By Dana Milbank
Tuesday, April 6, 2004; Page A19
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
One side effect
of Richard A. Clarke's testimony to the Sept. 11
commission was to bring the Washington notion of the "backgrounder" to
the fore.
The notion
of speaking "on background" has been around
for decades, allowing reporters to get senior administration officials
to speak candidly, and sometimes critically, about their boss's
policies. But somewhere along the line, administrations learned to turn
background backward. The White House now organizes authorized
background briefings almost weekly, in which officials are cloaked in
anonymity. It appears from these sessions that the anonymity is not to
protect officials who say something negative -- but to shield them from
embarrassment for sounding like cheerleaders.
Two
hours before Clarke's testimony, the White House
allowed Fox News to out him as the anonymous official who gave the
background briefing in 2002. Clarke thus found himself in the awkward
position of explaining how all those nice things he said anonymously
about the administration were not what they seemed. He testified that
this method of shading is quite common -- a claim that seems to be
supported by a quick scan of other background briefings over the past
year.
Mr. Milbank goes on to cite four other examples of carefully-scripted
"backgrounders" that, as he says, shield them from
embarrassment for sounding like cheerleaders. Unfortunately, all
the examples cited are from the current Bush administration. This
gives the impression -- without stating explicitly -- that the practice
is particularly prevalent in the current Administration. He then
adds one more example:
If
Clarke's testimony has exposed background briefings
as so much creative oratory, this has not stopped the practice. On
Sunday afternoon, the White House announced a conference call so a
background briefer could say: "Friday's jobs report, the creation of
308,000 jobs and seven consecutive months of job creation totaling over
three-quarters of a million jobs is a powerful confirmation that the
economic policies of this administration are working."
By the
end of the briefing, reporters had had enough.
"I'm just wondering," one asked the anonymous briefer, "what possible
reason there is why all this isn't on the record?"
Good question. I would like to see Mr. Milbank provide some
historical perspective. I am tempted to use Milbank's article as
yet another example of the current Administration manipulating the
media, but that would not be fair without knowing if other
Administrations have done the same thing, to the same extent.
:
Joseph j7uy5
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