Archive: Joe Lockhart
Veteran CBS News White House Correspondent Bill Plante brings a top political expert into the Smoke-Filled Room each week to answer your questions. This week's guest is White House Spokesman Joe Lockhart. As Assistant to the President and White House Press Secretary, Lockhart has a unique view of the Presidency and how the White House is run.
Plante: Do you actively meet with the President every day? If not, how do you know how to answer questions? Do his close advisers tell you how to respond? Daniel is curious.
Lockhart: It depends. Some days I meet with him. Today’s a day he’s out on the road so I won’t see him. Some days I’ll meet with him five times, so it all depends on what the schedule is, what we’re doing, what media events he’s doing. I try to talk to him before every event, before every interview he does. If there’s an issue he needs help on, or if there’s an issue I need some insight on something that I get asked about that I have no idea where he is on it.
Plante: If you don’t see him, how do you know how to respond to reporters’ questions?
Lockhart: The vast majority of the questions are where the president is on a certain policy issue, and those you just accumulate the knowledge of over the years by talking to the President, by talking to his senior policy people. There are very few issues, that at this point having worked for him for 4 1/2 years, that I don’t know what his record is, or what he’s likely to say on something. On the few issue that do come up – well I go and ask him.
Plante: Another reader wants to know “Have you ever given an answer completely at odds with what the White House wanted? Did you get in a lot of trouble?
Lockhart: No. That’s not my job. From time to time I disagree with what the administration’s policy is, but it’s not my job to articulate what my views are. My job is to articulate what the administration’s views are, and what are the President’s. If that’s ever happened it’s been because I made a mistake, rather than trying to change the administration’s policy.
Plante: Do you think the Washington press has a liberal bias or a conservative bias? Alex from Delaware writes that she thinks the press hates everyone equally.
Lockhart: I think Alex from Delaware is a very wise person. It’s not hate, it’s skepticism, and I think with some of the less talented reporters, cynicism. But I don’t the media favors the political parties one over the other, or any ideology. I think everyone’s fair game.
Plante: C.J.R. asks “Are you going to write a book about your experiences? If so, from what angle will you approach it?”
Lockhart: I’m not planninto write a book, so I’m not all that worried about how I would approach it. I haven’t been able to get through the books written by the people who were here in the first term, because in large part they were so boring. I don’t plan to contribute to that vast wasteland of political commentary and self promotion.
Plante: Who would you consider the top 5 print reporters? Top 5 television/radio reporters? Why? L. Jean would like to know.
Lockhart: In my mind I have a list of the top five in both areas, but I’m smart enough not to share it with anyone.
Plante: What is the best “perk” about working in the White House?
Lockhart: I think it’s just the people you meet. Sitting here in my office, when I look to the right, I see a picture of me with the band U-2 who I’ve always liked and got to meet because they were friendly with the President. Across the room is a picture of me meeting the Pope. You get the chance, because you travel with the President, to meet incredible people. Nelson Mandela, taking a small group of people, including myself, through his cell on Robbins Island. It’s something you could never have anticipated and can never replace with anything.
Plante: How has the advent of 24 hour cable broadcasting and the internet affected how you do your job? And more importantly, do you think this constant coverage has improved government and how it operates?
Lockhart: I think it means less sleep, which is the most tangible change. I don’t know if it’s improved government. It’s certainly makes government more responsive. But I’m not sure if that responsiveness and the media’s 24 hour constant updating is actually contributing to better reporting and a more effective government. I think we’re in a time where technology is way ahead of our ability to figure out how we use it. This is a question that maybe ten years from now, whoever is sitting here, will be able to answer effectively. I don’t think we know enough yet.
Plante: People complain about “spinning” a message – they say they want answers in clear and concise language. Karen asks “Is this possible? When is “spin” a good or bad thing?”
Lockhart: I’m never quite sure what it is myself. Most days I try to use clear and concise language. There are some days that I don’t. But that is often because we have not fully formulated a policy. We sometimes are working through a process and people want to understand where we are when we aren’t there yet. On days like that, the language can be a little confusing, just because we’re not ready with our decisions. Spinning means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. I think what we try to do here, is talk in a way that builds public support for the President’s genda. There’s a set of policies that are important to his agenda and we try to present them in a way that helps the public understand why it’s important, and build support for it. That’s how you get things passed in Congress. If the public supports something you have a good chance of getting it passed. If they’re neutral on something, you have a very difficult time getting it passed. It’s impossible to talk about whether it’s a good or bad thing. I think it’s a good thing when you can effectively make your case and tell the truth. It’s a bad thing when you have no case and you’re not telling the truth and you use the art of spin to deceive. When that goes on, is when it’s bad.
Plante: What are your plans after the Clinton presidency? Do you think you’d ever go back to work in broadcasting?
Lockhart: I don’t know what I’ll do. I don’t think I’ll go back to working in broadcasting. I think I’m very comfortable now as an advocate, and I’m viewed as an advocate, rather than someone who is a neutral observer. I think it’s very difficult for people who are tied so closely with a political figure, especially a controversial political figure, to reinvent themselves, and wake up the next day and say “well, I’m just a neutral observer now, and I’m just going to watch what happens and tell you what I think.” I’m comfortable having a view and I think that makes it very hard to be cast in the role of an objective journalist.
Plante: Jeff asks “In light of the Million Mom March, how do you (the White House) answer critics who say that rather than creating new gun laws, why not enforce existing gun control laws already on the books?”
Lockhart: That’s a good question because it raises the false debate that often rages in this town. We are enforcing the existing laws; prosecutions are up almost 25% around the country since this President took office. Crime is down. We have a record that I think any president, in either party, would be proud of. We also have an unprecedented program that wants to spend $280 million dollars on enforcement, by putting 1000 new prosecutors in courts to handle gun cases, 500 new ATF agents on the street. The odd thing is, the loudest critics of enforcement have been silent on whether they support this or not. There’s not a person in the NRA, there’s not a person that I know of in the Republican leadership, who’s stood up and said “we ought to get this done, this is a priority.” We haven’t had a hearing on this yet. The President proposed this months ago. It’s really a false choice between enforcement and prevention. The President has a good record on enforcement. We want to do on prevention. There’s going to be over 200,000 moms coming to Washington making that case. I think their agument and the fact they’re giving up their Mother’s Day to come here and make that argument is really going to have a big impact.
Plante: Another reader (who we think may be a reporter!) asks if you think the press is a) the enemy, or b) a resource to be manipulated?
Lockhart: Neither. The press is a conduit to the public. Unfortunately we can’t bring 250 million Americans in here every day to watch what the President does. So we work through the press. We work very hard to try to project the President’s agenda in a positive light. I think the press works very hard to pull back all the layers of the onion to figure out if there’s anything going on with a very skeptical eye. But they’re not the enemy. They are not a group of people, as a whole, that is easily manipulated.
Plante: It’s certainly true that the press doesn’t always, or even usually, transmit your message the way you present it.
Lockhart: That’s the challenge for us. The challenge for us is to present, and communicate a message that the press will find to be newsworthy. There is a constant balance here between doing things that self-servingly promote the President and doing things that the press rightly judges to be news. There are some days we get it right, some days we get it wrong. This isn’t a science – it’s more of an art. You base most things on instinct and experience rather than on some formula. But there are certainly days when the President goes out and makes a statement or announcement that is rightly determined to be news and covered and transmitted just exactly as we had hoped. There are certainly days when we go out and do things that are ignored, and things that we don’t think are that interesting or that helpful to the President are deemed to be news. That’s what makes it interesting.
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