On Monday, February 26, 1996, I got the luckiest break in my life: making my debut as the new liberal host on CNN’s Crossfire.
After sixteen years on Los Angeles radio and television, it was exciting to be at last on the national stage, but it wasn’t easy to get there. Making the leap from local to national television involves a lot more than a change in geography. I tried several times to get myself booked on any of the national political shows but, most of the time, didn’t even get the dignity of a reply.
I learned the hard way that, for many people who live in Washington, D.C., especially those in the media, their narrow universe is almost exclusively limited to people who live inside the BosWash corridor. They book their guests not on knowledge or experience but on geography alone. Those who live outside Manhattan, Cambridge, or the Beltway need not apply.
My lucky break came early in 1996, when Los Angeles Times TV critic Howard Rosenberg reported that Michael Kinsley was stepping down as cohost of Crossfire—and CNN was holding auditions for his replacement. Among those being considered, according to Rosenberg, were campaign guru Bob Shrum, pundit Juan Williams, New York City public advocate Mark Green, and environmental lawyer (and famous son) Bobby Kennedy Jr.—all members of the East Coast media establishment.
So I decided to strike another blow for the West Coast. I picked up the phone and placed a cold call to Rick Davis, executive producer of Crossfire. To my surprise, he actually took my call. I told him I thought I could bring a fresh, new perspective to Crossfire and asked him to give me a shot. Fortunately, Davis remembered having seen me debate Pat Buchanan at a talk radio conference in Los Angeles and agreed to add me to the mix.
A couple of weeks later, I flew to Washington for my first audition as Crossfire cohost on the left. Bob Novak, whom I had met a couple of times in Los Angeles through a mutual friend Democratic strategist Joe Cerrell, was hosting on the right. The topic was taxes, and our guest was conservative senator Don Nickles of Oklahoma. Tax policy was not exactly my strong suit, but I’d boned up well enough to ask some pertinent questions and poke a few holes in the senator’s argument.
Novak, on the other hand, relished debates over tax policy and, far in advance of the Tea Party, was also against any new taxes whatsoever. Period. Full stop. During the back-and-forth comments that ended every show—which our producers irreverently called the yip-yap—Novak threw me his favorite conservative taunt: “Do you think Americans pay too much in taxes, or not enough?” Somehow I managed to blurt out what remains the only answer to that question: “Some Americans pay too much, but some don’t pay their fair share.”
After the show, Rick Davis’s only comment was: “At least you didn’t back down.” But I must have done well enough for Davis to invite me back the next night to debate global warming—in the middle of a blizzard that shut down Washington! Our guest was a University of Virginia “scientist” who, I was only too happy to point out, was also on the coal industry payroll and therefore not credible in any discussion of climate change.
After one more audition, I was back in California when Rick Davis called again, this time offering me the position as one of two new cohosts on the left. I would share the job, he explained, with former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, one of my all-time heroes. And the job was mine on two conditions. One, that I move to Washington, D.C., at CNN’s expense. Two, that I resign as Democratic Party chair of California. Not only that, this was Tuesday morning. I had to begin my new job on Crossfire in CNN’s Washington bureau the following Monday!
Talk about a no-brainer. The choice between dialing rich California donors for dollars and debating the issues on national television was not difficult. And besides, after serving for three years as a volunteer state chair, the idea of a paycheck was extremely appealing. I checked in with Carol, then called Davis back to accept.
All I had to do now was find a new state party chair, which turned out to be more complicated than I’d thought. According to party bylaws, a vacancy for the chair would be filled by the first or the second vice chair. But our first vice chair, Arlene Holt, had already moved to Washington, and the second vice chair, Angela Alioto, was running for state senate in a Democratic primary.
Under party rules, I had no authority to name my replacement, but given the time constraints and the unavailability of either first or second vice chair, I decided to appoint a new chair, anyway—and dare anybody to sue me. My choice was Art Torres, former state senator and recent candidate for state treasurer. Both Senator Dianne Feinstein and Senator Barbara Boxer agreed, so I met with Art and offered him the post.
We scheduled a news conference at party headquarters the very next morning, where I announced my resignation and introduced the new chairman of the California Democratic Party. Art Torres went on to serve as state chair for the next fourteen years! And Carol and I moved to Washington, bought a house on Capitol Hill, and started a whole new life.
WELCOME TO CROSSFIRE
With every bit of bias I’m capable of, let me repeat: Crossfire was the first—and is still the best—of all political debate shows. And no other political show today is as good or compelling.
Several factors combined to make the original Crossfire so successful. First, its laser-like focus. The show was a half hour long and dealt with one issue only, examined from both sides. When it was over, viewers may not have been convinced either way, but they sure knew a whole lot more after a lively give-and-take on the topic and had all the information they needed to make their own decision.
That singular focus of Crossfire was underscored by the simple but dramatic set. No fancy graphics. No moving wall of video. No fake Washington background. Just one desk, four chairs, and a black curtain behind the desk. The emphasis was on content, not flash. What a novel concept.
The second big factor was the guests. As the most popular political show on TV and the second-highest rated show on CNN, after Larry King Live, we consistently lined up the biggest newsmakers every day. If it was politics, you could count on John McCain, Mitch McConnell, Tom Daschle, Dick Durbin, Arlen Specter, John Boehner, Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, Orrin Hatch, John Chafee, Tom Delay, John Kasich, Dick Gephardt—or whichever Republican or Democrat was leading the most hotly contested issue du jour.
If it was religion, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Ralph Reed, or Gary Bauer took the conservative seat. On women’s issues, Eleanor Smeal versus Phyllis Schlafly. On sex, Dr. Ruth. On diets, Dr. Atkins. Two Florida congressmen, Joe Scarborough and Robert Wexler, were our favorite tag team during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. The guests made the show, and we were able to round up the best.
During my Crossfire days, I was often asked if there was a politician I admired. And my answer was always the same: Among Republicans and Democrats, the one I admired most was John McCain. Not because I agreed with him on every issue but because he was thoughtful, had a great self-deprecating sense of humor, and, at least in his earlier years, was known as a maverick—not afraid to take on and vote against leaders of his own party if he thought they were wrong. As he did, for example, in opposing George W. Bush’s plan to give millionaires a special tax cut.
Coming from Arizona to Washington, McCain often quipped, he quickly learned the difference between a cactus and a caucus. “With a cactus,” McCain pointed out, “the pricks are on the outside.” By 2008, McCain’s star had fallen. For a while, he became more of a predictable Republican, and we can never forgive him for foisting Sarah Palin on the nation. But McCain later redeemed himself by reclaiming his role as a maverick and casting that dramatic and deciding thumbs-down vote against Donald Trump’s plan to repeal Obamacare.
Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter, another maverick, was also a frequent guest, albeit an oft-frustrating one. Specter had a way of making headlines early in the day, which won him the nickname of “Snarlin’ Arlen,” but later backing down. One morning, I remember, he demanded that President Clinton immediately fire Attorney General Janet Reno. We rushed to book him for Crossfire that evening, but once under fire (from me), he said he didn’t really want Clinton to “fire” her, he just wanted him to give her “a good talking-to.” Around Crossfire, we started referring to “Snarlin’ Arlen” as “Spineless Specter.” (Either way, may he rest in peace.)
Because Crossfire was only broadcast in the United States, we rarely entertained foreign guests, but my job as cohost did result in encounters with two of the more controversial international players around. Carol and I were having dinner at the Palm restaurant one evening when Vladimir Putin walked in with an entourage of about twelve people. His press secretary spotted me and invited me to come over and shake hands with Putin. Later, we were still enjoying our meal, the Putin party having left the restaurant, when his press secretary reappeared at our table and asked me to come outside with him so President Putin could say goodbye. Sure enough, there was Putin, standing alongside his limousine, his entire motorcade waiting, until he could shake hands again and tell me how much he liked CNN.
Same thing with Palestinian president Yasser Arafat. On one of his official visits to Washington, I attended a big dinner for Arafat at the Washington Peace Center, where Jim Zogby, founder of the Arab American Institute, offered to introduce me to the guest of honor. I was nervous about what I might say to the man once accused of being the world’s number-one terrorist—or what he might say to me. No worries. I almost laughed out loud when Arafat shook my hand and said in his raspy—almost feminine—voice, “Say hello to all my good friends at CNN!”
It was not only foreign leaders we had a chance to rub shoulders with. Even as a Democrat, I was a big admirer of former president George H. W. Bush. While I disagreed with many of his policies, I knew he was a good, decent man who conducted himself with great dignity and purpose. So I was excited when my good friend and mentor Rocco Siciliano offered to introduce us at the annual Eisenhower Award dinner.
Bush actually got up from the head table and walked over to greet me with a big grin. “Bill Press, you’re a famous man.”
I blushed. “Oh, I don’t know about that, Mr. President.”
And he immediately shot back, “Well, you’re sure a famous man in the Bush household.”
Then he asked me where his former chief of staff John Sununu was. I told him I’d just left John at CNN, where we’d cohosted Crossfire, but wasn’t sure where he’d gone after the show.
In his best commander-in-chief tones, Bush growled, “Well, call him up and tell him to get his ass over here!”
I first met the second President Bush shortly after he arrived in Washington at the annual luncheon of the American Society of News Editors. In the middle of his remarks, Bush spotted me sitting at a table directly in front of the podium and, without missing a beat, pointed at me and gave me a wink. After lunch, he was working the rope line when he again spotted me and waved me over. I shook his hand and playfully said, “You don’t have to worry about me, Mr. President. Mary Matalin keeps me in line.”
Bush reached up, grabbed my shoulder, pulled me close, and whispered, “Bullshit!”
Caught on videotape, it looked like Bush was planting a big kiss on my cheek. So, of course, ever eager to rub it in, Tucker Carlson played that tape of “Bush giving me a kiss” over and over again on The Spin Room.
My second encounter with George W. Bush was decidedly less friendly. When I showed up for his first White House Christmas party for the media, the first thing I noticed was that many of my more progressive friends in the media were missing. In fact, it seemed like I’d mistakenly walked into the holiday party for Fox News. The entire Fox lineup was there, starting with Roger Ailes himself.
Like everyone else, I lined up for a photo with the president and First Lady. But when the marine in charge announced my name, President Bush turned, glared at me, and said, “Press, how’d you get in here?”
“Mr. President, you invited me,” I responded. “Merry Christmas.”
Hand shaken. Photo taken. Orders apparently given. I was never invited back during the Bush presidency.
Of course, what really put Crossfire on the map were the hosts. Crossfire actually started in Washington, D.C., as a late-night radio debate show on WCR-AM between Pat Buchanan and Tom Braden. That’s where Ted Turner first heard about it and made it part of the original lineup on the revolutionary, twenty-four-hour, all-news cable channel he launched in 1982.
At first, Crossfire appeared late nights on CNN with only one guest per show. Bob Novak joined Pat Buchanan on the right, while Tom Braden continued to hold down the fort on the left. But producers soon added a second guest and moved the show to early evening. Why? Because, Novak once told me, given the late-night time slot, too many guests showed up drunk. Tucker Carlson and I later experienced the same problem on CNN with The Spin Room.
In its new time slot, Crossfire thrived and grew stronger every year. Tom Braden retired in 1989, replaced by Michael Kinsley, a brilliant debater, thinker, and writer who single-handedly held down the liberal slot for seven years, until Geraldine Ferraro and I arrived in 1996. One year later, CNN president Rick Kaplan named me sole cohost on the left when Ferraro left to run for the U.S. Senate against Al D’Amato of New York
Meanwhile, several cohosts rotated in and out of the conservative chair. John Sununu, former governor of New Hampshire and former chief of staff to President George H. W. Bush, filled in for Pat Buchanan while he was off running for president. Mary Matalin and Tucker Carlson also joined the team after Pat’s return. Bob Beckel and Lynne Cheney cohosted the weekend edition of Crossfire.
Funny thing about Crossfire. I was often asked the same two questions about the show: How far ahead of time do you decide what topics you’re going to debate that day? And how much of the show is scripted and read from the teleprompter? Both questions floored me.
Wasn’t it obvious? Since our goal was to debate the hottest issue of the day, there was no way to plan ahead. Occasionally, we could settle on a topic the day before, but most of the time we couldn’t decide until the morning of the show. So our standard procedure was to hold a conference call at 9:30 each morning, when cohosts and producers would weigh various options and decide on that night’s topic. Some days, it was obvious. There was only one big story. Other days, things were so slow we’d have to wait until later to decide. Which resulted in one of my funniest memories of Crossfire.
On this particular morning, Pat Buchanan and I weren’t excited by any of the suggested topics, so we decided to let the decision float for a couple of hours to see what might pop up. Meanwhile, I spotted a story out of Kansas City, where the city council had voted to broadcast on cable television the names and faces of men who’d been arrested the evening before for soliciting prostitution. Airing this damning information prior to any trial or determination of guilt, it seemed to me, raised certain privacy and due process issues. I told our producers. They liked it. They checked with Pat. He liked it. And the producers went to work booking guests.
An hour later, one of the producers called with our first guest: Reverend Jerry Falwell, appearing via satellite from Liberty University. Perfect! But whom should we book to argue the other side, she wanted to know. Smart-ass as always, I suggested, “How ’bout a prostitute?”—adding that I had no idea where to actually find one, until … I remembered an organization in San Francisco called COYOTE—acronym for Cast Off Your Old, Tired Ethics—which was, in effect, a union for sex workers. And, within an hour, the president of COYOTE was booked by satellite out of San Francisco as our second guest.
Months earlier, to help keep the show moving, we’d all agreed on rules of the road for questioning guests. One host would open the show and set the topic. The other host would begin the questioning by posing one main question, with two follow-ups. Then the other host would take over the questioning. That evening, it was Pat’s turn to start.
He began by asking the head of COYOTE, who very much looked the part, “Are you really a prostitute?”
To which she cautiously replied, “Well, I’m not going to admit I break the law, but I’m also not going to lie on national television.” Which I thought was a very candid and carefully calculated answer!
Pat’s first follow-up: “Have you always been a prostitute?”
Her answer: a quick no.
Pat: “And what were you before you became a prostitute?”
She: “A Los Angeles police officer.”
Note: Pat was now out of time. He’d exhausted his quota of opening question and two follow-ups. But I also knew Pat was on a roll. Clearly there was no way to stop him. Nor did I even try.
Next question. Pat: “And why did you change jobs?”
Ms. COYOTE: “Because I felt I needed a more honorable profession!”
At which point, for all practical purposes, the debate was over. Pat was speechless. The pained expression on Jerry Falwell’s face was priceless. I don’t even remember the rest of the show. Nor am I sure we ever got around to talking about Kansas City. Score one for sex workers!
The second most often asked question (“How much of the show is scripted and read from the teleprompter?”) also surprised me. Seriously? I can’t believe anyone who actually watched the show—with its lively back-and-forth between hosts and guests, bouncing off in directions nobody anticipated—could honestly think we’d scripted it all ahead of time. Besides, we cohosts were too independent and too hardheaded to follow any script. Once we’d fixed on a topic, we did our own research, talked to sources, plowed through a background file prepared by staff, prepared our toughest questions, anticipated arguments the opposition guest and cohost might make, made notes on good rebuttals—and then went out on live television and gave it our best shot.
Each of us believed deeply in the positions we took. We argued both from the head and from the heart. But we also respected each other and actually liked each other. And that, I believe, was the hidden secret of Crossfire’s success: the fact that, despite our differences and our deeply held and passionately expressed opinions, we Crossfire cohosts were all good friends, on the air and off. If only that same mutual respect existed in Congress today.
Yes, our debates were often heated, but only very, very rarely did they ever get personal. Unlike Dan Aykroyd’s famous put-down of Jane Curtin on SNL’s Point-Counterpoint, I never turned to Buchanan—or Novak, Carlson, Sununu, or Matalin—and fired back, “Pat, you ignorant slut!”
During my six years at Crossfire, in fact, I recall only two times when things got too personal—once with John Sununu, once with Bob Novak. I honestly don’t remember what they said, but I thought they had crossed the line. I called them on it. They both admitted it. Both times, we gave each other a hug and vowed not to let it happen again. “The show’s too short, and life’s too short, to take it personally,” advised Sununu. And he was right.
Mary Matalin and I enjoyed many good times together, even though she’s a hopeless Republican and I’m a yellow-dog Democrat. We share the same irreverent approach to most issues and the same jaundiced attitude toward politics in general. As a result, we laughed our way through many interviews, including a strained Thanksgiving Day taping with Dr. Robert Atkins of Atkins diet fame, whom neither one of us took seriously. After yukking it up on the set one night, Mary whispered to me off camera, “Our problem is, you and I could sit here all night and tell dick jokes!”
THE SPIN ROOM
Tucker Carlson and I became fast friends from the first time he appeared as a conservative guest on Crossfire, while still a young reporter with The Weekly Standard. I lobbied for him to take Mary Matalin’s seat on the right when she left for the George W. Bush presidential campaign.
In 2000, Tucker and I were tapped to offer left-right spin—online, not on camera—during the vice presidential debate between Joe Lieberman and Dick Cheney. Our exchange generated such a good response that CNN decided to turn it into a daily prime-time show called, appropriately, The Spin Room.
Hands down, The Spin Room was the most fun I ever had in broadcasting, mainly because Tucker and I treated it as our own creation and defied management’s attempt to control it. We refused to use a teleprompter. After too many interruptions, we banned our producer in Atlanta from speaking in our ears during the broadcast. Every night, we skewered politicians on the left and right for their ridiculous spin, and the show actually acquired an almost cultlike status.
On many college campuses, students religiously gathered to watch our antics. We shamelessly begged for gifts—and were promptly swamped with cookies, cakes, fudge, candles, beads, T-shirts, and hats. When we complained that CNN wouldn’t provide us Spin Room mugs, viewers made their own and sent them in. We spontaneously launched a defense fund for one of our favorite guests, Congressman Jim Traficant, when he was indicted for bribery—soliciting contributions on the air until we were told it was illegal and ordered to stop. For some reason, we also attracted a large Canadian following, even though Tucker poked fun at them for curling and once suggested the United States should invade Canada in order to provide more satellite parking for American sports events.
We could tell viewers were really getting into the spirit of the show from their emails, and we read many of them on the show. One of my favorites: After Tucker and I had ranted about how ridiculous it was to introduce a piece of legislation only in order to change a comma in an existing law, the so-called Comma Bill, we received this warning from viewer Robert Reynolds:
Messrs. Press and Carlson:
I find it shameful for you to abuse the poor comma! Below, you will find an illustration of the worth of a comma:
Go on, shoot, Bill and Tucker.
Go on, shoot Bill and Tucker.
Which sentence do you prefer? You scoff at the poor comma? For shame!!
But our favorite came from an anonymous voter in West Palm Beach, on the heels of the long 2000 Florida recount:
Honk if you voted for Al Gore. It’s the large button in the middle of the steering wheel.
In many ways, I believe, The Spin Room was the forerunner of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report—a freewheeling, irreverent look back at the political news of the day. I know we put on a damned good show. We also had a lot of fun, and we were getting good ratings. But after several months, CNN suddenly—with no announcement or reason given—pulled the plug. I think we were just too “un-CNN-like,” too daring and different a show for the uptight CNN brass. But here again, the network made a big mistake. To this day, wherever Tucker or I travel, we meet former fans of The Spin Room. CNN could use that kind of unorthodox spirit today.
One of our most memorable Spin Room shows took place the night of the Supreme Court’s 2000 Bush v. Gore decision. For over a month, since election night November 7, we’d talked about almost nothing else but the vote-count circus in Florida, where election officials were painstakingly rechecking every ballot in George W. Bush’s slim 327 vote lead out of nearly six million votes cast.
It was great fodder for radio and television talk shows: Were Florida seniors too confused to follow instructions on the butterfly ballot? How could conservative Pat Buchanan rack up 3,407 votes in ultraliberal Palm Beach County? And should a hanging chad be counted as a legitimate vote or not?
On December 11, the case was argued before the Supreme Court of the United States. And, in a highly unusual move, the court said it would announce its decision the next day. That evening, Tucker and I broadcast The Spin Room from the grounds of the U.S. Capitol, directly across the street from the court. It was bitterly cold. Thousands of people had gathered in front of the court. Tensions were understandably high. Tucker almost got in a fistfight with one obnoxious bystander. It wasn’t until around 11:00 p.m. that reporters raced out of the court with news that the court, 5–4, had declared George W. Bush winner of the Florida primary—and thus president-elect of the United States.
We immediately went live with two guests we just happened to find in the crowd in front of the Supreme Court, Colorado governor Bill Owens and Florida Republican congressman Mark Foley. We opened the show with Owens. Curious, I asked him what the governor of Colorado was doing hanging around the Capitol grounds so late at night. The official lighting of the congressional Christmas tree had taken place earlier that evening, he explained, and since that year’s tree had come from Colorado, of course he was there, leading the state’s delegation.
Next up, Florida congressman Mark Foley. As our producer was putting Foley’s mike on, Foley, who was then still a closeted gay member of Congress (he came out in 2003), joked: “Bill, please don’t ask me what I was doing trolling the Capitol grounds so late at night!” Foley later resigned from Congress when accused of sexting congressional pages.
The Supreme Court’s ruling was a historic moment, and it was exciting to be part of it, even though, as I said that night, and still believe, it was the worst Supreme Court decision since 1896 and Plessy v. Ferguson, which upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation. The issue was finally resolved the next evening, December 13, when Al Gore, speaking to the nation from the vice president’s residence, said he would accept the court’s decision, even though he strongly disagreed with it. That was, without a doubt, Gore’s finest moment.
Another Spin Room highlight was our Valentine’s Day 2001 interview with Dr. Ruth—who else?—to discuss—what else?—whether there was too much sex in Washington or not enough. Before Tucker could ask the first question, Dr. Ruth immediately stole the show by announcing that she had a challenge for both of us. “When I watch the two of you,” she told the world, “I can visualize what you do in your bedrooms. Did you ever think of that?” So, for Valentine’s Day, she announced, she wanted us to go home and try something new sexually. Not with each other, she hastened to add, but with our respective spouses.
In his own book, Politicians, Partisans, and Parasites, Tucker recalls what happened next: “Unlike Dr. Ruth, I had never visualized Bill’s bedroom activities, so I had no real idea what she was talking about. But Bill apparently did. He shifted in his chair. Even through his makeup I could see that his face had turned red.”
But I remember it differently. It was Tucker who got so red he couldn’t talk. So I jumped in and asked, “Dr. Ruth, we’ve both been married a long time. I think by now we know every possible trick in the book. What did you have in mind?” She recommended that Tucker try a new position he’d never done before. For me, her advice was: “Try not talking so much.” How did she know?
Marriage proclivities aside, it was strangely a bout with the flu that first sealed my and Tucker’s friendship. It hit me as we were preparing for the show. In his book, Tucker takes it from there: “Bill’s schedule caught up with him from time to time, and he’d get sick. One night he showed up with a terrible case of the flu. Walking to the studio, he stopped off at the men’s room. ‘Hold on a second,’ he said, and went inside and threw up. Ten minutes later we were on the air. Bill did the entire show with a trash can between his knees just in case it happened again. He must have felt horrible, but you couldn’t tell. He never said a word about it.” To this day, Tucker swears that’s when he decided we’d be pals forever.
BUCHANAN AND NOVAK
Pat Buchanan and I also hit it off right away and still do. After all, he and I come from the same roots: raised strict Catholics, graduated from Catholic schools, and both seriously considered the priesthood before turning to journalism and politics. We often laughed about the fact that, after both starting out as altar boys, he veered so far to the right—and I, so far to the left.
Pat was the perfect Crossfire host: always prepared, a brilliant debater, with an infectious sense of humor. He has the one important gift lacking in so many conservatives and liberals alike: the ability to poke fun at himself. After being bounced from Crossfire, Pat and I went on to host our own two-hour program, Buchanan & Press, on MSNBC, and for years we still enjoyed sparring from time to time in paid speaking engagements and on various MSNBC political programs.
As the years went by, Pat actually mellowed on some issues. On gays, guns, or abortion, he remained a true take-no-prisoners right-winger. But he reversed his position on trading with Cuba, for example. He used to be against it; now he’s for it. Same with medicinal marijuana. He’s a strong proponent of keeping jobs in America and rebuilding our manufacturing base, which won him a surprising amount of support among union workers during his presidential campaigns. Like me, Pat’s also a firm anti-interventionist. Which eventually got both of us in trouble at MSNBC.
At Crossfire, despite our political differences, Pat and I usually agreed on what topic we should tackle that day and which ones were getting stale. Which led to one big embarrassment. In the middle of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, when our producers suggested yet another program on the latest Monica gossip, Pat and I both groaned. Having sliced and diced the topic every night for two weeks straight, Pat and I knew we had nothing new to say about Lewinsky. We argued, instead, for something new and different (and unbelievably wonky): the expansion of NATO. Which we did—and, of course, the ratings bombed. The next night, we were back on Monicagate—and, like the rest of Washington media, never left it for weeks.
In the end, what brought Pat’s colorful TV career to an ignominious end was his assertion that demographic change meant that we were experiencing the end of the American dream, if not the end of Western civilization as we know it. It’s a theme he’d previously articulated in several books, but his views never received serious public attention until the 2011 publication of Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?
Even though he said nothing in this book he hadn’t said before—in books and articles, on radio and TV—Pat’s latest book was widely criticized as homophobic, anti-Semitic, and racist. After suspending him for four months, MSNBC president Phil Griffin fired Buchanan in a public statement: “The ideas he put forth aren’t really appropriate for national dialogue, much less the dialogue on MSNBC.”
Without endorsing his views, many and most of which I strongly disagree with, it’s worth noting that, less than ten years later, many of Pat’s ideas, good and especially bad, were embraced by Donald Trump and propelled him all the way to the White House.
I disagreed with MSNBC’s action at the time and still do. No matter how vile or incorrect, Pat’s views deserved to be aired. The correct answer was not to silence Pat but to challenge him, debate him, and prove him wrong in the public arena, which I had enjoyed doing for years. Even though he’s often been accused of it, I do not believe that Pat Buchanan is a racist. In my opinion, he’s just wrong and paranoid about the inevitable forward march of humankind and the danger of changing demographics—which have been changing as long as America has existed.
Over the years, the debate partner I became especially close to was Bob Novak. As mentioned earlier, I’d met Novak a couple of times, so I called him for advice when I sought to join the Crossfire team. Bob confessed that he was supporting another friend, Democratic strategist Bob Shrum, but said he’d be happy to work with me if I got the job. And he made good on that promise. In fact, I soon turned to him again for advice.
In December 1996, just ten months after starting on Crossfire, Carol and I returned to Inverness for the holidays, where I found five messages from Karen Skelton, one of Al Gore’s top aides, saying the vice president wanted to speak to me urgently. I first called Karen, who told me that David Wilhelm was stepping down as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and Gore planned to recommend to President Clinton that I take Wilhelm’s place—but wanted to check with me first.
Before calling Gore, I tracked Novak down in Hawaii, where he’d traveled with his favorite basketball team, the University of Maryland Terrapins. With the noise of the game in the background, I explained my dilemma: Yes, I’d enjoyed my stint as California State Democratic chair. And, yes, at one time I’d dreamed of becoming chair of the DNC. At the same time, I loved my new job at CNN. What to do?
Novak listened politely and then gave me his blunt advice. “It’s about time you decided what you want to be when you grow up,” he told me. “Do you want to be a journalist? Or do you want to be a politician?” I’d be good at either one, he said, but I couldn’t do both. I had to choose one or the other. I hung up from Novak and called Al Gore to thank him for the honor—and tell him I was staying at CNN. Thank you, Bob. That was the right decision.
I never knew anybody who worked harder than Bob Novak. When I first came to CNN, Bob was cohost of Crossfire, host of Capital Gang, and host of his own show, The Novak Report. In addition, he and Rowland Evans published a popular weekly political newsletter, he wrote a weekly column for The Washington Post, and he provided two or three weekly columns for the Chicago Sun-Times. In his spare time, he made probably fifty paid speeches a year for the Washington Speakers Bureau.
Many times, in fact, Novak and I went on the road together in a mini-version of Crossfire, where he was always the crowd favorite because the only groups that could afford our lecture fees were big corporations or industry associations. We flew out together, usually had dinner together, put on a good act, and then flew home together—once, with a hilarious finale. Coming home from Phoenix, we stopped to change planes in Chicago. I went off to buy a paper while Bob immediately boarded the next flight. But when I returned to the gate, passengers were blocked from reboarding because of the arrival of a celebrity. And suddenly, surrounded by security guards and waving gaily to the crowd, arrives Little Richard!
When I was finally able to board, there was Little Richard seated in the very front row of first class, on the aisle. I said hello, told him I was a big fan, then took my seat in the third row alongside Novak, who promptly asked me who that big shot was. When I said I was surprised he didn’t recognize Little Richard, Novak snarled, “Well, you may know who he is, but I’m sure he has no idea who you are.”
Fast-forward to Washington’s National Airport. No sooner had the plane pulled up to the gate then Little Richard stood up, turned around, and handed me a paperback copy of a book, saying, “Bill, so nice to see you. I signed this book just for you.” I still have that book, a Christian prayer book Little Richard wrote called Finding Peace Within, with his handwritten inscription: “To Bill. God loves and cares for you.”
But that wasn’t the end of Bob’s comeuppance. As we stood up to deplane, the man across the aisle spoke up and said, “Well, now that Little Richard has broken the ice, I want to say hello to one of my real heroes, Mr. Evans.” I laughed out loud.
Bob snorted, “I’m not Evans, I’m Novak!”—and stormed off the plane.
Novak and I were very much the odd couple. I think we became such good friends because we both loved politics and felt passionately about and loved debating the issues. Yet we also respected each other and realized it was, in some sense, all a game on television. We never took ourselves that seriously. At the end of one Crossfire broadcast, while we were still sitting on the set after a particularly heated exchange, I turned to Novak and said, “Boy, that was really a good show!”
Novak just stared at me.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Do you realize,” he said, “in seven years Michael Kinsley never once said that to me!”
Even before I arrived in Washington, stories about Bob Novak were legend. Al Hunt, panelist on Novak’s Capital Gang and the husband of then-CNN anchor Judy Woodruff, loved to tell about the time he called Bob to tell him he and Judy had just adopted a little baby from Korea. Novak immediately barked, “North or South?”
Al was also invited to the special Mass where Bob, who grew up a Jew, converted to Catholicism and was received into the Catholic Church. Walking out of the church, Al remarked to John McLaughlin, host of The McLaughlin Group, how remarkable it was to see Novak, at his age, become a Catholic. “Yes,” grumbled McLaughlin, “now if we could only make a Christian out of him!”
In his personal life, Bob was a real fighter. He had survived two bouts with cancer and a broken hip before being diagnosed with a brain tumor in August 2008. Again, he determined to fight it—and did, for a whole year. It was painful to visit him in those last few months and see him going downhill so rapidly. When he died a year later, August 2009, I surprised a lot of my readers with this column.
My Friend, the Prince of Darkness
It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. In 1996, I came to Washington as the new liberal cohost of CNN’s Crossfire to do battle with Bob Novak. And I did, hammer and tongs, almost every night, for six years. But along the way, I also became his friend.
His nickname was “the Prince of Darkness,” but Bob never complained about it. In fact, he relished it and he earned it, with every scowl and cutting remark. In those Crossfire days, Bob and I often went on the road together as a traveling dog-and-pony show. I used to begin every appearance by telling the audience, “I know the first question on everyone’s mind: Is Bob Novak as obnoxious off the air as he is on the air?” Bob would laugh out loud when I said, “The answer is yes!”
For me, every Crossfire show with Bob was a challenge, because he was the sharpest, toughest, best-prepared, and sometimes meanest debater one could ever face. He might seem warm and fuzzy during show prep, but once the lights went on, he was a tiger.
At the same time, I learned a lot from him. I learned, first of all, that being a good journalist takes a lot more than just showing up, getting makeup on, and preening before the camera. Becoming a serious journalist is a lot of work. And, right to the end, Bob Novak was, without doubt, the hardest-working journalist in Washington.
Indeed, I didn’t realize until I read his memoir, The Prince of Darkness, how long and how hard he’d been working the Washington beat. He came to Washington in 1957 as a string reporter for the AP, soon made his mark, and never slowed down. When I joined him at CNN, forty years later, he was still writing five columns a week, doing three TV shows a week on CNN (in addition to frequent guest appearances), writing a weekly newsletter with Rowland Evans, and giving two or three speeches a week.
In between, at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, he was working his sources. To the end, Novak had more and better sources than anybody in Washington, because he worked them, thanked them, and never double-crossed them. He was truly the last of Washington’s tireless, fearless, hard-digging, shoe-leather reporters. He also produced perhaps the last column that actually included real reporting and real news, not just one writer’s opinion.
From Novak, I also learned that liberals were too quick to endorse an American war, especially when launched by a Democratic president. No matter who was in the White House, Novak believed the use of force should be reserved for direct threats against this country and not for unnecessary displays of military strength around the world. And he was consistent. The first Gulf War under Bush 41, the bombing of Bosnia under Clinton, and the War in Iraq under Bush 43: Novak opposed them all.
He was a true conservative, even a paleoconservative. But Novak was never a party man. He was fiercely independent. Unlike many commentators today, he wouldn’t consider leaving journalism to work in government. Indeed, he prided himself on never having been invited to! His advice to young people was: “Always love your country—but never trust your government.” Good advice to live by.
Yes, I regret that he allowed himself to be used by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in their nefarious plot to wreck the careers of Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson. In this case, I believe, his zeal to break a big story clouded his usually strong suspicion of government leaks. The irony is that Novak couldn’t resist reporting what he saw as a hot news item, even though it had been leaked by Richard Armitage and confirmed by Karl Rove to help build the case for a war that he personally opposed. But that one mistake on his part does not negate or diminish a long career as one of America’s best journalists.
Many of us who worked with Bob Novak learned a big secret about him: under his gruff exterior beat a big and generous heart. He was a man of deep faith who loved life, his family, and his friends. And I was lucky to be one of them.
Okay. Stop right there. Every time I appeared anywhere as the liberal cohost of Crossfire, somebody was bound to ask, “How can you stand sitting across the desk from Bob Novak?” (Or Pat Buchanan, or Tucker Carlson.)
My ready-made answer, which always got a big laugh, was “Because Ted Turner pays me a lot of money!”
Which, while true, wasn’t the real answer. The truth was I loved sitting across the table from Novak, Buchanan, Matalin, Carlson, and others. I loved debating the issues with them and with all the conservative guests we had on the show, and many of them became friends.
This book, in fact, is chock-full of names of people you might think I would not even shake hands with, let alone enjoy lunch, a drink, or a conversation with: Buchanan, Carlson, John Boehner, Joe Scarborough, Orrin Hatch, Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Chris Christie, and many others. But I actually got along with all of them.
It’s a lesson I learned early on, when I spent two years as an environmental lobbyist for the Planning and Conservation League in the California legislature. There weren’t enough liberal Democrats to pass our bills. I had to round up the votes of a lot of conservative Republicans, too. So I learned to get along with everybody. Unlike most lobbyists, I didn’t have any big checks to hand out. But I could provide all the facts members needed on any environmental legislation and the promise that, liberal or conservative, we’d make sure they got full credit for voting with us—or absolute fury for voting against us.
I’ve taken that lesson with me wherever I’ve gone, and it’s served me well. After all, there’s some good in almost everybody if you look hard enough and, often, more that unites us than divides us. I always cringed when Jerry Falwell called me “[his] favorite Democrat,” but I knew he meant well—he was just wrong about everything, especially what Jesus taught in the Gospels.
So my approach is to look for the good in everybody and try to get along with everybody at some level. Life is too short to make it any more difficult than it already is.
Having said that, don’t think I roll over for everybody. There are still a few people I really despise. If I saw them coming, I’d cross the street to avoid having to say hello. Not to mention names, but they include Bill O’Reilly, Dick Morris, and Rudy Giuliani. And, of course, at the very top of the list, Donald Trump.
One final note on Crossfire: We could never have tackled the issues so effectively without our stellar team of producers and camera operators, led by executive producer Rick Davis and his deputy, Daniel Silva, who soon left to pursue his blockbuster career as a spy novelist. Producers Jennifer Zeidman, Sue Bennett, and Nancy Segerdahl hammered together each show. Susan Toffler helped with booking. When Rick Davis moved to Atlanta as vice president of CNN, Jennifer Zeidman, now Jennifer Zeidman Bloch, moved up as executive producer, assisted by Kristy Schantz and Kate Farrell.
CHRISTMAS IN CUBA
One of our favorite, go-to topics on Crossfire was America’s relations with Cuba. Novak and Buchanan argued for continuing the embargo, in place since 1960. I agreed with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that the embargo was ineffective and only hurt American farmers and businesses, and it was long past time to end it. Besides, if we could trade with “Communist North Vietnam” and “Communist China,” why not trade with “Communist Cuba”?
My support for lifting the embargo led to a meeting with two staffers from the Cuban Mission to the United States, organized by Llewellyn Werner, my partner in freeing James Denby from prison in Nicaragua. That resulted in an invitation to dinner at the home of Fernando Ramírez de Estenoz, then Cuba’s “ambassador” to the United States, whose official title, since we had no diplomatic relations with Cuba at the time, was head of the Cuban Interest Section of the Swiss Embassy.
Carol and I reciprocated by hosting a dinner party at our home for Ramírez and his wife. And, before we knew it, with Ramírez’s help, we were planning a family vacation in Cuba over the 1998 Christmas holiday.
Under the boycott, American citizens were forbidden to travel on their own to Cuba, so we signed up with a group called Global Exchange for an educational tour led by the dynamic Medea Benjamin, later cofounder of Code Pink. The travel program was very well organized and very informative. We spent a lot of time in Havana, visiting local businesses and community organizations. We walked in Ernest Hemingway’s shoes, enjoying a mojito at La Bodeguita del Medio and a daiquiri at El Floridita. We learned to dance the salsa on a Havana rooftop. We sought out and enjoyed several meals at paladares, unofficial, yet government-sanctioned restaurants in people’s private homes. We traveled south of Havana to visit a farmers’ cooperative. Everywhere we went, we were free to talk to anybody about any topic. We had no meetings with government officials, either Cuban or American. And we danced our asses off.
Cuba’s a beautiful country with enormous potential. Everywhere we looked, we saw construction projects or new hotels operated by the Spanish, Dutch, British, Germans, French, and Canadians. Cuba’s the next big economic center in the Western Hemisphere. Every other country recognizes that. Again, only American farmers and businessmen were missing out on the action—and profits. It made no sense. And everybody knew that the only reason both Republican and Democratic presidents had been afraid to change our policy and lift the embargo was the perceived political clout of Miami’s large but diminishing anti-Castro Cuban American voting bloc. I returned to the United States more convinced than ever that the embargo had long ago outlived its usefulness.
It was one of President Obama’s smartest moves to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba and lift restrictions on American businesses. It’s one of President Trump’s dumbest moves to reverse those new rules and go back to the failed economic boycotts of the 1960s. It means the Cuban people and American companies will continue to suffer.
At various White House events, I seized the opportunity to make that case personally to President Clinton and to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. I’m disappointed they didn’t do anything to restore relations with Cuba. I believe they would have liked to. But they both told me that any rapprochement with Cuba had been rendered impossible by the Cuban government’s shooting down of two small planes and the ensuing deaths of four pilots from the anti-Castro group Brothers to the Rescue.
Debate over the embargo was one matter. Before I left Crossfire, however, Cuba was back in the news because of a much more explosive issue: the saga of little Elián González.
On November 21, 1999, five-year-old Elián was taken by his mother, her boyfriend, and eleven other friends on an unseaworthy aluminum motorboat, fleeing Cuba for Florida. A storm came up, and the boat took on water and soon sank. Elián and two others floated for hours on inner tubes before being rescued by fishermen and turned over to the Coast Guard. Elián’s mother and ten others drowned.
At first, the Coast Guard placed Elián in the care of paternal relatives in Miami. But things soon became complicated when his father, Juan Miguel, sought the return of his son to Cuba and his Miami relatives refused to release the boy. A heated battle for legal custody began, while Republicans in Congress tried to rush through legislation granting Elián immediate U.S. citizenship.
On March 21, 2000, a federal court rejected the Miami family’s request for asylum for Elián and ordered the boy returned to his father. Elián’s relatives ignored the court’s order, however, and the Miami Police Department, under direct orders from Mayor Alex Penelas, refused to enforce it. Enter U.S. attorney general Janet Reno, who issued a deadline for Elián’s Miami relatives and local authorities to fulfill the judge’s order by April 13.
On April 21, the press secretary of the Cuban Intersection invited me and Carol to dinner at his home to meet a special guest: Juan Miguel, Elián’s father, who had come to Washington to plead his case. I readily accepted and, given my limited Spanish-language skills, invited journalist friends Tony Avirgan and Martha Honey, both fluent in Spanish, to join us.
Juan Miguel was no fiery political activist. He was very low-key, soft-spoken, and uncomfortable being in the media spotlight. But he was also eager to tell us all about his meetings at the Capitol—where, he explained, contrary to most media reports, he was not always surrounded by Cuban security guards. Except for a translator, he was alone in his meetings with senators, where he could have requested asylum at any time. In fact, he said, at every meeting he was asked if he wanted to stay in the United States. He told them all he wanted to do was return to Cuba with his son.
Over a round of mojitos, Martha and Tony suggested that one way we could help was to recruit a group of high-profile supporters to form a cocoon around the Miami house where Elián was being held captive by his distant relatives. Juan Miguel liked the idea. And Martha, Tony, and I vowed to get on the phone in the morning and start lining up volunteers. But that plan never got off the ground, because suddenly everything changed.
We were just about ready to sit down for dinner when Juan Miguel received an urgent call, summoning him to the Justice Department. He took off, alone again, except for a translator and Justice Department driver. He returned two hours later, tight-lipped except to confirm that he’d just met with Attorney General Reno.
The next morning, I was startled out of sleep by a call from our friend Lucie Gikovich with the greeting: “Good for Janet Reno!” I quickly turned on CNN to learn that early that morning, federal agents had swooped into the Miami home of Elián’s relatives and rescued Elián, who was on his way to Andrews Air Force Base to be reunited with his father.
At first, I was furious, believing we’d been set up into providing cover for Juan Miguel while the undercover operation took place. I called our host of the night before, who assured me that nobody, not even Juan Miguel in his meeting with Reno, had been informed of her plans ahead of time. It was, he insisted, a surprise to everybody.
Soon, CNN called to confirm rumors that I’d met with Juan Miguel the evening before. An hour later, I was on the set at CNN, talking about our meeting, Reno’s operation, Elián’s reunion with his father, and what legal battles still lay ahead. For the next two months, Juan Miguel and Elián stayed at the Aspen Institute’s Wye River Conference Center on the Eastern Shore, awaiting action by the courts. On June 7, the Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed the lower court’s decision, granting custody to Juan Miguel. On June 28, the Supreme Court declined to take the case. Later that day, Juan Miguel and Elián were flown back to Cuba.
MONICAGATE
For over twenty years, Crossfire was where Americans turned every evening to debate the most important issue of the day. During my tenure, two issues dominated public debate over all others: the impeachment of President Bill Clinton and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
One evening in late December 1997, executive producer Rick Davis called me into his office after the show and closed the door. CNN had received a tip from The Washington Post, he told me, that a major story was going to break later that night or early the next morning regarding President Clinton. He didn’t know what it was all about; he just knew it was big news and was going to be bad news for the president. As cohost on the left, he wanted to warn me that I might find myself in a tough spot over the next few days.
The “next few days,” of course, turned into the next year as the soap opera called Monicagate metastasized from rumors of an affair with an intern to Clinton’s stormy denial, to recorded phone conversations between Monica Lewinsky and Linda Tripp, to the discovery of Monica’s blue dress, to the investigation of independent counsel Ken Starr and publication of his steamy report, to hearings in the House of Representatives and Clinton’s impeachment, and to the eventual finding of not guilty by the U.S. Senate.
Every new development in Monicagate consumed dozens of Crossfire programs. Indeed, for months, except for the misfire NATO expansion program mentioned earlier, we debated nothing else. It was all Monica, all the time.
I never found myself in a tough spot, however, because from the very beginning I took the position that, no matter what transpired between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, it was something agreed to by two consenting adults. It was not a “high crime” or “misdemeanor. It was therefore definitely not an impeachable offense.
Unlike many others on the left, knowing Clinton’s past history, I believed Monica was telling the truth. Which is why I shuddered one evening, early in the drama, when Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift was a guest. “My president says he didn’t do it, and I believe my president,” she asserted. I thought to myself, Eleanor, someday you’re going to regret those words.
Whether the truth was what “he said” or “she said,” I stuck to what I said on the very first night of the Lewinsky scandal: If, indeed, the rumors of Clinton’s sexual romp with a White House intern were true, I argued, what the president did was wrong and monumentally stupid—but it was not illegal and it was not an impeachable offense. And that’s still my position. Even when it became clear that Clinton lied under oath about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky in his deposition in the Paula Jones trial, I stuck to my guns. There’s no way that getting or lying about a blow job amounts to “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors”—and neither does any other sex act between two consenting adults.
One unexpected result of Monicagate: As cohost on the left, I suddenly found myself the focus of a lot of attention from the White House war room. Clinton made a very smart move in allowing press secretary Mike McCurry, one of the best ever to hold that job, to divorce himself completely from questions on the Lewinsky scandal—in order to pretend that business at the White House continued as normal.
To handle press inquiries about Monicagate, Clinton instead brought in attorney Lanny Davis, who won a lot of respect from the media by promptly responding to all inquiries, releasing all documents, and rebutting all charges. Almost every afternoon, I’d receive a call from the White House telling me there was new information I should be aware of. Within an hour, a black town car would pull up in front of our house and an aide would jump out with a brown envelope marked WHITE HOUSE. The Clinton spin machine was in overdrive.
Apart from Lanny’s operation, I also received frequent calls from Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal, who was apparently running his own defensive operation. Sid often called me at CNN shortly before we went on the air to make sure I knew the latest developments in the Lewinsky case or to propose certain lines of questioning. Once, he called to suggest that Monica Lewinsky was no choir girl, that she had, in fact, acquired a reputation at Lewis & Clark College for being promiscuous—thereby implying that Clinton was the innocent victim of a notorious flirt. I refused to go there, but never said anything about it—unlike the late Christopher Hitchens, who testified before the House Judiciary Committee that, in conversations with him, Blumenthal had accused Lewinsky of being a stalker.
Whatever else, the Lewinsky scandal certainly made for a lot of colorful Crossfire shows—especially during the House impeachment hearings. I especially enjoyed pointing out the hypocrisy of certain Republicans, beginning with Chairman Henry Hyde and Congressman Dan Burton, who were trying to impeach the president of the United States for sexual transgressions they themselves were guilty of.
Later, we learned that former Speaker Newt Gingrich was among the most prominent offenders, carrying on his own affair with a House staffer—whom he later married—while leading the charge against Clinton for the same offense. “Now we know,” liberal commentator Mark Shields observed, “that Newt was banging something more than the gavel.”
The circus in the House ended on December 19, 1998, when the House voted to impeach the president of the United States on two counts: for perjury to a grand jury, 228–206; and for obstruction of justice, 221–212. Clinton thus became only the second president to be impeached, and the first since Andrew Johnson in 1868. (Richard Nixon resigned from the presidency before the House could impeach him over Watergate.)
But Clinton was far from down and out. Following the House vote, over a hundred Democratic members of Congress, led by leader Dick Gephardt, headed for the White House to stand in solidarity with the president and show support for Clinton’s political and legislative agenda, whatever his personal weaknesses.
Ironically, a White House Christmas reception for Democratic Party activists, to which Carol and I had been invited, was scheduled for that very same evening. At first, we decided not to attend, fearing it would be too much like a wake. But then we changed our minds. This was no time to desert the president. This was a time to stand by our friend. So we showed up at the White House, and Clinton did not disappoint.
The mood that evening was far from somber. Just the opposite. It was almost celebratory. Everybody knew we’d lost a battle, yet we all felt we were on the verge of winning the war. After all, Clinton enjoyed over a 60 percent approval rating nationwide. It was highly unlikely the Senate would convict him. And Republicans in the House had clearly overplayed their hand. Maybe impeachment was politically survivable, a sentiment Clinton had already figured out.
When Carol and I saw our chance to say hello, I told Clinton how sorry we were for what had happened, but admired how he’d conducted himself throughout this ordeal—and were sure he and his presidency would carry on.
Clinton’s face lit up. “Yeah, you know,” he said, shaking his head, “all things considered, I think we had a pretty good day!”
We walked away, not believing what we’d just heard. Only a few hours earlier, Bill Clinton had suffered a disgrace that would forever be a black mark on his presidency. Yet he didn’t sulk away and cry. He wasn’t depressed. He threw a party for his friends, where he remained resolutely upbeat. It reminded me of the famous scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, where prisoners hanging on crosses alongside Jesus cheerfully sing out, “Always look on the bright side of life.”
As it turned out, Clinton was right. He beat the charges, voters turned on the Republicans in 1998, and today he’s a much-beloved former president. All in all, he did indeed have a pretty good day.
SEPTEMBER 11
Those of us alive at the time always remember where we were when we learned President John F. Kennedy had been shot. Those alive on September 11, 2001, will always remember where we were when four planes hijacked by terrorists were flown into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and a field in rural Pennsylvania.
Washington woke to a magnificent early Indian summer day. Following my normal routine, I’d gone for a run, come home, had breakfast, and pored through the morning paper. But then, instead of turning on the TV, I started making notes for a noon speech scheduled before the National Automobile Dealers Association at the Capital Hilton. So I was stunned to learn from producer Kristy Schantz on our 9:30 conference call that we probably wouldn’t have a show that evening because, now that a second plane had crashed into the World Trade Center, authorities were sure it was an act of terrorism. Like millions of Americans, I immediately turned on CNN to follow the horrific events of the day.
I sat there in a state of shock and disbelief over the unspeakable death and destruction. At the same time, I was also trying to think of what I could possibly say to that audience of auto dealers, and I decided I would just make a few brief comments about how horrible this attack on America was and then suggest they adjourn the meeting so we could all huddle around the nearest television sets.
But first I had to determine if the speech was still on. Which proved impossible. There was no phone service, either landline or cell phone, and no way to reach the Washington Speakers Bureau, the Capital Hilton, or representatives of the auto dealers. Meanwhile, news from New York got worse with the collapse of the first WTC tower. When the time came, I grabbed my speech notes and jumped in a waiting car for what turned out to be one of the scariest experiences of my life.
We hadn’t gone two blocks before we heard over the radio that the second tower had collapsed. Every couple of minutes, it seemed, there were reports of another disaster, all frightening, some hard to believe. We were on Constitution Avenue, right alongside the U.S. Capitol, for example, when it was reported that a major explosion had just rocked the building. Which clearly was not true. I could see the Capitol from the car. There had been no explosion. There was no damage. Next came news of a car bomb exploding at the State Department, which was also false. Meanwhile, I could see heavy black smoke coming from across the Potomac. That turned out to be from American Airlines Flight 77, which had crashed into the Pentagon.
Washington and the nation were clearly under attack. And I was trying to make up my mind whether I was safer in a car on Pennsylvania Avenue or getting out and running for cover. That decision was soon made for me. By this time, the streets were so clogged we couldn’t move at all. Cars were pouring out of parking garages and going in all directions at once. Drivers, ignoring traffic signals or one-way street signs, blocked intersections. Security officials with assault weapons suddenly appeared on sidewalks in front of federal buildings. It was total chaos. So, about a mile away, I got out and walked the rest of the way to the hotel, where an auto dealer official informed me that the entire program had been canceled.
So, like a good team player, I hopped on the Metro, which to my surprise was still working, and headed for CNN, where I walked up to the assignment editor and asked if there was anything I could do to help. Yes, he said. They’d just received a tip that conservative commentator Barbara Olson had been aboard the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. Could I try to confirm the news?
Suddenly the reality of September 11 hit home in a very personal way. A fiery conservative, Barbara was often a guest on Crossfire. I admired her lively debating style, and over the years we’d become friends. Just two days before, on Sunday, September 9, we’d appeared together on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal in what turned out to be an awkward experience for both of us.
As always, Barbara and I disagreed on almost everything. But when several viewers called to attack Barbara personally, I leaped to her defense, accusing liberal callers of going over the line and reminding them we should be able to debate the issues and still remain friends—just like the two of us.
As we walked to our cars together after the show, we agreed to have lunch and talk about how the two of us might work together to improve the tone of political discourse in Washington. Barbara told me she was heading for Los Angeles on Tuesday, September 11, but would call as soon as she got back in town to set a date for lunch.
We hugged, said goodbye—and here I was, two days later, September 11, trying to find out if she was still alive. After striking out on several calls, I finally got confirmation from conservative commentator Kate O’Beirne, who had just left the Olson home. Barbara had, indeed, been on board American Airlines Flight 77 bound from Dulles to LAX. She’d called her husband, solicitor general Ted Olson, on her cell phone to report that the plane had been hijacked. Barbara was one of 2,977 good, innocent people killed on that terrible day, 59 of them on AA 77.
At CNN, I told the assignment editor what I’d learned and who my source was. He suggested that, as a friend of Barbara’s, I should be the one to break the news on the air, but I declined. I was afraid I’d break down. I handed him my notes, left the building, and went home alone to cry. Carol was in California, unable to get a flight back to Washington.
September 11 and its aftermath—the cleanup, the search for survivors, the portraits and stories of the victims, the emerging news about Al Qaeda—continued to dominate the news for weeks. And, for the next month or more, Crossfire was off the air. Nobody was in the mood for the same old political bickering.
Still, it was such a big and important story, some of us weren’t happy not to be part of the coverage. It certainly demanded analysis and commentary, in some appropriate format. So Tucker Carlson and I came up with the idea of substituting the traditional Crossfire format with a television “town hall” in front of a live audience. CNN executives approved, and our producers quickly lined up an auditorium at George Washington University.
For the next couple of weeks, we met every night at GWU not for a debate but for an honest discussion about all the issues stemming from the terrorist attacks of September 11. The auditorium was packed with students and local residents, many of them Muslims. We spent the first half of the show with a panel of experts and members of Congress. The second half was devoted to questions or statements from the audience.
Everybody wanted to talk about what had happened, what it meant, how it impacted them, what lessons we should learn, and how we could move on from those terrible events as a country united. I still remember leaving campus every night, shaken by the volatile mix of emotions—anguish, fear, anger, despair, confusion, yet hope and determination—expressed by our audience. To this day, it’s the most powerful and meaningful television I’ve ever been part of.
LIGHTS OUT FOR CROSSFIRE
I had a great six years at Crossfire. Yet all good things must end. And, for me, the end wasn’t pretty. It came when Rick Kaplan left and was replaced as president of CNN by Time magazine managing editor Walter Isaacson.
Isaacson’s a brilliant journalist, but he had zero experience in television—and it soon showed. By that time, Crossfire had been on the air for twenty years. It was, by far, the most popular political debate show on television. It was, along with Larry King Live, one of two signature programs on CNN. It was producing both ratings and revenue for the network. But TV novice Isaacson thought he had a better idea.
When I first heard rumblings of change, late in 2002, I called Isaacson and asked him what was going on. He told me he loved Crossfire and thought I was the best cohost on the left in its history. But he believed he could make it an even better show by staging it in front of a live student audience with James Carville as cohost.
Talk about awkward! James was, and still is, a friend of mine. He was a frequent guest on Crossfire and married to my friend and former Crossfire cohost Mary Matalin. Nonetheless, I told Isaacson he was dead wrong. James was a great guest, I pointed out, but he would never cut it as a cohost because he lacked both the discipline to do his homework and the courtesy to listen to his guests’ responses. But Isaacson was stubborn. As president, he had none of the leadership skills he later profiled in his masterful biography of Steve Jobs and all the shortcomings Jobs detested among other so-called leaders of technology companies: those whom Apple’s fallen leader considered nothing but poseurs.
Isaacson went ahead with his plan, fired me, hired Carville and Paul Begala as new cohosts on the left, and moved the program from CNN studios to George Washington University, in front of a student audience. It remains one of the dumbest decisions ever made in television.
Yet in the end, I dodged a bullet: Isaacson’s revamping of Crossfire was a disaster. On special occasions, like September 11, Crossfire could work in front of a live audience. But Isaacson turned a serious, highly respected debate program into a daily gong show. Literally. Boxing gloves became its new logo. A gong sounded between rounds of questions. And hosts and guests, rather than explore or probe the issues, now tossed out provocative one-liners instead, playing for the biggest hoots and hollers from the crowd. Many of our more prominent guests understandably refused to appear on the new format.
It was amateur hour. It was embarrassing. It was doomed. And its end was only hastened when Daily Show host Jon Stewart, appearing as a guest in October 2004, begged Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala to “stop, stop, stop, stop hurting America” by encouraging divisiveness, accused them of offering nothing but “partisan hackery,” and topped it off by calling Tucker “as big a dick on your show as you are on any show.”
Two months later, Tucker, embarrassed by the new format, quit the show. After another month of agony, in January 2005, Jonathan Klein, the new president of CNN after Isaacson, announced that he agreed with Stewart and pulled the plug. Crossfire was dead.
It was tough, leaving CNN. I’d been fired before, but this time it really hurt, because I loved the show and because I knew I’d done a good job at it. I didn’t want to have to face friends the next day when the announcement was scheduled. So I was glad I’d agreed to speak to journalism students at Shepherd University in nearby Shepherdstown, West Virginia. I was driving to Shepherdstown when the shit hit the fan and my cell phone started going crazy.
My very first call? From Roger Ailes, then head of Fox News. “What the fuck are they thinking?” were the first words out of his mouth. Ailes, by the way, had always been friendly to me. I made a point of stopping by his office whenever I was in New York. But I was surprised as anybody when Gretchen Carlson filed her sexual harassment lawsuit against him in July 2016. There must have been truth behind her charges, and those of several other female Fox employees, because I never saw anyone topple from power as fast as Ailes did.
Roger’s call was followed by a shout-out from none other than Sean Hannity, political adversary but fellow talk show host. And all day long the calls poured in from Buchanan, Novak, Matalin, and others, all conservative friends expressing their regrets and offering to help. Not a peep from my fellow liberals.
With one big exception. A few weeks later, checking our answering machine at home, I heard a familiar voice. “Hi, Bill. This is Bill Clinton. I was just in town, and I called to say hello and to say thanks for all the great work you did on Crossfire. I don’t know what we’d have done without you. And I just wanted you to know I was thinking about you.” Thank you, Mr. President.
So there I was, fired from the job that had brought me to Washington. But I knew by then that CNN was not the only game in town—and I set out to prove it.