In Book, Clinton Explains Problems with 'Elite' Press

By: Greg Mitchell Now, at long last, we finally know what Bill Clinton thinks of us in the newspaper business -- at least those of us in the big city.

In his memoir "My Life," published today, he mounts a sporadic but spirited attack on an overzealous press for unfairly depicting his involvement in the Whitewater scandal and his battles with prosecutor Ken Starr. At one point he says, "some Whitewater reporters were actually covering up evidence of our innocence."

He also accuses the press of focusing too much on his "character problems," though he admits that he made a big mistake when he revealed that he smoked marijuana but "didn't inhale." What he really meant, he says, is "I couldn't inhale." He'd tried, but failed.

One problem, he says, is that the elite press in New York and Washington "had negative preconceptions about a poor, rural state and the people who lived there."

At one point, in describing the Whitewater coverage, he hails a "fair story" in USA Today, but what he "couldn't believe was that The New York Times, The Washington Post, and others in the media I had always respected and trusted had been sucker punched" by Clinton foes such as Jim Johnson and Floyd Brown.

He then recounts a conversation with old friend Nicholas Katzenbach, then on the board of the Washington Post, telling him that he was "ashamed of the paper's coverage on Whitewater."

Later, in a lengthy passage, he recounts how the Times and Post overlooked an important report related to the Starr investigation favorable to Clinton, while the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and The Washington Times downplayed it. To be fair, he notes that Howard Kurtz of the Post wrote an article about the report being buried, and also praises an account by Lars-Erik Nelson of the New York Daily News.

When the New York Times finally writes an anti-Starr editorial, Clinton notes, "I couldn't deny that the grand old paper still had a conscience; they didn't want Hillary and me handed over to a lynch mob. The rest of the Whitewater media was silent on the subject."

Perhaps the most revealing passage comes on page 692 in another account of his Starr-crossed days, in one sustained paragraph:

"I was genuinely confused by the mainstream press coverage of Whitewater...One day, after one of our budget meetings in October, I asked Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming to stay a moment to talk. Simpson was a conservative Republican, but we had a pretty good relationship because of the friendship we had in common with his governor, Mike Sullivan. I asked Alan if he thought Hillary and I had done anything wrong in Whitewater. 'Of course not,' he said. 'That's not what this is about. This is about making the public think you did something wrong. Anybody who looked at the evidence would see that you didn't.' Simpson laughed at how willing the 'elitist' press was to swallow anything negative about small, rural places like Wyoming or Arkansas and made an interesting observation: 'You know, before you were elected, we Republicans believed the press was liberal. Now we have a more sophisticated view. They are liberal in a way. Most of them voted for you, but they think more like your right-wing critics do, and that's much more important.' When I asked him to explain, he said, 'Democrats like you and Sullivan get into government to help people. The right-wing extremists don't think government can do much to improve on human nature, but they like power. So does the press. And since you're President, they both get power the same way, by hurting you.' I appreciated Simpson's candor and I thought about what he said for months. For a long time, whenever I was angry about the Whitewater press coverage I would tell people about Simpson's analysis. When I finally just accepted his insight as accurate, it was liberating, and it cleared my head for the fight."

As the book nears its close and we reach the 2000 election, Clinton claims that he cared so much about Al Gore winning that he offered to "stand on the doorstep of the Washington Post's headquarters and let him lash me with a bullwhip." Gore replied: "Maybe we ought to poll that." Clinton laughed and said, "Let's see whether it works better with my shirt on or off."