Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Last June, Steve "Scoop" Cohen walked into the White House briefing room, that blue-draped chamber where reporters would routinely grill his old bosses. Except it wasn't the briefing room. It was a soundstage on the set of "Commander in Chief," the ABC series about the first female president, for which Cohen is a writer.

"It felt like one of those dreams you wake up into," Cohen said.

During the Clinton administration, Cohen, 36, served in the press office as an aide to Dee Dee Myers and George Stephanopoulos. He stuck out because he was so young, in his early twenties, a kid from outside Baltimore who had been sprung into national politics in 1992 after a lucky couple of months on the Clinton campaign.

It turns out that campaign set the course for the rest of his life, beginning with his name. One day, while he was fielding calls in the campaign offices in Little Rock, Cohen received a tip that the press had learned about an alleged Clinton indiscretion and was about to bombard campaign officials with queries. Cohen informed Stephanopoulos, who subsequently nicknamed him "Scoop" and tapped him as the junior member of the traveling press team.

"It's one of the things from the first time it was labeled on me that sort of stuck," he said. "I'm still known as 'Scoop.' I'll take it. It served me well."

After the campaign, Cohen spent two years in the White House press office and then spent the next 3 1/2 as first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton's deputy communications director. He worked for a nonprofit technology foundation, served as spokesman for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and spent five years in public relations work outside government.

Then he started his real second career -- in Hollywood. He co-wrote a television series about two brothers, one of whom would grow up to be president. "Jack & Bobby" appeared on the WB network in 2004.

Later, he joined "Commander in Chief."

"Not too long ago, Dee Dee Myers asked me if I could set up a tour on our set," he said. "I e-mailed her back that it's 15 years later and I'm still giving tours of the White House."

-- Zachary A. Goldfarb