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Glass Jaw at the White House

A BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY
by Margie Burns

Today I spoke with a White House spokesperson. I cannot give you his name. I mean, literally, I cannot give you his name: I would like to do so, but he refused to tell it to me. As he amplified, haughtily: "You don’t deserve the courtesy of [my] giving you my name."

Backtracking a little: I am a freelance journalist, working on an article pertaining to Bush’s current six-nation Asia trip. I wanted to learn something of the other Americans accompanying Bush on this trip, especially since reading in an Australian news report that his entourage comprises about six hundred people. In the old days -- that is, the days of old-fashioned journalism, where the public was allowed to know what its tax dollars were paying for -- this kind of item used to be headed, "Among those present . . .," rather like the lists of those attending state dinners at the White House.

I searched the White House web page (www.whitehouse.gov), which does not as yet mention any of the public officials, dignitaries or guests along on the trip. My next step was to call the White House with the direct question: can we know the names of some persons accompanying the President to Asia? I dialed the switchboard, giving my name, and they passed me along to the media office; since I am freelance, the media office passed me to the office of public liaison, where a courteous young woman informed me that she did not know the answer to my question, so she would have to send me (back) to the press office.

I reiterated my question at the press office, trying to reassure the spokesman that I was willing to do my own work by asking whether a list will be made available. Answer: "We don’t do that." My next question: Why not? Answer: "Because."

When I asked for a little clarification, he said, "We do not release names of people." -- I said, not any of them? -- He said, "What part of WE DON’T RELEASE THAT don’t you get?"

Dutifully taking notes, I asked for his name. Answer: "I don’t have to tell you my name." Soothingly, I assured him that I understood he didn’t have to give me his name. But if I was going to quote him, I should use his name, I added. Response: "I didn’t give you permission to quote me." Shocked gasp from me, followed by my telling him I didn’t know I had to have his permission. Response: "Well, you do."

He then made his my-not-deserving-that-courtesy comment, connecting it vaguely to my asking these questions, and asked huffily, "What are you looking for, anyway?" When I kindly but firmly pointed out that I was asking who was among those present, or asking for a partial list, he relented slightly. Repeating "We don’t release that," for too many reasons to mention but including security, he added that "The press corps traveling with the president see people they know" -- using Condi Rice as an example -- so they don’t have to ask. "It doesn’t come up."

He closed with "a White House spokesman will be enough" [to identify him] before we hung up, presumably giving me permission to quote him.

A few thoughts, here.

(1) Regardless of party, when an American head of state visits a foreign country, the American public has a vested interest in knowing who goes with him. I am not referring to the Secret Service and other security personnel. The public has a legitimate inquiry as to which Cabinet members, trade officials, and presidential relatives are visiting these nations with our head of state, and for what reason. Bear in mind that Seymour Hersh wrote after the first Gulf War that Bush relatives cruised the Middle East generating contracts for themselves; that Bush’s close relatives are among the individuals making money off the "war on terrorism" and the Iraq war; and that some of these contracts jibe oddly, or not at all, with the administration’s stated policies. Indeed, a US military contractor where Bush uncle William H. T. Bush is a director has generated contracts with Japan, Saudi Arabia, and Taiwan, among other foreign entities: http://www.engineeredsupport.com/press.htm.

(2) Bush’s trip to Asia is being paid for by our tax dollars. Or at least all public officials on the trip, their staffers, and all of the attendant security personnel are being funded by American taxpayers. A White House visit, with entourage, is state business. Thus it is, by definition, the public’s business, at least up to the point where legitimate security concerns take over. Arguably it is the public’s business also to know of any others accompanying our head of state who are not on public business, even if the taxpayers are not funding them directly. (A big if, perhaps.) I might add that any security problems generated by this junket to some of the world’s hottest terrorist hot spots will also be paid by us.

(3) I understand what this unnamed official was trying to do; he wanted to get in a cheap hit, to put me in my place, to crush me like a worm (and unlike the Bushes, incidentally, I actually am from Texas: trying that stuff with me is like the old joke about "Have you got the wrong vampire"). But White House personnel are also paid by our tax dollars. They work for us. In what Hamlet called "spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes," one imagines White House staffers chalking up each microscopic victory (Spurns, 1; Patient Merit, 0). Nor did he have the pretext of any bad behavior on my part: I was civil from first to last.

I already knew how this White House worked; the emphasis is on secrecy rather than domestic security, their importance rather than the nation’s, and never passing up any tiny advantage regardless of cost in terms of self-respect, balance, esteem, etc. Team Bush’s assumption is, and always has been, that a relatively few people count, and everyone else does not. Reflecting on this little encounter, I realized that it demonstrates even more brittleness and instability than I was aware of. Just being given the name of some spokesperson, in this circle of ethnographic tealeaf-readers, is considered the equivalent of a mini-promotion.

The cynical point here is that this kind of uber-dominance is a mistake even on its own terms: if you want to establish your importance at the top of the chop cycle, you don’t do it by being rude to some female peon.

In other words, these guys would be called mutts -- if I understand the term correctly -- in boxing. They’re ripe for a fall. Let’s hope their domestic opponents, the loyal opposition, realizes it before any foreign adversary who lacks our fundamental attitudes about the peaceful transmission of power.

Margie Burns
margie.burns@verizon.net

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION