Rahmbo and the Reporters

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 23, 2009 9:51 AM

For Chuck Todd, getting calls from Rahm Emanuel is a staple of covering the White House. But they dwell as much on what the NBC correspondent knows as what he can get the president's top aide to divulge.

For New York Times columnist David Brooks, it's an Emanuel invitation for a White House chat at which President Obama happens to drop by.

For Washington Post reporter Michael Shear, it's three calls to his car in a matter of minutes as he shushes his kids on the way to a Virginia restaurant.

"A conversation with Rahm can be as little as 30 seconds," says CNN commentator Paul Begala, who worked with Emanuel in the Clinton White House. "He calls, drops a few F-bombs, makes his point and hangs up."

Perhaps no White House chief of staff in modern history has worked the press as aggressively and relentlessly as Emanuel. Drawing on his long-standing relationships with journalists, Emanuel serves up on-the-record quotes, background spin and the sort of capital gossip that lubricates relationships. The former Chicago congressman also seeks their take on events and floats possible administration tactics.

And Emanuel is brusquely efficient. "It's a no-nonsense relationship," Todd says. "He's always trying to extract as much information as he's trying to give."

"He thinks like a journalist," says Obama senior adviser David Axelrod, who marvels at his colleague making multiple calls and wolfing down lunch at the same time.

As chief of staff to the elder President Bush, James Baker was also masterful at working his media contacts, but usually from behind a curtain of anonymity. Many other predecessors, such as Andy Card, Mack McLarty and John Sununu, were less accessible to journalists.

Emanuel is regularly quoted in major newspapers, even in routine stories in which he is simply another administration voice. On Friday, The Post used Emanuel's remarks on the slow progress of health care reform in the 11th and 12th paragraphs of a news report; on June 7, he was quoted on the same subject in the eighth and ninth paragraphs of a Times story.

The allure is obvious: He is a colorful character who lends spice to most stories. And, some journalists say, Emanuel's accessibility serves to burnish his own reputation.

Emanuel's wife and three children are in the process of moving from Chicago, which may curtail his round-the-clock offensive, at least slightly.

Along with Axelrod, a onetime Chicago Tribune reporter, Emanuel has become a more prominent voice in print stories than press secretary Robert Gibbs, who focuses much of his energy on the daily briefing and whose on-the-record comments tend to be cautious. White House officials see Emanuel as an independent media center but are careful to coordinate strategy with him.

None of this would be remarkable, except for the fact that Emanuel serves as the fulcrum of a frenetic West Wing, controlling access to the president, helping to shape the daily message and constantly lobbying his former colleagues on the Hill. Yet he somehow finds time to stay in constant touch with a sizable group of journalists, both on the phone and through a series of off-the-record restaurant dinners. Emanuel has also hosted off-the-record gatherings of columnists and Sunday show hosts in his White House office or on his outdoor portico.

Newsweek columnist Howard Fineman says Emanuel "enjoys jousting with the press and the idea that he understands our tribal rituals. There's no more political being in Washington than Rahm, so you can get a quicker read on a situation just by checking his barometric pressure. Are you going to get the inside story of what's going on behind closed doors? Absolutely not. But you don't go to Rahm for that."

Emanuel would comment only with an e-mail, and a rather dull one at that: "I've always believed it is important to be in close communication with journalists." He called Washington reporters "professionals who take very seriously their responsibility to act as a go-between for the American people and their government."

He honed his media-management skills as a top adviser in the last Democratic White House. Emanuel would play off the competitive instincts of reporters, once leaking a story about AIDS policy to The Post to penalize the Times for dragging its feet on the story, another time calling network officials to knock down a critical Boston Globe report. No speech or initiative was too small for him to give it to a news outlet in advance in exchange for better play.

Emanuel came to view journalists as a constituency group, like members of Congress, that had to be stroked. He called Tim Russert every week, either to complain about NBC's coverage of Bill Clinton or suggest topics for "Meet the Press."

Conservative critics also got the Rahm treatment. After Michael Kelly, then the New Republic's editor, called Clinton a "shocking liar," Emanuel took him to lunch. Emanuel called Times columnist William Safire "Uncle Bill" and had him over for dinner, despite his having called Hillary Clinton a "congenital liar."

Against this backdrop, Emanuel's courtship of Brooks, a conservative who has at times been sympathetic to Obama, is hardly surprising. In March, after Brooks wrote that Obama had turned out to be another big-spending liberal, he found himself talking to Emanuel, two other top officials and the president, which produced a follow-up column crediting the White House with making a "sophisticated and fact-based" case.

Brooks says he had a half-dozen dinners with Emanuel during his congressional days and now considers him a policy maven as well as political tactician. "He's comfortable with journalists," Brooks says. "He provides real information without giving too much away. With some people you just get the spin; he does go beyond that."

In May, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne was invited to Axelrod's office for a liberal columnists' briefing on Obama's plan to close Guantanamo Bay. Upon leaving, he bumped into Brooks, who had been among center-right columnists getting the treatment in Emanuel's office -- an arrangement Dionne found "a little too cute." The president dropped by both gatherings.

"Rahm always has several stories he wants to sell," Dionne says. "There's a candor within his sales pitch. He will try to sell you a line, but he is transparent that he's doing that."

In 2006, as Emanuel was helping Democrats win back the House, he gave the Chicago Tribune exclusive access to his expletive-filled strategy sessions and private fundraisers. Of his hardball tactics, Emanuel said: "I wake up some mornings hating me, too."

These days he talks most frequently to former Clinton colleagues, such as George Stephanopoulos, now ABC's chief Washington correspondent, and the reporters who covered him in Congress.

"We trade gossip about the Hill, the campaign, proposals," Begala says. "Maybe he's trying to push me one way or another. It's not really in his job description to work the press, but he's never going to stop."

Split Decision

"Expectations for President Obama's stimulus package have diminished, with barely half of Americans now confident the $787 billion measure will boost the economy, and the rapid rise in optimism that followed the 2008 election has abated," according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. But his approval rating is 65 percent.

Risky Reporting

The tale of David Rohde's escape from the Taliban is a tense thriller that reminds us, even in this age of Twitter, that old-fashioned journalism can be dangerous.

For a guy who was seized in Bosnia in 1995 to go to Afghanistan two months after getting married -- and attempt to meet with a Taliban leader -- shows the kind of guts and dedication that are a hallmark of war correspondents. And the way that he and his Afghan assistant used a rope to descend a 20-foot wall while the guards slept is the stuff of Hollywood cinema.

Maybe the New York Times reporter will write the definitive account, turn his ordeal into a book or go on Larry King. But at the moment, he is reuniting with his family and making no attempt to capitalize on the situation.

(It's slightly odd that Rohde hasn't at least put out a statement thanking the Times and those who worked for his release, while the Afghan journalist, Tahir Ludin, has detailed their escape in an interview with the paper. But I'm willing to cut him some slack. Rohde may be in a state of exhaustion and need some time to gather himself.)

You might think the media world would be cheering for Rohde. But the story hasn't received much traction. Television has done almost nothing, because the Pulitzer Prize winner isn't well known, and there's no video to go with the story. And, of course, Rohde disappearing into seclusion deprives TV -- not to mention newspaper feature writers -- of the central character in the drama.

But conservatives are using the story as another opportunity to beat up on the New York Times. They are dredging up the past controversy over the paper's national security reporting and attempting to contrast it with its seven-month silence on the Rohde kidnapping.

It's an apples-and-oranges comparison. I know critics feel strongly about the Times disclosing in 2005 that the Bush administration was engaged in a broad program of domestic surveillance -- a story that Bill Keller held, you might recall, for more than a year because of objections by George Bush and Dick Cheney. Ultimately he felt it was in a form that could be published. The administration and its supporters assailed the Times for undermining the war against terror, although I have never been convinced of that -- did the bad guys not think the United States was trying to listen in on their calls?

In the Rohde case, we are talking about the life of one Times reporter and two colleagues. It's not a question of national security; it's a question of how to return them alive from the Taliban's clutches. I have qualms about the Times not reporting the story and asking others not to do so, but so, Keller told me, did he.

I just think Rohde's dedication to his craft has gotten overlooked in the process.

Hot Air's Ed Morrissey was among the bloggers who got wind of Rohde's kidnapping:

"Instead of publishing the story immediately, I called the New York Times to first confirm it, and also to see why they hadn't reported it themselves. I spoke to a member of the media relations department, who asked me to refrain from writing about Rohde, explaining their concerns for his safety. She assured me that they would get in touch with me immediately if any new developments occurred, which didn't happen, but from our conversation it appeared that they had a long list of contacts for that contingency ahead of me . . .

"In the end, I sat on the story. I considered the short-term boost of an quasi-exclusive (a handful of other bloggers had picked this up as foreign media sources reported it) against the risk to someone's life. Even though we don't agree much with the Times, Rohde did what we demanded of reporters in Iraq, which was to go outside their hotel rooms and get the actual stories on the ground, and in doing so he fell victim to terrorists. I didn't want to compound that risk and punish him for doing his job correctly by getting a momentary thrill of a semi-scoop that could have gotten him killed, and would have gained me nothing beyond one or two news cycles."

At Commentary, Max Boot tries to invoke the double-standard argument:

"I don't have any quibble with the Times's decision to keep the lid on the kidnapping. It was clearly the right thing to do.

"I only wish the Times and other news organizations displayed as much regard for the nation's secrets as they do for their own. The Times has no problem disclosing secret wiretapping of terrorists notwithstanding arguments from senior government officials that this would compromise vital programs.

"So the secrecy pleas which the Times took so seriously in the case of David Rohde were completely disregarded in the case of al Qaeda surveillance even though experts warned that the Times's disclosure could increase the danger not just to one person but to millions. Perhaps in the future when deciding whether or not to publish details of covert government programs, the Times and other media organizations should keep in mind that among the millions of Americans whose safety could be compromised by their disclosures are thousands of their own employees."

Powerline's Scott Johnson goes there as well:

"The Times's concern for the safety of its reporter, however, provides a macabre contrast with the Times's illegal exposure of the NSA terrorist eavesdropping program in December 2005, as well as its exposure of the Treasury Department's terrorist-finance tracking program in June 2006. Whereas the reporting of Rohde's apprehension may have endangered his life, the disclosure of the NSA terrorist eavesdropping and terrorist finance tracking programs only threatened the security of the United States."

Where in the World?

"The whereabouts of Gov. Mark Sanford was unknown for nearly four days, and some state leaders question who was in charge of the executive office . . .

"First lady Jenny Sanford told The Associated Press earlier Monday her husband has been gone for several days and she did not know where. She said she was not concerned." The state says his office issued a release saying he was, ah, chilling out.

Scrutinizing Scientology

A remarkable story in the St. Petersburg Times about Scientology leader David Miscavige, based on on-the-record accounts from former church officials Marty Rathbun, Mike Rinder and Tom De Vocht:

"They provide an unprecedented look inside the upper reaches of the tightly controlled organization. They reveal:

"Physical violence permeated Scientology's international management team. Miscavige set the tone, routinely attacking his lieutenants. Rinder says the leader attacked him some 50 times.

"Rathbun, Rinder and De Vocht admit that they, too, attacked their colleagues, to demonstrate loyalty to Miscavige and prove their mettle.

"Staffers are disciplined and controlled by a multilayered system of 'ecclesiastical justice.' It includes publicly confessing sins and crimes to a group of peers, being ordered to jump into a pool fully clothed, facing embarrassing 'security checks' or, worse, being isolated as a 'suppressive person.'

"At the pinnacle of the hierarchy, Miscavige commands such power that managers follow his orders, however bizarre, with lemming-like obedience."

Brits Dig In

The latest example of empowering readers from the Guardian on the burgeoning scandal involving members of Parliament using expense accounts for country homes, moats, X-rated movies and the like:

"The response has been enormous, the results intriguing and, thanks to the efforts of many thousands of Guardian readers, not one MP who has put in a dodgy expenses claim can think about relaxing just yet.

"In a groundbreaking 'crowd-sourcing' exercise, the Guardian appealed for help in sifting through the huge amount of data on MPs' expenses that was unleashed at the end of last week. Almost 20,000 people have taken part in gathering facts for the online project and about 160,000 pages have been examined." And you don't have to pay any of them!

Recession Watch

"The Chicago Tribune said today it is discontinuing its weekly Sunday magazine, replacing it as of July 5th with Sunday, a new section that will combine some of the magazine's features and puzzles with content that had been in the paper's Smart and House & Homes sections."

L.A. Mayor Stays Put

"Of course L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said no to a run for governor," says Steve Lopez in the L.A. Times.

"What else could he say?

"You can't do a mediocre job, get lukewarm support in the polls, and announce one week before the start of your second term that you're graduating to bigger challenges. That'd be like getting a 2.0 GPA in high school and announcing you'd like to be a brain surgeon."

Villaraigosa told CNN he couldn't leave Los Angeles "in a crisis." But Lopez says it's because he knows he can't win -- in part because of "dubious private choices," such as carrying on with a local anchorwoman while he was married.