McCurry's last briefing

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WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, October 2) -- During his last daily briefing as White House press secretary, Mike McCurry was asked what he will miss most about his job.

"I'll miss the give-and-take here in the briefing room. I enjoy this -- it's kind of fun," McCurry answered.

In typical McCurry-style, his last face-to-face meeting with arguably the toughest audience in the world was filled with humor, honesty, and intelligence, as well as praise from the press core who has doggedly pursued him for the past four years.

Here are excepts from the last of McCurry's beloved briefings. Answering question about his tenure in the White House and his future away from the fishbowl of the executive mansion, the soon-to-be former White House press secretary shows why his legacy may survive the scandal and humiliation of his boss'.

EILEEN O'CONNOR, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Well, actually, the briefing room is packed. I don't know if we can widen out so you can see that, but there are a lot of reporters here who don't usually come here basically to enjoy what will be the last briefing of Press Secretary Mike McCurry. He's known for his scrupulous preparations for these briefings, his attention to detail, and especially his ability to duck and weave and spin, and particularly spice his spin with a sense of humor.

We're waiting. It should be a minute from now that Mr. McCurry will be coming out. This is his last briefing. He'll be handing off to his deputy spokesman, Joe Lockhart, who was also the campaign spokesman for President Clinton during the last campaign and has a lot of experience with this White House and with the Clinton camp. And here is Mike McCurry.

MIKE MCCURRY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: What happened? News broke out somewhere along the way.

QUESTION: It's just you.

MCCURRY: I've actually decided I'm going to let Lockhart brief today. He's ready to go.

QUESTION: Oh, no.

MCCURRY: No?

QUESTION: No. One more time.

MCCURRY: Had a great time. I've been cleaning out my desk. So I'll start with this one.

"QUESTION: Will the bankruptcy filing by the owners of the Houstonian Hotel affect the president's domicile and voting residence?

"Answer: No. We've been informed that the Houstonian Partnership, one of the owners of the Houstonian Hotel in Houston filed for reorganization..." Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I think that's from Arlen. Did he ever use this? I'll send that to him.

QUESTION: What kind of a note are you to leave for Joe Lockhart?

MCCURRY: A warm and affectionate one.

QUESTION: And what's it going to say?

MCCURRY: It's going to give Mr. Lockhart, not that he needs it, advice, the good piece of advice that I will leave him, which he will share with you if he so chooses. He doesn't need much advice. Story of the day. News of the day. Let's go. Questions.

Eventually the questioning returned to McCurry's departure.

QUESTION: In addition to the attorney-client problem that you outlined in answer to Bill's question, you were also a number of times straightforward enough, though, to say to us that one reason you didn't find out information was that if you didn't know things, you wouldn't be put in a position where you might have to say things that would turn out not to be true.

MCCURRY: Right. Absolutely.

QUESTION: And, you even, at one point, said "self preservation" is one of the reasons why you didn't...

MCCURRY: Right, the one thing I was determined, when that story broke back in January, was to never come here and do what some of my predecessors unfortunately did, which was to lie to you and mislead you. And sometimes not know the answer.

And I know that puts you in a tough position, too. It's better than consciously misleading people.

Now I -- you know, I know that at times I came up short. I know there were times that I didn't, you know, have the right information. Frankly, the president misled me, too. So I came here and misled you on occasion, and that was grievously wrong of him. But he's acknowledged that.

But, you know, did I ever knowingly come here and send you folks in the wrong direction -- I did not. I'm confident of that. And did I make sure that I was never in a position to -- (OFF-MIKE) was in a position sometimes when I couldn't convey the information I otherwise would have, yeah, that happened.

But you know, look, over 5.5 years, the person -- the number of times I had or the percentage of times I had I think was pretty small.

If you look at the experience on a range of things that we talked about here in the time that I've been here.

Yes.

QUESTION: Why do you think the president lied to you? I mean, that's (OFF-MIKE) -- you had this kind of free-at-last sense today, and I wonder if you -- what you're going to miss most about...

MCCURRY: Does it show?

(LAUGHTER)

QUESTION: It does.

MCCURRY: Look, I mean the President has addressed the first question himself. I can't add to what he has said already on it. And I don't know the other stuff.

QUESTION: What are you going to miss the most about being the spokesperson?

MCCURRY: I'll miss the give-and-take here in the briefing room. I enjoy this -- it's kind of fun.

QUESTION: Do you have any words for the press? I mean, we give you an opportunity -- we lay it on you. Do you have any words for us?

MCCURRY: I am much too close to the combat that we've enjoyed here to make any profound comments, and I think that -- over time I think I will reflect on the experiences I've had, but lookit, this is a contentious environment, and it is, by design, a adversarial relationship.

But what I've tried to do is make it a professional relationship and one in which we can still have some measure of amicability in the proceedings, and I think that's important.

QUESTION: That's exactly why I want to ask you this question. Who does the press secretary work for? Does he work for the press? Does he work for the president?

MCCURRY: The press secretary of the United States works for the people who pay him, the people of the United States of America. That's where your first and only obligation is, is to the truth, and that helping the American people.

Now, you can do that by doing a good job for your boss, and when I started here in January of 1995, I said I was going to work for him, I was going to work for all of you by being your advocate, you know, here in the White House, internally. And, by the way, Mr. Lockhart (ph) is going to be your most aggressive proponent inside the White House, so when he argues with you occasionally, tolerate him, because he is -- the press secretary has to be your employee as well. So you work for both sides of this equation.

I like to tell people my office, you know, is perfectly situated as a geographic metaphor here in the White House. Fifty feet in one direction is the Oval Office, and 50 feet away is here where we are, dealing with you. And that's the role of the press secretary, to be equidistant between two combatants in this adversarial relationship.

QUESTION: Well, you've done a good, Mike.

MCCURRY: Thanks, sweets.

QUESTION: I'm going to certainly miss you.

MCCURRY: Helen and I always had a thing for each other.

Look, let me -- let me -- this is -- we added it up. This is the 539th time that I've stood here and briefed, and then probably another 250 times beyond that in places far-flung around and about, and it has been fun.

The other thing I said when I started was I wanted to have some fun doing it, and some days have been less fun than other days, but on balance it's always been an honor to work here, and I have been blessed by, I think, arguably one of the finest White House press staffs that has ever been assembled. and Laurie Anderson (ph), who is still the best person you could ever have taking care of your real business, is very sweet. And so, you know, I've been very lucky to have served here.

QUESTION: You leave with your honor intact.

MCCURRY: Thank you. It's a good way to end.

QUESTION: And what are your plans, Mike?

QUESTION: What's next?

MCCURRY: Play a little golf, make a little money, do a lot of Little League coaching and volunteering in my schools.

QUESTION: Mike, you got to write a book.

MCCURRY: No -- well, not immediately. I might -- my agent advised me never to say no. No, if I ever write a book, I don't want it to be about this business, because I'll put in a plug for Marlin. I wouldn't write a book much different from Marlin Fitzwater's book, which deals with many of the same people in this room and many of the same kinds of things.

QUESTION: You might have a different judgment.

MCCURRY: No, he's got pretty good...

QUESTION: What would you write about?

MCCURRY: He has a pretty take on it. About the changes we're going through, as a culture, as we try to communicate about public policy in the information age. It's been -- it's a very...

QUESTION: That's dull (ph).

MCCURRY: Sounds good. Helen?

QUESTION: You know, you better have sex in the book.

MCCURRY: Sounds like...

QUESTION: Sex in the book sells...

MCCURRY: Sounds like a textbook that might get ordered over and over again on syllabi. Yeah?

QUESTION: Mike, can you share with us what your best moment and your worst moment works in your position? Does today fit into any of these categories?

MCCURRY: Best moments.

QUESTION: Today.

MCCURRY: Yeah, packing up and leaving tomorrow. No, I think -- we, actually -- the worst moments, and the ones that I struggled with, ironically we touched on today, and that's the tragedy in the Balkans.

As some of you know, I did a college thesis on Yugoslavia and traveled in that region as a kid, and the unspeakable horror that's happened in the Balkans, the way in which we, at first, could not come to grips with it, but then later kind of summoned up the willpower to actually insert ourselves into that process and achieve the Dayton Accords has been -- produced, in some ways, the worst and the best moments.

And that's real. You know, we talk about a lot of stuff in here that's just not that central to the lives of people, but that has been a life-and-death matter, and that's...

QUESTION: You've had one of the most civil staffs we've ever dealt with.

MCCURRY: That's good. They're ordered to be that way, and so shall they remain.

QUESTION: Have you learned anything in 5-1/2 years from this press and from this White House?

MCCURRY: Yeah, quite a bit about it, but I better go out and make people pay to hear it from now on. Liz?

QUESTION: Pay to hear it? Gad.

QUESTION: Some of your fellow White House officials have remarked in recent weeks that your status has increased to a kind of superstar level, in part because...

MCCURRY: Those are just the envious ones.

QUESTION: ... in part because of the uncomfortable position you've been in in the last several months. Can you talk a little bit about that? Do you feel -- have you noticed it? Do you feel a different...

MCCURRY: Yeah. I mean, there's been a lot of -- there's a lot to say. Look, I will not talk about the phenomenon that has occurred here in the last eight months, because I haven't really sorted it all out myself. I read a paper that Marvin Kalb has just sent me the other day that he's produced, I'd recommend that as required reading to everyone here.

And a lot of it has some pretty important observations that we should all reflect on, and it does not necessarily criticize you any more than it criticizes us, but it really raises the issue of how we conduct business in this town and how we talk about the work of the presidency and the work that happens in this town and raises some important issues that we should all struggle with.

But I'm -- look, when you're in the middle of the -- I like to say I'm the chum in the feeding frenzy, so I'm not the guy to be making profound pronouncements. Yeah, April -- put me out of my misery.

QUESTION: Last time this room was this full was at the beginning of this scandal.

MCCURRY: Yeah, what's that -- yeah, what's the deal? What are you guys all doing here?

QUESTION: How does it make you feel that you're finally the news story, and your news of leaving is maybe just as big as the person you...

MCCURRY: Well, embarrassed, and let me say this as directly as I can. You know, I made probably, for better or worse -- looks like today for worse -- the decision that we should televise these things and, you know, make them available to you in the electronic media. There are moments, like this one, where I probably regret that decision.

But this is -- you know, the press secretary of the president, we come and go, but we didn't get elected to be anything. And I will certainly enjoy whatever notoriety I have, and I will certainly use it to the good fortune of my family in the future. Don't mistake me on that. I appreciate it very much.

But look, it's not about the personality of the people who are here. We have but one requirement, which is to report accurately and truthfully on the work the president has done, and it -- you know, our guess and always our assumption is that if we get good, accurate, truthful reporting on the work of the president -- since we think we're doing the right thing -- that will engender support in the American people.

That's why it's in our self-interest to do exactly what you are in the business of doing, which is to report truthfully on what's happening at the White House to the consumer. So there is some common interest here, but personality and who stands here is, you know, not a part of it. It's why, when Joe walks in here and starts on Monday, it will be sort of a seamless transition, because there's -- you know, there's only one person that got elected to do the job that we all do here, and that's Bill Clinton, and that's who you all are covering, and that's who we work for. And that's who the American people want to know about -- they want to know about his thinking and his decision- making, and that's why you legitimately want to see more of him.

QUESTION: What a good idea.

MCCURRY: All right, enough. Dash, 30, dash. Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

McCurry's last briefing

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Friday, October 2, 1998