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Spin Cycle: Inside The Clinton Propaganda Machine
Howard Kurtz
Free Press, $25
April 13, 1998
Web posted at: 5:29 p.m. EST (2229 GMT)This quick and dirty read about the White House's efforts to launder the news was published before the wash was done.
A major focus of this witty insider's peek at the power struggle between the press and the president is how the Clinton administration and the reporters covering the White House handled the campaign fund-raising scandal that embarrassed Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore.
That all-important issue never really grabbed the hearts and minds of America. But it became boring fare by the time the book arrived on the scene, just weeks after the mother of all -gates, the Monica Lewinsky affair, shoved Saddam below the fold and even El Nino to the "in other news" ghetto.
Howard Kurtz, who covers the media for The Washington Post, only touches on the Monica scandal in the introduction and the epilogue of "Spin Cycle." Too bad. Maybe he can write "The Return of Spin Cycle" after other juicy controversies erupt and then get laundered by the spinmeisters. Even so, this snapshot of the frustrating, hostile interplay between the White House and the press over the last couple of years is fun and absorbing.
I came away from this book with admiration for many of the White House reporters and the Clinton aides. They have a tart, adversarial relationship, but they understand the rules of the game.
In the eyes of the public, the press doesn't exactly occupy moral high ground these days -- Kurtz makes that clear. But the White House press corps and these investigative reporters on Clinton's trail simply are doing their jobs. They commit misdemeanors and sins, for sure. They are vindictive. They want that superficial soundbite by deadline -- and the more salacious it is, the better. The bread-and-butter issues that Americans care about and that Clinton wants to shout about -- education, health etc. are many times shrugged off.
But one is thankful for the Fourth Estate. These reporters from The New York Times, The Washington Post, CBS, ABC et al. want candor because their readers and viewers want it, and they have questions that aren't being answered. So they will ask and ask and dig and dig. Not out of bias against Clinton, but out of public service. They'll be asking the same questions in 2001, after a new president takes office.
The personalities and the lives of the scribes are not the focus here, even though we get a sense of what drives a Michael Isikoff (of Newsweek) or a Michael Frisby (of The Wall Street Journal). But this is not "The Boys on the Bus," the classic account of the reporters covering the '72 presidential campaign.
The dedication, the angst, the passion and the guile of the White House spin doctors give the book and the White House much of its soul. Press secretary Mike McCurry and the rest of them believe in President Clinton and the Democratic agenda; they are not going to roll over and play dead to the never-ending right-wing smears and the media's fetish for scandal. They are loyal to their boss as the media are loyal to their deadlines. Sure the image-meisters are going to bob and weave and fake and tell half-truths and outright lie to defend Clinton. Out of loyalty, they won't even inhale.
McCurry is an authoritative, credible spokesman for the president; he is also funny and quick on his feet.
For example, "There was the time he infuriated the Iranian government by criticizing its beheading of 12,000 pigeons in a crackdown on illegal bird races. He called it 'news most fowl, from a regime most foul.' "
The Clintons come off as incredibly thin-skinned over press coverage, and it's just amazing that the president and Mrs. Clinton get frazzled and paranoid over tough reporting and op-ed potshots; they spend too much time obsessed with the image thing. One would think they would know that is just part of the territory, especially after years of politics in Arkansas.
The book details the president's distain for journalists. "The press runs the government," Clinton told Dick Morris (the former adviser). "They like to destroy people. That's how they get their rocks off."
Also, we see how the administration takes its public policy cue from the polls. You gotta give the people what they want, but it's not a good thing if the polls ultimately replace the conscience.
"Spin Cycle" regularly points out that, according to the polls, the public greatly approves of Clinton. The journalists don't understand how, and this blow-by-blow of political maneuvering provides no clue about this "mystery"; it's not designed to provide such answers. The book concludes that the spin only could go so far to help Clinton's presidency, which has been damaged irreparably.
But the public -- which puts its own quiet spin on things -- isn't stupid. If Clinton is convicted of a crime, the poll numbers will drop. So far -- despite all of the shouting -- he's been found guilty of nothing. But he has done one thing that infuriates his right-wing enemies -- they keep trying to hang him up to dry and he continues to spin toward posterity.
-- Joe Sterling
Reviewer Joe Sterling is a writer and editor with CNN Interactive. He worked as an editor with "The Nando Times" and with "The Pittsburgh Press" as a reporter and copy editor.
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