All Too Human: A Political Education (61 page)

The fight Clinton was anticipating didn't materialize that night. Both the president and the general took the high road. But for the next month, the “Draft Powell” movement sucked in all the oxygen in the political atmosphere. The broader American public, however, was preoccupied with the fate of another black American. In the White House, we calculated what the O. J. Simpson verdict would mean for Clinton and the country — and prepared for the worst.

On Monday, October 2, Gene Sperling and I were in my office when CNN's “Breaking News” logo lit up the television that was always on. Caught off guard by the fact that the jury's deliberations had taken less than four hours, Panetta hastily called a meeting in his office. The president would need a statement responding to the verdict, and the Justice Department was preparing for possible riots in Los Angeles. We naturally started out, however, by speculating on the verdict, and each person's guess was a window on his character.

Leon, a former prosecutor and strict disciplinarian, went straight to guilty. Morris went straight to the polls: “Eighty percent of the blacks in the country think O. J.'s been framed or that there was police misconduct. With that many blacks on the jury, I'm telling you, he's innocent.” Carville phoned in a prediction from his gut: “He's guilty. I feel it; they'll find him guilty.” My own conclusion was more a wish than a prediction. “Guilty,” I said. The president refused to play, saying only that he was surprised at how quickly the verdict had been reached. Morris had an answer for that too: “That kind of impetuousness is characteristic of blacks.”

Early the next morning, we met with Justice Department officials to review their contingency plans. Their Community Services Task Force reported that African Americans in Los Angeles were on tenterhooks and focused on Mark Fuhrman. They feared a guilty verdict would set off riots in the streets and were coordinating with the LAPD and community leaders to keep the situation under control. Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick told us that once the verdict was announced, the Justice Department would pursue a civil rights complaint against Mark Fuhrman and investigate allegations of misconduct against the police — a move that would be especially crucial if O. J. was found guilty. We all agreed that the president's statement should be as neutral as possible.

When we went to get the president's approval, he opened the meeting with a wan stab at humor: “So, Jamie, are we going to have black or white riots today?” I flashed back to a moment shortly after Simpson's arrest. Clinton was in his dining room, recalling the time he'd played golf with O. J. and reflecting on the anxieties that eat away at a middle-aged man whose greatest achievements are behind him. But now the president was more focused on politics than psychology. The prospect of acquittal made him anxious. He feared it would fuel white resentment and feed the prejudiced notion that “blacks can't be trusted with the criminal justice system.” An acquittal would deepen racial divisions; and while Clinton didn't say it then, he knew it could also mean more “angry white males” voting Republican in 1996.

The verdict was set for one
P.M.
eastern time. At the top of the hour, we arranged for Clinton to sign an appropriations bill so we could legitimately claim that the president just “took a break” from legislative work to watch. But we were as transfixed as the rest of the country. Several of us watched in Betty Currie's office, which had the largest television in the Oval Office suite. Clinton pulled a chair up to the console facing Betty's desk. He was uncharacteristically quiet and didn't look up from the crossword puzzle he was working on. But when cowboy lawyer Gerry Spence predicted a guilty verdict, the president muttered, “Good for you.” Then the members of the jury took their seats, and the forewoman announced their decision: not guilty.

Clinton stared at the screen; we stared at Clinton. For us, the suspense wasn't over yet. No one said a word, as if we were waiting for the president's permission, for official guidance on what to think. After all, at some level, Clinton's reaction would become our reaction; that came with the territory. The president knew that too. A year or two earlier, he would have mimicked Spence — analyzing the decision to death and saying everything on his mind. But by this point in his presidency, he was more aware of being watched and better understood the weight of his words — even the private ones. He struggled to remain silent, but a single disgusted syllable slipped out: “Shit.”

That was all we needed. As the television displayed a scene of crowds cheering in the streets of South Central L.A., our small room became a babel of anger and invective. Clinton didn't move from his chair, just silently redrafted his public reaction, a single sentence expressing respect for the jury's decision and sadness for “Ron and Nicole.” Mike McCurry took the statement and asked if he had any other thoughts. “Not that I want to say,” he replied. Still sitting, he slowly doubled over, lowering his head into the palms of his hands, grinding them into his eyes as if to keep all those thoughts from escaping.

Everyone returned to work, and Clinton retreated to the relative solitude of the Oval, leaving the office to Betty — the only African American in the room. We had first worked together in the Dukakis campaign, then the War Room, now the White House. She was a serene presence, quick to offer a piece of candy or a hug when you looked a little harried. As I returned to my office, I wondered about her.
Boy, it must have been painful for her to watch that scene, even if she loves the president, even if she's friends with us.
Ashamed of my insensitivity, I went back to talk with her about it and asked if she could explain the cheers.

“You mean, what do they think in the 'hood?” she asked, with just enough of an edge to let me know that my outraged reaction to the verdict had been noted. “Most people feel vindicated by the verdict. It sends the message that the police can't screw around with black people.”

But Betty, what kind of a message does it send to let a murderer go free?
The look on my face gave me away. So Betty brought up a talk we'd had shortly after O. J. was arrested. “Remember, George, when this started, I thought he was guilty and you didn't believe it.” It was a gentle reproach, a reminder to be humble in my judgments, and another sign of the gulf between how whites and blacks viewed the verdict. Several of us spent the rest of the afternoon debating whether Clinton should say anything more, but the president wanted to let the matter drop — a decision Morris ratified with another overnight poll, which found, he said, that “eighty percent of the country opposed a presidential statement” on the Simpson case.

Perhaps the most significant presidential statement of the fall, however, was one that wasn't polled because it wasn't meant to be repeated aloud. Morris had indoctrinated Clinton with dogma designed to persuade him that triangulation was his political salvation — a creed the
New Republic
had labeled “The Explanation.” The president's original sin, it held, was falling in with the congressional Democrats and their allies like me and Leon Panetta. His first-term mistakes were our fault. Whatever the merits of The Explanation (and there were some), it was a guide for contemplation, not ceremony — stage direction, not script.

But at a late-night fund-raiser in Houston, the president proclaimed his faith with a public confession to a roomful of wealthy contributors. Acknowledging that many of them were “still mad” because “you think I raised your taxes too much,” Clinton added, “It might surprise you to know that I think I raised them too much too.” Most of the frontline White House reporters missed it because they'd skipped the speech and snuck off to a restaurant. After all, Clinton rarely made news at these events, it was past deadline anyway, and you couldn't get good Tex-Mex in D.C. But a Reuter's wire service correspondent filed some copy when she heard Clinton seem to repudiate the central legislative accomplishment of his presidency.

The next morning, I was startled by the headline on page A-9 of the
Washington Times:
“Clinton Says He Thinks He Raised Taxes Too Much.” In his speech, Clinton's quotes were wrapped in a fulsome defense of our 1993 economic plan, but wrenched from their context, they looked like Republican talking points. Holding up a copy of the paper folded over to the incriminating story, I announced to the senior staff meeting that “we have a big problem.” But then, I always thought the sky was falling. Pooh-poohing my pessimism was a pretty safe bet, especially when my evidence was a brief wire report picked up only by a conservative rag: “Oh, that's just Clinton being Clinton. … What's new about him trying to get a roomful of rich people to like him? … It'll blow over.”

But timing is everything, and I wasn't the only person reading the
Washington Times.
The Republicans needed to change the subject from their Medicare cuts, so Gingrich and Dole held a gleeful “I told you so” press conference next to a huge poster of Clinton's admission. Already suspicious of the president, wary that he would sell them out in the budget talks, the Democrats ranged from distressed to apoplectic. At a meeting of the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Moynihan incited his colleagues by handing out photocopies of Clinton's latest betrayal. The leadership made livid calls to Leon demanding a retraction. Evicted from Congress thanks to her vote for Clinton's tax increase, all Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky could say was “Oh, my.”

By midday, McCurry was getting pummeled at his daily briefing. The evening news was a chorus of criticism from Democrats, Republicans, and independent observers, who all agreed on one point: that the president would say anything to anyone to get his or her support. Clinton had to retract his remarks — before the morning papers. But he was resting in the residence after several days of travel, and no one was eager to disturb him with this news. Shortly before the president left the White House again for an evening fund-raiser in Baltimore (those Medicare ads didn't come cheap), Gene Sperling and I implored Erskine Bowles for a five-minute meeting. “I know he's going to yell at us. I know he's going to be angry,” I said. “But he has to take it back or it will kill him.”

The three of us met Clinton by the elevator across from the map room. He was exhausted; an angry fever blister on his nose flashed like the beacon on a sea buoy. Erskine told him why we were there, and I plunged into my opening argument before he could erupt. “We've been defending you all day, Mr. President, but after talking to the Hill and watching the news, we really feel we have a problem that needs to be fixed.” I then outlined a four-part presidential retraction that mixed three parts sugar and one of castor oil: “First, you can definitely say that your words were taken out of context. They were. Second, repeat that you're very, very proud of your economic plan. Third, say that nobody likes to raise taxes. And fourth, we have to say something like ‘I shouldn't have said what I said,’ or ‘It wasn't right to say what I said,’ or ‘It was a mistake. I was wrong.’”

The forefinger was back in my face before I could finish the sentence, Clinton stepped toward me, glaring down, using every inch of his physical advantage. “I'm
not
going to say that,” he declared. “You just want me to go out there and say something that's not true.”

He followed up with an intricate, if somewhat convoluted, digression on how the tax increase on the wealthy we had promised in the campaign was marginally lower than the one that passed the Congress because the bureaucrats wouldn't score our budget proposals accurately, the Republicans wouldn't vote for any tax increase, and the Democrats wouldn't cut spending as much as he would have liked. Never mind that most Democrats had originally opposed the energy tax increase proposed by the president and that we had promised more spending in the campaign than congressional Democrats eventually approved.

After Clinton's first flurry, Sperling took over our tag-team effort. Matching the president line for line with citations from
Putting People First
and our 1993 economic plan, Gene closed like a lawyer. “We just can't litigate the past, Mr. President,” he said. “Even if you're right, we just can't do it.”

Sensing an opening, I followed up with a modified pander. “Mr. President, what you are saying may have some deep truth to it, but it's not going to help. We can't win the argument.” Now he had a way to walk off the plank, I hoped. It wasn't that he was wrong; it was just that he couldn't clearly communicate in an environment where the press was always playing “gotcha.”

“So
what
would you have me do?” he said, still testy but on the verge of surrender.

“We need a concession of sorts,” I replied. “Can we say something like, you're proud of your plan, and you have no regrets?” It wasn't good enough. Not really an apology, and Clinton agreed only to have me issue a statement, not to appear before the cameras himself. But it would have to do for now. Gene and I drafted a short response — “The president has absolutely no regrets. Period. None. And he didn't mean to suggest otherwise”— and phoned it into the major papers. The “didn't mean to suggest otherwise” fillip was farther than the president wanted to go. But it would be the bare minimum necessary to get us through the night.

After hearing the questions shouted at him on the way to his car, Clinton began to realize that too. He called me several times that night to ask me how the story was spinning. That was his way of thanking me and of apologizing for his earlier outburst. But the next morning, he was still in no mood to make the full mea culpa that Democrats and the press were demanding. The senior staff was unified in its recommendation: Clinton had to go to the briefing room to clean it up. Hillary called me twice to make the same point. But when we met with Clinton later that morning, he was still reluctant to go all the way. Gore, Panetta, Rubin, Bowles, and Ickes all weighed in, but the most the president would agree to was a conditional apology — an “if I said anything that people took the wrong way” statement coupled with a lame joke about how his mother had warned him not to give speeches when he was tired.