All the Presidents' Pets (5 page)

As underwhelmed as I was by the surroundings, I couldn't help but think of the history that had taken place here. “To think that Roosevelt used to swim here does hit you kind of hard. Can you imagine the stress he was under?”

“Yeah, well maybe if he'd spent a little less time swimming and a little bit more time studying up on his ‘Uncle Joe' Stalin, he wouldn't have given away Eastern Europe for the next forty-five years,” he said.

Jim wasn't one of those conservatives still fighting the Cold War. He was busy battling the League of Nations. But he was also a nice guy and a big-time gambler. When I'd gone undercover as a blackjack dealer in Atlantic City I'd watched dumbstruck as he nearly cleaned out his buddy Bill Bennett. Afterward he'd taken me out drinking. I liked him.

“Glad to have my wingman on board. Just don't let the Clinton News Network people poison your mind,” he said. “Oops, hope no one heard me,” he added playfully.

“Put a sock in it, Angle,” shot back CNN's Candy Crowley, Jim's sparring partner and one of the people I was looking forward to seeing most. “How's my boy?” Candy asked, slapping me on the back. I instantly felt much more at home.

Candy. She always played it sober and serious in interviews. In fact she had a biting, ribald wit and a heart of gold. She was an old-fashioned broad, the kind of woman Maureen Stapleton used to play, but saucier.

I'd met her at the 2000 Republican convention. I'd been sent by the
Early Show
to file a report on how delegates were keeping in shape. That's as close as they'd let me get to political coverage and I was very depressed. I met Candy at O'Flaherty's, an old Irish bar, and the hangout for Philly's political fixers. She was throwing back a sixth crème de menthe and she had the bartender in stitches, telling the story of how she'd run away from Bryn Mawr to follow a cowboy to Texas. It had been culture shock for a girl from a Main Line Philadelphia family who promptly disowned her, but she was in love. And yes, the ten-gallon hat she was wearing in the bar belonged to Chet.

Chet had died, though, she explained to everyone listening. Before long she had the whole joint in tears. Not Candy, though. “Why all the long faces?” she said.

That's when she noticed me. “You got a nice sensitive quality to you, kid. Kind of like Sal Mineo.” We connected right away. Candy sympathized with my professional frustration. After a couple more drinks she pulled out her keys. “How about we go for a ride?”

An hour later Candy and I were flooring it through Amish country, the red top down on her Cadillac Eldorado, blaring Waylon Jennings. Candy loved outlaw country and Southern rock. I felt so alive with her.

She was an inspiration when I needed it—a true individual who'd risen through the ranks of a profession that often rewarded conformity. Eyebrows were raised when she took up with Pasquale, a young dishwasher she'd met at D.C.'s Florida Avenue Grill, but she didn't care. “He's the one,” she said, even though she knew damn well that this wouldn't be the last in her long line of December-May romances—and that's the way she liked it.

When I found out that Candy packed heat—a pearl-handled revolver she'd been given by Chet's mother—I wasn't surprised. Interestingly she also had one of the Washington area's biggest collection of Hummel porcelain figurines. “I like delicate pretty things.” Indeed Candy had the most beautifully manicured hands I'd ever seen.

She'd tried to quit her two-pack-a-day Benson & Hedges habit—alternating between the patch and Nicorette—but any weakness she still had only made you like her more. She was the anti–John King. (King was CNN's other White House reporter, an ultra-fastidious squeaky-clean control freak. “That man's favorite book is
The South Beach Diet,”
Candy once said.)

I hadn't seen Candy in ages, so I was thrilled when she sat down next to me in the middle of the room. “Good to see you're alive, pal. Traficant as big a bruiser as I've heard?”

Candy was off and running. As happy as I was to see her, I knew I'd get tired fast of her prison-rape jokes. “No, Candy,” I sighed, “Traficant never laid a hand on me. But I can't say I'm sorry that the show's over.”

“Is that what he called it? A ‘show'? When I interviewed Rostenkowski in the pen he called it ‘initiation.' Off the rec, of course. So,” Candy continued, “you're finally covering
el Presidente.
”

“Uh, yeah.”

“What's ‘uh, yeah'? Already phoning it in on your first day, amigo?”

“Well, Candy,” and I lowered my voice, “I'm actually covering Barney. The dog.”

Candy turned serious. “Oh, boy, you're gonna have a time of it getting access. Dhue's up that dog's ass like nobody's business. You know, tonight's the big party for her book. Fifty-two weeks on the best-seller list. Everyone is caught up in the hype.” I found that hard to believe. The public might be Barney-crazy but official Washington, and surely the press corps, weren't going to be swept up so easily.

And yet as I looked around, the briefing room looked less like the newsroom in
All the President's Men
and more like the scene in my high school cafeteria.

A hierarchy was brutally apparent. “Those are the popular kids,” said Candy, pointing to the first two rows, where reporters from the broadcast networks and the major dailies sat. NBC's cool redheaded Norah O'Donnell gossiped with the
Washington Post
's wickedly funny Dana Milbank. ABC's blond and perky Kate Snow flirted with the tall, dark, and handsome correspondent from Agence France-Presse.

Meanwhile varsity TV reporting studs David Gregory and Terry Moran jock-talked about the previous day's Redskins game.

“If they like you enough, they might even invite you to join their spring-break house in Cancun,” Candy said about the clique.

The third and fourth rows weren't so bad—the
New York Daily News
and NPR were here—but the last two rows were glum. “Loser city,” said Candy, pointing to reporters from the
Akron Beacon Journal
and the
Milwaukee Sentinel,
both of them slumped in their chairs eating crumb cake. The reporter from the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
passed gas audibly. “Real nice,” said Terry Moran. The guy from the
Sacramento Bee
just scratched himself, then fell back asleep.

John King trailed in seconds later. He'd been finishing his morning crunches in an empty cubicle down the hall.

“So I guess everyone will turn it loose when Scott McClellan gets here,” I said to Candy, pointing to the door that the press secretary used to enter the room.

Candy laughed. “You are adorable, kid. Sorry to say, not a lot gets turned loose around here, except the old girl over there,” she said, turning her head toward Helen Thomas. “Poor thing.”

While we were looking toward the back of the room, legendary White House reporter Helen Thomas had taken a free seat on the side and was furiously taking notes. A living breathing institution sat a few feet from me.

I didn't know any more about Helen Thomas than you could learn from any kid on any street corner in America—that since joining the White House press corps in 1961, the five-foot-three raven-haired Detroit-raised daughter of Lebanese immigrants had covered an unprecedented nine presidents, grilling them with hawklike determination and earning the moniker “Dean of the White House Press Corps.” After her boss at UPI, Merriman Smith, died on April 13, 1970, she became the first female chief correspondent covering the White House, then the first female president of the White House Correspondents Association. Notoriously dogged, she was the only print reporter who accompanied Nixon to China.

Since then she'd never shirked her responsibility to ask uncomfortable questions. Ford called her methods a “fine blend of journalism and acupuncture.” Clinton called her “the embodiment of fearless integrity.” And every presidential press conference ended with her saying, “Thank you, Mr. President.” Every press conference, that is, until March 6, 2003, when President Bush not only refused to call on her to ask a question, but also ended the press conference himself.

But that's really all I knew about her.

Helen Thomas, Dean of the White House Press Corps.

For some time Helen had been portrayed as something of a crazy old lady, the Norma Desmond of the White House press corps. Mind you, she was still the same notorious hard worker, who trudged into work at 6:30
A.M.
most days. Yes, she'd left UPI in 2000, but she was now writing a syndicated column for Hearst.

I'd never met Helen Thomas but I'd always wondered: Did the press secretary's increasingly mocking responses to her questions bother her? At most she seemed bemused by his sarcasm. Many reporters I'd met cruelly mocked her behind her back. They said they teased her because they loved her. I could only imagine how the “popular” reporters treated her. Our eyes met for a moment and I turned away.

As everyone took their seats a fresh-faced Laurie Dhue rushed in, escorted by CBS's John Roberts, the John Davidson–handsome heir apparent to Dan Rather. They looked like a star quarterback and head cheerleader. A buzz went through the room as John whispered something in Laurie's ear and she tossed her head back with a laugh. Norah O'Donnell shot them a jealous look from behind her makeup compact. It was hard not to be envious: Laurie looked amazing. In her red gingham dress she was more radiant than Kim Novak in
Picnic.

Finally the door behind the lectern opened and press secretary Scott McClellan walked in followed by four press aides. Three of the aides were absolutely unremarkable-looking. The fourth was hard to miss.

“Candy, who is that?” I asked.

“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 Sho
w—
“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.