How Is My Site?
View Results
It’s never a good thing when someone passes, but the death of columnist William Safire brought to mind a run-in I had with him some years ago. The experience left me with with a sour taste in my mouth, I have to admit, because up until that time I did admire him as a journalist. The issue behind Safire’s calls to me dated back to my days on the House Government Operations Committee in 1995 and 1996, after the Republicans had taken control of the House and used the Committee as its main platform for attacks on President Clinton. One of those investigations was into the so called FBI Files that the Secret Service would routinely transmit to the White House for clearance purposes, only somehow the previous administration’s files had gotten to the Clinton staff by mistake. Without going into the boring details, two high-ranking Secret Service officials had testified under oath to the Committee that it could not have produced such records, implying that the White House had somehow nefariously used these records for political payback. Eight months later, Ken Starr released to the Committee records showing that in fact the errant files had come from the Secret Service. The ranking Democrat on the Committee– my boss, Rep. Cardis Collins– requested an investigation by the Treasury Department’s Inspector General into how the sworn testimony could have been delivered to the Committee, given that it was so directly contradicted by the records that the Secret Service had provided to Starr.
I think that’s still a good question– did the Secret Service provide untruthful testimony on purpose– it’s run-ins with the Clintons were well-known at that time– or was there some other explanation? (And why did Starr withhold those records while the White House squirmed for more than half a year?). But Republicans for obvious reasons didn’t want to know the answer to that question– they wanted to continue to embarrass the White House, and so turned their aim on Mrs. Collins, myself, and even the Treasury IG. And of course, the press followed their lead. I was the subject of a front-page articled in the Washington Times and a lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal, alleging that I was rewarded for my efforts against the Secret Service with a job in the White House. All good and fine. We are grown-ups and know that this business is a contact sport. The charges were absurd (the actual process of how I got appointed to the White House Counsel’s office and the damage control is far less interesting).
Fast forward five years, and Safire, fed by my erstwhile but fairly incompetent Republican adversaries still obsessed with Bill Clinton (you know who you are), then came calling. Again, I don’t mind that, even if he hadn’t bothered to do even a basic review to find out that the issue had been written about to death in the conservative media. And after providing him all of the details, I was able to talk him out of pursuing the non-story.
But it was what he said next, after several conversations, that has stayed with me: Something along the lines of, if I find out you aren’t being straight with me, “I have a long memory.” I found that comment to be indicative of the offensive sense of self-importance that he had come to assume over the years . I have been, and get, attacked all the time for the clients I have defended– from Bill Clinton to the private sector. That’s ok– we all understand that that’s part of the job. Personal threats on my integrity are all together different. That’s when I lost respect for Safire.
Loading ...