Valenti's Credits Keep on Rolling

By Arshad Mohammed
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 3, 2006

Jack's back.

Eighty-four years old, with a silver tongue and a silken touch, Jack Valenti is still working the halls of Congress more than a year after he stepped down as chief executive of the Motion Picture Association of America.

"Retirement is a synonym for decay," he said after testifying about indecency before the Senate Commerce Committee two weeks ago. "I am very much alive, and alert and working."

A Washington fixture for more than four decades, Valenti rose to prominence as an aide to President Lyndon Johnson, was Hollywood's ambassador to Capitol Hill under eight presidents and has survived into the Jack Abramoff era as a lobbyist's lobbyist untainted by scandal and unmatched in his ability to keep politicians of all stripes purring.

In three appearances before the Senate Commerce Committee over the past three months, Valenti has sought to ward off fresh federal regulation of indecency on TV with a blend of public oratory and private persuasion that left even senators envious of his political skills. Though appearing as a private citizen at the committee's invitation, Valenti continues to be a policy player because of his legacy developing the movie-ratings system and his rare ability to referee among media moguls.

Former agriculture secretary Dan Glickman succeeded Valenti in the MPAA top job, but it turns out there's no replacing him on center stage in a congressional hearing. In the first minute of a Senate presentation last November, Valenti praised Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) as "two great war heroes," told Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) that his father "was one of the great senators that I've ever known" and lauded John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) for coming from "the greatest family in America for caring about America."

With allusions to the Vietnam War, Edward Albee's 1962 play "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and Michelangelo Antonioni's 1966 film "Blow-Up," in which "for about 10 seconds, little teenyboppers were cavorting in the nude," he then developed a passionate defense of freedom of speech.

"Of all the clauses in the Constitution, the one that I admire the most, and venerate the most, are 45 words which compose the First Amendment," he told lawmakers, arguing that the best way to keep children from indecency on TV was to educate parents about the existing TV-ratings system, which is modeled on the one he helped devise for Hollywood in 1968.

"It has to be self-regulatory. Otherwise you begin to torment and torture the First Amendment, and I know you don't want that," he added.

Two weeks ago, after extensive negotiations among television broadcasters, cable and satellite TV companies and consumer-electronics makers, Valenti unveiled plans for a $250 million to $300 million advertising and outreach campaign to teach parents how to use their TVs to block inappropriate content from their kids.

Combined with new family-friendly packages offered by cable and satellite companies, the net result has been to slow momentum toward tighter federal laws on indecency.

"World champ," said Martin D. Franks, an executive vice president at CBS Corp., which is part of the industry group backing the plans. "I have been with him, and I have been against him, and being with him is much better."

"We compete viciously every day," he said of the companies Valenti brought into the coalition. "Think of the egos in this business. They are considerable. The only guy who can knock those heads together . . . is Jack."

Even people who oppose him on policy, such as Parents Television Council President L. Brent Bozell, praise his courtesy and intelligence and are unable to say a harsh word about him.

"I wish I could afford him," Bozell said with a laugh.

Despite having stepped down as MPAA's chief executive in 2004, Valenti still works from an office in the trade association's building and continues to make political donations -- $27,600 to prominent Republicans and Democrats so far in the 2006 political cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks contributions.

Stevens, who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, approached Valenti on the indecency issue. "We're old World War II pilots and have known each other a long time," Stevens said in an interview. "I trust him."

Inouye, the ranking Democrat on the panel, said Valenti had reached a "point in his life where men and women consider him to be above politics" despite his having served in the Johnson White House.

"He essentially went from the White House to 'Casablanca,' " said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), who has worked with Valenti for three decades and described him as a throwback to an era of civility when the two parties worked together. "He is like a classic movie; every new audience is amazed at how good that old movie is."

Larry Noble, the executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, said Valenti's work has to be seen in the context of his advocacy for Hollywood studios.

"I have never gotten the feeling . . . that he has anything in mind other than the interests of the motion picture industry. It's not as if one would say he is looking at what's best for America or what's best for the consumer," Noble said. "That is not a criticism in the sense that that's his job."

Bill Moyers, who served with Valenti under Johnson, suggested that was a limited view of the man. "He is exactly the Jack Valenti I knew in 1960 except that he is half a century older. By that I mean that he was a straight shooter then, and he is a straight shooter now.

"If I were an industry, or a cause, I'd want Jack for my lobbyist because he wouldn't take it on unless he realized it was important and valuable, and he could be true to himself," he said. "He is one of those rare men where what you see is what you get."

During his recent testimony, Valenti cast his arguments against regulation in terms of defending the nation's freedoms.

"When you live in a free and loving land -- a democracy -- it gets messy at times. When you have a First Amendment, that means you must allow into the marketplace a lot of things I personally find vile, profane and just plain stupid," he said. "That is the price you pay for the freedoms that we enjoy."

Valenti then said that when his 4-year-old grandson turns 10, he plans to take him to see the Normandy cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach where 9,387 American servicemen are buried -- he remembered the number precisely -- "so he understands that . . . these young men gave him the greatest gift in the world; they gave him the gift of freedom."

When a reporter asked if he expected to be around when he was 90 to make that trip, Valenti replied with a laugh. "Of course. Are you kidding?"