By Mark Jurkowitz, Globe Staff, June 23, 1999
In his race to succeed one of the most scandal-scarred presidents in history, the question dogs the front-running candidacy of George W. Bush. Will his terse, preemptive confession of youthful indiscretions head off a media invasion of his past? Or are he and the nation headed for a campaign marked by salacious scandal mongering?
At this point, the mainstream media -- stung by the public rebuke of their Monica Lewinsky obsession -- appear to have little appetite for a frenzied Bush character hunt. (Last month, The Wall Street Journal took the extraordinary step of publishing a story that raised -- and then refuted -- drug allegations against Bush.) But in an era in which Internet gossip Matt Drudge, the Star tabloid, and porn king Larry Flynt shovel the dirt all the way up the media food chain, many observers believe Bush will inevitably face a crucible of tabloid headlines and kiss-and-tell accusers.
"I know of three reporters from the tabloids [investigating Bush] in Texas and they're not looking for oil," said Drudge, who first publicized the Lewinsky episode on his Web site. "I wouldn't bet the ranch" on a scandal-ridden presidential campaign in 2000, he added. "I'd bet the planet."
The Washington Post's Bob Woodward makes the same basic point, albeit more diplomatically. "The question is 'What is that line between a mistake and normal behavior and something that requires further illumination or explanation?' " he said.
In some ways, Woodward noted, Bush's glancing reference to his indiscretions is "the equivalent of Gary Hart" telling reporters to "follow me" in his infidelity-shortened 1988 presidential campaign. Lest anyone wonder, the usual suspects are already following Bush around.
"I'd say it's a pretty hot story for us and if we come up with something, we'd go with it," said Star editor Phil Bunton. "We're certainly working on one [story] at the moment."
"We haven't assigned a special task force to uncover skeletons in his closet. But yes, we have gotten tips," said Steve Plamann, assistant executive editor at the National Enquirer. "We have some very interesting areas we're going to explore. There are some very interesting things going on and you'll see them in print."
In this media environment, one ignores that kind of promise at one's peril. For it is the tabloid culture -- using nontraditional and widely disdained journalistic methods -- that has exploded most of the political bombshells of the past decade.
Gennifer Flowers was paid more than $100,000 by the Star to tell of her affair with President Clinton; that's the same supermarket tab that forced the 1996 resignation of Clinton guru Dick Morris after paying a prostitute to detail her liaison with him. The Drudge Report, often a repository of unverified gossip, not only stole Newsweek's Lewinsky scoop, it helped goad NBC and the mainstream media into airing Juanita Broaddrick's allegations that Clinton sexually assaulted her in 1978. The brief but bothersome story of an extramarital affair that hounded President George Bush in 1992 originated with the brazen Big Apple tabloid, the New York Post. And the charges of infidelity that brought down House Speaker-elect Robert Livingston last December came courtesy of Hustler publisher Flynt, reaping the fruits of the $1 million reward he offered for evidence of such philandering.
Despite their shaky and even disreputable origins, each of these stories quickly jumped onto the pages and the airwaves of the mainstream media to become part of the water cooler conversation. With Bush's so-called indiscretions functioning as what Bunton calls a "red flag," what's to spare him from the same fate?
"If a presidential candidate thinks his skeletons are going to remain in his closet in this day and age, he's dreaming," declared Plamann.
Larry Sabato, author of "Feeding Frenzy: How Attack Journalism Has Transformed American Politics," doesn't believe Bush provides the media's character cops with the same target-rich environment that Clinton did. But he is quite certain the Texas governor will have to run his own gantlet of scandal stories.
"It's amusing to me when I read and see and hear that we've turned the corner on this," he said. "That people aren't interested anymore. The press won't report it. Of course, it's going to happen. If the Bush campaign is calculating it's not going to happen, they've calculated very badly."
It's not that the calculation hasn't changed since Clinton proved that a politician could survive what were previously considered fatal foibles. Some observers argue that in a nation benumbed by Monica-gate, the electorate and press are now less interested in the private follies of public figures.
"I wonder whether the American public is shockable anymore," said New York Post editor Ken Chandler, whose paper reveled in the Clinton shockers. "I wonder how much they care about alleged scandal."
CNN senior political analyst William Schneider thinks the mainstream media are reluctant to energetically pursue Bush's past "because of the Clinton experience. . . . The voters essentially controlled the agenda and said, 'Don't get into this,' " he said. "The Republicans paid a price and the press paid a price. . . . The press knows that the voters' appetite for this is limited and they're going to exercise some discretion."
But he acknowledged that "you and I don't know what's there. . . . It all depends upon what the charge is."
Sabato says political scandal stories might have a shorter shelf life now, "but that doesn't mean people won't absorb them. . . . It's a permanent part of American society."
Meanwhile, the Bush campaign is functioning under this strange sword of Damocles, listening to reporters clamor for a fuller explanation of those youthful indiscretions, watching while The Wall Street Journal publishes the damning rumor that Bush snorted cocaine at his father's inauguration, and waiting while the tabloids sniff around his old haunts with checkbook in hand.
"It could really get wild," offered Woodward, the author of the new book "Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate." "I don't think there should be a media war on any of these candidates." But they "need to realize it's a new world."
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