Moose asked: "Has President Hutchins talked to the FBI director this morning, and has he lost faith in the FBI'S ability to conduct this investigation, given the revelations in today's Boston Record?"
Sitting smack in the middle of the room, about three rows behind him, I made a mental note to extend my thanks for that high-profile mention.
It doesn't get much better than that. I actually had the feeling that a few of my colleagues were looking at me, and trust me when I say this is a tough lot to impress. You could walk on water, and the first thing most of them would want to do is inspect your shoes, and, finding them wet, ask, "Any reason why you went out and ruined a perfectly good pair of Cole-Haan wing tips?"
Dalton had obviously patched together a precisely worded answer to this question with senior White House aides and probably even Hutchins himself, then rehearsed it frontward and back over the past several hours. Here it came:
"The president," he said, "has spoken to Director Callinger of the FBI by telephone this morning. They had a pleasant and informative talk.
They have been keeping in regular contact since the assassination attempt. You've all seen reports"-the Record stories, I'd point out-"that there has been a security alert here at the White House, and the president has been receiving regular updates on that.
"The president was assured today that the investigation remains on track and is moving ahead with significant progress. The president is obviously in no position to discuss the particulars of the investigation. He was the victim. He is not a detective. But I am told the FBI will have something more to say on this shortly."
Immediately, a dozen hands and as many voices filled the air. Myers, the CNN reporter, talked down his colleagues. Asking a question in this kind of setting is like a verbal fencing match. You have to stay at it longer and harder, and eventually the vanquished sit down and shut up. "Royal, you didn't answer me. Has the president lost faith in the abilities of the FBI, given what the Boston Record is saying today about the misidentified shooter and the fact that they had previously identified a specific militia group, but were unable to stop the assassination attempt?"
Every time he mentioned my paper, I subconsciously felt myself push my shoulders back a bit further. I also felt the urge to hug him, but those are my own private issues. If I really had, I could see CNN using that footage in a commercial for how revered Moose is by his colleagues.
"Look," Dalton said. "The president believes today what he's always believed, and what, I would argue, most of America believes: that the FBI is the most talented, most exhaustive, most prestigious law enforcement agency in the world. He hasn't changed his opinion because of a newspaper story in Boston."
Dalton spit out those last words as if they were some distasteful bit of phlegm that had worked its way from his throat into his mouth. But if he thought he could outsmart the gathered press-and pathetically, he probably believed he could-he was about to learn the folly of his ways. Immediately, the Associated Press reporter shouted out, "So the president believes that the FBI was right, that the dead man is actually Tony Clawson?"
Good one. Dalton hesitated at the podium. You could see him twitching if you watched closely enough. "As I indicated before," he said, gathering a dismissive tone, "the president is the president of the United States. He is not a detective. He does not involve himself in the particulars of this investigation. He leaves that up to the trained inspectors with the most successful, most notable law enforcement agency in the world."
The Washington Post reporter asked loudly: "Does the president still have faith in that agency and its director?"
Dalton: "He does not see any reason, at this juncture, not to have faith in the FBI. He wants to let them proceed with their investigation, which is certainly difficult to do, given the intense publicity and the second-guessing that we're seeing now in the news media."
My first inclination was to stand up and tell him that the story wasn't second-guessing, it was just laying out a set of obvious facts, most notably, that the FBI misidentified a would-be presidential assassin.
My second inclination, the winning one, was that it might be unbecoming to stand and defend my own story. Significantly, Dalton had not called it wrong, and no one in the room thought it was.
The Baltimore Sun reporter, a twenty-year veteran of the press room who was demonstrably annoyed first with being beaten, and second with the mealymouthed responses from Dalton, asked, "Well, did the FBI director tell the president that they have the right identity or the wrong identity on the body of the alleged shooter? And is the FBI director prepared to offer his resignation?"
"You're not going to get much more from me on this one," Dalton said.
"The president is a victim in this shooting. The particulars on this case will have to come from the FBI, and as I said, I think they'll have something for you people in a short while."
This was interesting. Dalton effectively passed on the question of whether the FBI director would resign because of a Record story. This was also becoming futile, though it would be another twenty minutes before anyone in the room would be willing to let go.
Basically, from my read, Dalton was shying away from saying that the president had full faith in the FBI. He had very purposefully not used those words, probably out of fear that the FBI had screwed up and knowledge that they were about to make an announcement to that effect.
Dalton was also going to great lengths to distance the president from the investigation, repeatedly calling him a victim. This in itself was odd. White House aides prefer to depict the president as someone all-powerful, in control, not some hapless casualty of unfortunate circumstance. They were obviously being cautious about this, not setting anything in stone, leaving themselves an escape route. The question was, why?
As Dalton went around and around with reporters, my pager sounded.
It's one of those high-tech beepers with the text messages that shows me the most recent wire reports every few hours. This message was far better than the norm, which usually consists of this: "Call Peter Martin immediately." I read my beeper twice to make sure I saw it right. "Jack, you're an asshole. Come see me ASAP C.h."
I couldn't well get up in the middle of this briefing, mostly because the only way into the West Wing was directly past the podium, where all my colleagues, as well as Royal Dalton, would look at me with a mix of fear and loathing.
"Royal, is it the view of the president that the shooting attempt has hampered his ability to win reelection, or has it aided his cause because the country had the chance to see him perform in a difficult personal situation?" That was Jonathan Flowers with CBS News, with a subtle way of trying to reengage Dalton in the give-and-take, make him feel and act less like Larry Speakes, Reagan's press secretary, whose relationship with the news media was so awful that he would routinely stare down a particularly difficult questioner and bellow, "You're out of business." Then he'd ignore the reporter for the next week.
"I've said all I'm saying on assassination-related topics," Dalton seethed from the podium. He paused, then added icily, "Next subject."
Fuck him.
"Royal," I said, and I could feel all eyes riveted on me. I wasn't just some casual questioner here. My name was on that story, and there's the operating assumption from every other reporter and White House aide that the writer always knows more than he's written. "As president, as commander in chief, as someone generally charged with protecting our country and government, shouldn't President Hutchins be taking a keen interest in the progress of this investigation and the abilities of the investigators, given the potentially serious consequences on the well-being of the administration?"