
TERRY GROSS, host:

During 1999's Country Music Association Awards show, singer Alan Jackson
surprised the show's producers by making a last-minute change and singing a
then-current George Jones song called "Choices." A multi-platinum selling
artist himself, Jackson was protesting the fact that country radio stations
were ignoring veterans like Jones in favor of slicker acts like Faith Hill and
Garth Brooks. But rock critic Ken Tucker says Jackson's new CD "When Somebody
Loves You" turns Jackson's rebellion into its own kind of self-defeating
gesture.

(Soundbite of "When Somebody Loves You")

Mr. ALAN JACKSON (Singer): (Singing) I like my steak well-done, my taters
fried, football games on Monday night. It's just who I am, a meat-and-potato
man. I like my coffee black, old TV shows, my women hot and by beer ice-cold.
It's just who I am, a meat-and-potato man.

KEN TUCKER reporting:

We have reached the point in the history of country music where a
traditionalist like Alan Jackson sounds like a parody of himself. Ten years
ago, I probably would have probably been hailing a Jackson CD like "When
Somebody Loves You" as a fine example of country classicism, a glorious
throwback. But context changes pop music and after literally dozens of
would-be throwback masterpieces from artists as various of the Bakersfield
punching bag Dwight Yoakam and neglected songwriters like Rodney Crowell and
Jim Lauderdale, throwing back to the golden age of '50s and '60s country can
often seem like just another way of giving up.

(Soundbite of "www.Memory")

Mr. JACKSON: (Singing) I know you're leaving, I see the signs, you're going
to walk out in this heart of mine. You'll never call me, you'll never write,
you made your mind up and you're gone tonight. If some rainy day, you're all
alone, you feel like talking, you can log me on at www.memory, I'll be waiting
for you patiently.

TUCKER: I'm not sure which is more annoying: a sincerely bland, earnest
sell-out like, say, Faith Hill or Alan Jackson's knowing-novelty recordings
like that one called "www.Memory." There's something so insular about
Jackson's stance. A preachment to the converted, even when the congregation
consists of millions of intelligent fans that renders his self-styled
rebellion against the Nashville establishment a neutered gesture.

(Soundbite of song)

Mr. JACKSON: (Singing) It's all right to be a redneck. It's all right to
ride around in a dirty old truck, catch a bunch of fish, shoot a bunch of
ducks. It's all right to be a redneck. Chase around the girls on Friday
night, you want to make them feel all right. It's all right.

Back-up Singers: (In unison) It's all right.

Mr. JACKSON: It's all right.

Back-up Singers: (In unison) It's all right.

Mr. JACKSON: It's all right to be redneck.

TUCKER: Now you know that Alan Jackson doesn't really think it's all
right to be a redneck, just the way he describes the subculture, you know he
thinks it's beneath him. It isn't rednecks that help him go multiplatinum,
it's people who think rednecks are exotic people it's OK to snicker at. About
a year ago, Jackson teamed up with another traditionalist, George Strait, to
cut a song called "Murder on Music Row" which deplored the pop influence on
country music. On his new CD, Jackson's criticisms get even more heavy-handed
on another novelty tune whose title is supposed to tell us what Nashville
record companies want from their clients. It's called "Three Minute,
Positive, Not-Too-Country, Up-Tempo Love Song."

(Soundbite of "Three-Minute, Positive, Not-Too-Country, Up-Tempo Love Song")

Mr. JACKSON: (Singing) It's just a three-minute song to tell her that I love
her, how wonderful we get along. Sweet sentiment, borderline slick, a lot of
right and not much wrong. It's a little bit edgy, softer than spaghetti, we'd
never done it this strong. It's a three-minute, positive, not-too-country,
up-tempo love song. Yeah, it's a three-minute, positive, not-too-country,
up-tempo love song. It's a way for me to tell her that I love her but it
can't be too long. There'll be no drinking, no cheating, no lying, no
leaving, that stuff, it just don't belong in a three-minute, positive,
not-too-country, up-tempo love song. Here we go.

TUCKER: I guess I'd be more enthusiastic about Jackson's efforts if his CD
contained any flash of music that didn't play to his audience's expectations.
He's managed to tame rebellion so that it sounds as trite as the music he's
reacting against.
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