We've all read too many stories about how Bush is different than Clinton -- he doesn't lust for the cameras, keeps his jacket on in the Oval Office and doesn't fool around with the pizza girl.
We've read (and also written) about how the Bush White House is a bit of a snooze for the press, lacking the soap-opera subplots of that other guy who used to be president.
Now comes a question (pushed hard by Clinton loyalists; take our word for it) that puts the onus squarely on the Fourth Estate. To wit:
Are the media giving Bush a much easier ride than Clinton?
Whatever happened to what even Clinton once called the knee-jerk liberal press?
And if the premise is correct -- that the media elite has gone soft on Dubya -- could the milder climate be explained by some combination of outside factors?
John Harris, writing in The Washington Post's Outlook section, blames the absence of a liberal equivalent to the vast right-wing conspiracy:
"I was on the receiving end the other day of a harangue from Rahm Emanuel, a top aide in the Clinton White House, who is not impressed by the news media's coverage of President Bush. 'The Washington press corps has become like little puppy dogs,' he said. 'You scratch them on the tummy and they roll right over.' . . .
"Are the national news media soft on Bush? The instinctive response of any reporter is to deny it. But my rebuttals lately have been wobbly. The truth is, this new president has done things with relative impunity that would have been huge uproars if they had occurred under Clinton. . . .
"The difference is not in journalists' attitudes toward Bush or their willingness to report aggressively on him. It is that nearly all the political and institutional forces that constitute Washington writ large have aligned to make Bush's life more pleasant than Clinton's ever was, even at the start of his presidency.
"There are many small reasons: Republicans and Democrats alike seem exhausted from the negativity and scandal of the Clinton era. The Bush team is mostly competent and well-focused, so it has given adversaries fewer handles to grab. And even his opponents seem to think the new president is a likable enough fellow.
"Above all, however, there is one big reason for Bush's easy ride: There is no well-coordinated corps of aggrieved and methodical people who start each day looking for ways to expose and undermine a new president.
"There was just such a gang ready for Clinton in 1993. Conservative interest groups, commentators and congressional investigators waged a remorseless campaign that they hoped would make life miserable for Clinton and vault themselves to power. They succeeded in many ways. One of the most important was their ability to take all manner of presidential miscues, misjudgments or controversial decisions and exploit them for maximum effect. Stories like the travel office firings flamed for weeks instead of receding into yesterday's news. And they colored the prism through which many Americans, not just conservative ideologues, viewed Clinton.
"It is Bush's good fortune that the liberal equivalent of this conservative coterie does not exist."
(Where do you stand? Are the media giving Bush an easier time than Clinton, or is Harris way off base? Drop us a line at kurtzh@washpost.com, and be sure to include your name and city.)
Ron Brownstein of the Los Angeles Times sees Bush -- with or without the media's help -- dominating the capital:
"In a flurry of dramatic actions over the last week, President Bush has demonstrated again his determination to control the terms of political debate in Washington -- even if that means sustained conflict with Democrats on Capitol Hill and a more polarized political environment in the country.
"As if rolling siege guns into range, Bush on a virtually daily basis last week challenged congressional Democrats with his ambitious right-leaning proposals to redirect American energy policy, restructure Social Security and reorient America's nuclear strategy around a national missile defense. More sparks are likely this week as Bush unveils his first round of federal judicial appointments, a group expected to please conservatives.
"By releasing all of these initiatives even as his budget and education bills move closer to congressional approval, Bush has underscored the priority he places on avoiding a vacuum that allows lawmakers in either party to shape the agenda in Washington. 'It seems to me they have decided to govern as if they won by 15 points,' says Bruce Buchanan, a professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin . . .
"This approach presents a marked contrast with Bush's father, former President George Bush, who so often reacted to events that he was sometimes described as an 'in-box' president. Indeed, it reaffirms the conviction among many observers that the most important lesson Bush took from his father's defeat was the importance of controlling the agenda. George W. Bush's style also departs from the strategy of former President Clinton; compared to Clinton, Bush is addressing fewer issues -- but often proposing more sweeping changes on those he tackles.
"'After a year, you are going to see that he will dominate the debate more than Clinton did,' predicts one White House aide, who asked to remain anonymous while discussing administration strategy. 'He is going to promote more things of fairly fundamental reform . . .Clinton was much more hyperactive but much more reactive. Bush has a kind of persistence that Clinton didn't have.'"
In the New York Times, Richard Stevenson examines the two sides of George W.: "President Bush as the conservative ideologue had a pretty good week. After refusing for months to budge on the size of his tax cut, he won agreement to get 85 percent of what he wanted from Congress, compromising only enough to win over a handful of moderate Democrats whose votes he needed in the evenly divided Senate. The right was ebullient and the left was livid.
"President Bush the bipartisan conciliator had a pretty good week, too.
"His education bill, his other big legislative priority, moved ahead in the House and the Senate. He gave way without a fight when a House committee stripped out a provision dear to conservatives that would have allowed parents of children in failing public schools to send them to private schools using taxpayer-financed vouchers.
"He stood aside as the Senate voted to increase spending on education beyond what he had requested in his budget. The left was heartened and the right was demoralized.
"Throughout the presidential campaign, Mr. Bush sought to appeal to his conservative base and centrist voters simultaneously, and he handled the dissonance by ignoring it. His strategy on the first two major issues he has pushed on Capitol Hill, tax cuts and schools, suggests that his approach has not changed since he took office."
The Washington Times, which recently chided the Senate's GOP leadership, today takes on the House for straying from the party line: "The Republican-led House, supposedly stronger than the Senate for advancing President Bush's legislative agenda, is showing some chinks in its armor. In a single day last week, Republican-majority House committees voted to overturn Mr. Bush's ban on U.S.-funded family planning overseas and killed his proposal for private school vouchers.
"The House International Relations Committee also voted to keep in place the annual U.S. review of arms sales for Taiwan, rejecting Mr. Bush's decision to conduct such reviews as needed.
"A day after those committee votes, House Republicans lost two pages of the federal budget agreement, postponing final passage until this week and giving Democrats more time to take potshots at the president's spending priorities and $1.35 trillion tax cut.
"The week served as a reminder that, although the Senate is evenly divided, Republicans hold only a 10-seat advantage in the House, and Mr. Bush cannot always count on the chamber for the same party unity that made his tax cuts possible."
The Post's Dana Milbank offers a different take on conservative divisions as not a bad thing for Bush: "Something utterly unprecedented in the young Bush administration occurred last week. The right wing got angry.
"On Thursday, the conservative Family Research Council announced that the House education bill, supported by the White House, gets a 'failing grade' because it 'ripped the conservative heart out.' The group was joined in its dissent by James Dobson's Focus on the Family, Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum and Paul Weyrich's Free Congress Foundation. Bush booster William J. Bennett piled on with an op-ed article in Friday's Los Angeles Times.
"But the White House, far from caving in to conservatives, is pleased with the education bill. 'It's not what they wanted, but we've got 80 to 90 percent of what the president wanted,' said a Bush adviser.
"Contained in this rare squabble between the Bush White House and its right flank is a lesson in the new president's strategy. Bush, through his early personnel appointments and policy moves on taxes, environmental regulations and abortion, has built up significant credibility among conservative leaders. His standing thus secured, these conservatives acknowledge, Bush can afford to part with them on some key issues with impunity."
The New York Post picks up on a New Yorker scoop in the wake of Louis Freeh's resignation: "Relations between FBI Director Louis Freeh and President Bill Clinton were so strained, the two didn't talk for four years, it was reported today.
"There were numerous sources of tension between the White House and the bureau -- including the FBI's funny-money probe into contributions to the presidential campaign. But the one that may have mattered most to Freeh stemmed from disagreements over the investigation of the 1996 terrorist bombing of a U.S. military barracks in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 and left 500 injured.
"The New Yorker magazine reported today that Freeh didn't trust the Clinton administration's commitment to pursue the case -- and he waited until George W. Bush took office to give a full report to the White House detailing allegations that the bombing was plotted by Iranian government officials. The magazine said Freeh believed Clinton and his advisers weren't supporting him in seeking the full cooperation of Saudi authorities.
"As tensions increased between Freeh and the White House, the FBI head and Clinton went four years without speaking to one another, the magazine reported -- although Freeh spoke with top Clinton aides."
Ever wonder what goes on when a scribe and president have a sitdown? Newsweek's Martha Brant reflects on the strategy behind interviewing Bush:
"I was looking for something revealing about him and trying to avoid the same thing he's said to everyone else. You never know where that revealing tidbit is going to come from with George W., but often it's in the details that don't make the official transcript.
"I was told that I'd have 15 minutes. This being the 'on-time administration,' as Bush likes to say, I knew that whatever aide was sitting in on the interview would be timing it exactly and either give me a two-minute warning or, worse, shout out, 'Last question!'
"I knew that the trick wasn't going to be getting Bush talking but stopping him from talking at length on unrevealing themes. I didn't want long-winded bromides (W does stand for Windy sometimes, as Bush himself says) to eat away at my precious minutes. . . .
"I had never interviewed him as president, but he seemed unchanged. He was his usual bundle of sassy energy. 'How's your "friend?"' he asked, launching right into needling me about my personal life. 'You asked me that last time I interviewed you,' I responded. 'What did you say then?' he asked. 'I said, "Don't ask me that again,''' I joked. 'But that was as a candidate,' he said. 'This is as president.'
"The whole time this encounter was going I was looking at my watch and getting uptight as the seconds ticked away. I was imagining myself trying to explain to my editors that I never got around to asking Bush about the environment because I spent half my time talking to him about my personal life. Bush noticed me fretting. 'This isn't counting against you,' he reassured me.
"When we eventually started talking about him instead of me, he got more serious. He directed his frenetic energy into playing with the wooden coasters on the desk and occasionally popping a grape in his mouth. A couple of times he started going down bromide lane, and I tried to stop him. Bush dismissed my efforts by holding up one index finger, as if to say, Do not interrupt the president of the United States. It worked; I let him go on and on about CO2 and tax cuts. I felt like I was just getting going, when press secretary Ari Fleischer shouted out, 'Last question.' My stomach clenched. While Bush had been very insightful about his frustrations about the style of politics in Washington versus Texas, I had let him feed me unoriginal lines on policy."
Brant finally got a decent anecdote out of the president -- about throwing out the first pitch at a Milwaukee Brewers game.
Finally, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution illuminates the controversy surrounding CNN's new babelicious anchor:
"'They're going to take their clothes off. Isn't that great?'
"It's 6-something in the morning. Andrea Thompson -- about to head out on assignment to cover a wildfire at Ted Turner's ranch in northern New Mexico -- is seated at her desk inside the newsroom of KRQE, Albuquerque's CBS affiliate and 'New Mexico's Winning Lottery Number Station.'
"Thompson has just learned that a local radio drive-time team is airing a 'We Support Andrea Morning.' It's in response to the national uproar over news that nude photos of the former model and 'NYPD Blue' actress -- and soon-to-be CNN Headline News anchor in Atlanta -- have popped up on at least 120 Web sites. To show solidarity with Thompson, whose yearlong reporting stint at KRQE ended Friday, the country station's morning deejays (a married couple) are doing their show in the nude.
"'This crap is all over the Internet,' Thompson tells the radio team in her smoke-cured, no-nonsense voice during a phone interview minutes later, meanwhile monitoring her computer for wire reports about the wildfire's progress. 'The thing that's so regrettable is they've taken a 20-year acting career I'm very proud of and reduced it to a couple of nude shots.'
"Thompson, 41, herself has been reduced by detractors to the most current shorthand for creeping entertainment values on the established news culture at CNN."
Just because she takes off her clothes? Geez.
Beyond the Beltway
The St. Paul Pioneer Press: "When people meet the Dalai Lama, they sometimes weep a little, prompting His Holiness to tease them, or pat them on the cheek.
"They're nervous, but somehow feel touched. They are surprised he is so . . . normal.
"'They look very happy, like they just met Oprah or something,' said Robert Thurman, a Columbia University professor who studied with the Dalai Lama in India.
"The Dalai Lama will arrive in Minnesota this week with anticipation unmatched by an international visitor since Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990."
The Boston Globe: "In December, House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran hosted a Christmas bash for more than 200 in the ballroom at the venerable Omni Parker House Hotel in downtown Boston. With an open bar, the booze flowed freely for several hours, as legislators and spouses or dates noshed on hors d'oeuvres or sampled the fare at a series of serving stations.
"The tab? A bill for $9,369, paid indirectly by the legion of contributors to Finneran's campaign committee. The justification? 'To enhance TMF's [Finneran's] political career,' according to his campaign finance reports.
"As he leads the effort to cripple in its infancy the state's Clean Elections Law, Finneran says he stands on principle. But he also sits on a brimming campaign war chest, which has covered $191,755 worth of Finneran's restaurant, car and travel expenses since 1996, the year he became speaker, a Globe analysis shows.
"The numbers are extraordinary: $93,421 for 295 restaurant tabs; $50,000 for 25 trips out of state and overseas; and $48,334 in automobile expenses."
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram has this oinker: "Maybe pigs and politics don't mix. Eli the Vietnamese potbellied pig overwhelmingly lost the right to be called a pet and a Hurst resident during Saturday's election.
"Proposition 1 asked voters to designate potbellied pigs as exotic pets rather than livestock. Eli needed a 'yes' vote to stay because a 1990 city ordinance requires livestock to live on lots of at least an acre.
"But 66 percent of 1,821 voters said a pig is a barnyard animal.
"After months of begging, campaigning and drumming up support for the 6-year-old swine, owner Cynthia Wynne appeared to be drained after hearing the unofficial results."
