A Perennial Press Opera

Former presidential adviser Dick Morris (now a ferocious critic of the couple) tells NEWSWEEK the Clintons talked about why they were getting such bad press, and Hillary speculated that certain journalists were jealous of the Clintons' success. "They are all our age," said Hillary, according to Morris. President Clinton zeroed in on Howell Raines, an Alabama native and New York Times editorial page editor who was roasting the president daily. "He had to leave the South to make good and I never had to," Morris says Clinton said. Morris also says that when Gen. Colin Powell began flirting with a presidential run in the summer of 1995, Clinton warned that the press would not ask tough questions of a black man. "Bill would be furious that the media was giving him a free pass," says Morris. "Consider the source," says Carson.

Once scorned or reviled former presidents have a way of becoming elder statesmen. Clinton, out of office, morphed into a globe-trotting do-gooder, expansive and relaxed, even with reporters. Hillary Clinton came into her own as a U.S. senator, not as charismatic as her husband, but still solid and respected, even by reporters. But as a presidential candidate, Hillary was back to the old psychodrama, running as a once and future queen in a Restoration drama. Her basic pitch—ready on day one—is the same one used by George H.W. Bush when he ran for president in 1988. Hillary has been unlucky to have a rock star as an opponent, the kind of dazzling orator who is bound to make her seem plodding by comparison. Obama appeals to the young millennial-generation reporters who fill the seats on press planes, just as Bill Clinton struck a chord with baby boomers 16 years ago. Her campaign has arguably alienated reporters by stonewalling them at times, but the relationship between the press and the Clintons is complicated—more in the nature of a bad marriage than a cold war.

Republicans express their disdain for reporters by ignoring them. The Bush 43 White House appointed press secretaries who were intentionally kept uninformed about the inner doings of the Oval Office. The Clintons have more-intimate ties to the media establishment. Stephanopoulos was a true Clinton insider before he took over briefing the press every day. He yelled at reporters, but also gossiped with them and became a newsman himself (now ABC's chief Washington correspondent). Hillary's close confidant Sidney Blumenthal is a former journalist, and Clinton's admaker, Mandy Grunwald, is married to a veteran journalist and former NEWSWEEK correspondent, Matt Cooper. Familiarity seems to have bred contempt in Grunwald: she can be disdainful of the press. (She may be reflecting her boss's view that the press is fundamentally not serious about reporting the substance of policy.) Clinton campaign officials have not hesitated to go over the heads of reporters and complain to their editors; the reporters regard this, not unreasonably, as an intimidation tactic.

In the long run-up to the Iowa caucuses, the Clinton campaign herded reporters, sometimes rudely, away from the candidate. Bill Clinton, meanwhile, vented against the press for favoring Obama. When he began to not so subtly play the race card by comparing Obama with Jesse Jackson, the press backlash was indignant and gleeful. President Clinton's baiting backfired in South Carolina, and it seemed to some pundits that the Clinton machine was not so fearsome after all.

By then, Hillary Clinton had begun schmoozing with reporters again, going back into the press section of the plane and showing her jollier side. (The belly laugh is genuine.) But it may be too late. While it is not true that the press has "gone easy" on Obama—his slender record has been and will be scrubbed—the press helped fuel his momentum with mostly positive coverage.

A Clinton aide, speaking anonymously to hide his bitterness, predicted that Obama would get his comeuppance if he wins the nomination. "The one person the press corps likes more than Obama is John McCain," the aide says. Maybe so, but it doesn't really matter, because the press is almost certain to turn on both men. Digging through the personal record, searching for human flaws, is what reporters do when they cover presidential campaigns, and the critical skepticism only deepens when the winner occupies the Oval Office.

With Jonathan Darman, Martha Brant, Arian Campo-Flores, Karen Breslau, Daniel Stone and Andrew Romano

© 2008