Out-of-Town Critics Too Tough On Thompson?

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 1, 2007

The reviews are in: Fred Thompson's plunge into the presidential campaign "was right up there with Britney Spears at the MTV awards."

Well, that was liberal New York Times columnist Gail Collins. How about a committed conservative?

"More belly-flop than swan dive . . . the strangest product launch since that of New Coke in 1985," writes columnist George Will.

Okay, they're in the opinion business. But news accounts have described the fledgling Thompson venture as "a comedy of errors" (Politico.com); drawing "mediocre reviews" (Washington Post); and maintaining a "languid" schedule that on one swing "kept him on a jumbo air-conditioned bus far more often than he is actually campaigning" (New York Times).

So is the former Tennessee senator sinking like a rock? "If you only read what the national media is writing," says Todd Harris, Thompson's communications director, "you'd be surprised to learn that in three of the five early states we are either in the lead or tied for first."

Harris says elite East Coast journalists are out of touch.

"Local media cover what happens and don't get wrapped up in the expectations game," he says. "National media aren't just covering what happened but what they expected to happen. . . . The national press is far less interested in the specifics of what's going on on the ground than in looking for things to cherry-pick, to write stories that fit what they think the narrative of the campaign ought to be."

For several months, national news organizations portrayed the veteran actor as a potential Republican savior. But in the four weeks since he joined the race, Thompson has largely been panned.

There is little doubt that Thompson has fumbled some questions and seemed less than fully prepared. Asked during a Florida trip about the possibility of oil drilling in the Everglades, Thompson said he couldn't rule anything out, adding: "No one has told me that there's any major reserves in the Everglades, but maybe that's one of the things I need to learn while I'm down here."

When Thompson was asked about the 2005 furor over whether brain-damaged Terri Schiavo should be kept alive, he told a Tampa station: "That's going back in history. I don't remember the details of it."

Thompson's less-than-grueling schedule has also revived media carping that the man who walked away from the Senate in 2002 seems a tad lazy. He made just one appearance last week, in Wyoming, limiting himself to fundraising and a call to Sean Hannity's radio show. Even his folksy speaking style has been denigrated as rambling. "Like watching Bob Dole -- without the Viagra," the Heritage Foundation's Robert Bluey wrote after one speech.

Chris Lehane, a former strategist for Al Gore and John Kerry, says Thompson "has done a number of things that have played into the negative story line, that this is someone who is not a particularly hard worker and doesn't necessarily do his homework. At the end of the day these are really caricatures, and are always exaggerations. But there tends to be some truth in the caricatures."

Harris says each of the episodes has been overblown or wrenched out of context. In the Schiavo case, he says, Thompson was saying such matters should be left to local jurisdictions but "was honest enough to say he didn't have all the details."

On the Everglades question, Harris says the candidate was "laughing" as he made the remarks, but didn't pretend to be fully briefed on the issue. "When the American people are looking for a president, I don't think they're looking for an encyclopedia, they're looking for a leader. . . . If the news media think the American people choose a president based on whether he does three or five events a day, the press corps is even more detached from reality than I previously thought."

Some of Thompson's local coverage has been positive. "Thompson Brings Reagan's Style to GOP," said a Tampa Tribune piece. "Thompson Winner with Hometown Crowd," said the Huntsville, Ala., Times. "Ex-Senator Has Support from Conservatives," said the Charlotte Observer. St. Petersburg Times columnist Adam Smith wrote that the Washington pundits "need to get out of the Beltway for a few days" and are "underestimating the hunger among Republicans for an alternative to the current field."

It's possible that national reporters are failing to grasp Thompson's appeal, and by granting few interviews to major news outlets other than Fox News, he is hardly going out of his way to court them. But they remain a force to be reckoned with.

Running for president is an obstacle course, and one of the things voters watch is how you handle press scrutiny, no matter how overbearing or unfair. Thompson may like this story line far less than the "Law & Order" episodes portraying him as a crusading prosecutor, but he can't reject the script.

Diplomatic Incident

Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler hasn't been the most popular person at the State Department since his biography of Condoleezza Rice was published last month. "The Confidante" describes Rice as "one of the weakest national security advisers in U.S. history" and says her appointment of spokesman Sean McCormack "greatly angered traditionalists at State" because others were viewed as more experienced.

When Rice was about to hold a news conference with several foreign leaders at the U.N. on Sept. 23, the assembled reporters -- who rotate questions at these brief availabilities -- told McCormack's assistant that it was Kessler's turn to ask a question for the American press. The assistant returned with word that CNN producer Elise Labott would be called on instead. Labott, who heads the State Department Correspondents Association, refused. The aide said McCormack didn't want Kessler to ask the question. If that was the case, Labott said, the U.S. press corps would forgo its question.

At the news conference, the U.N. spokesman, working from McCormack's list, called on Labott, who announced that she was deferring to Kessler. He asked Rice about a planned Mideast conference.

McCormack says he asks the press for "suggestions" but that "I reserve the right to make my own suggestions." He says he told the U.N. spokesman to call on Labott first, and then Kessler if there was time for a second question. As for "The Confidante," McCormack says: "I don't do book reviews."

Kessler says he was "surprised" by the incident, adding: "I've never been officially told by anyone at State that there was any issue with my book."

Scaife Scuffle

Richard Mellon Scaife, the conservative publisher, gained national attention in the 1990s for giving the American Spectator $1.8 million to dig up dirt on Bill Clinton.

Last week, though, the publisher of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review was trying to keep information out of the press. Scaife's attorneys went to court to demand that the rival Pittsburgh Post-Gazette return documents involving his divorce.

Further dissemination of the documents "would not merely serve to embarrass the parties, but could endanger their security," Scaife's filing said. A judge rejected the request Thursday.

The Post-Gazette obtained the sealed file from a public Web site after a county official's error. The paper detailed the battle over Scaife's $1.4 billion fortune and the order that he pay his wife $725,000 a month in temporary support.

Why should even a billionaire's family fight be made public? The Post-Gazette quoted its editor, David Shribman, as saying the proceedings were "highly newsworthy" and that Scaife had asked the court to do "something unprecedented" in imposing prior restraint on a newspaper.

Musical Chairs

Must be the season: Veteran Los Angeles Times reporter Ron Brownstein has become political director of the Atlantic and National Journal. Gloria Borger has jumped from CBS News to CNN. And David Corn of the Nation is the new Washington bureau chief for Mother Jones magazine.