How Washington really works.

• Author: Peters, Charles
• Position: Cover Story

Why surviving in D.C. is more about going through the motions than actually doing something

A few days after Bill Clinton's victory in November, I happened to be on a television talk show with one of the bright young members of the president-elect's transition staff. His excitement and dedication were transparent and touching. But I was troubled by his confidence, bordering on arrogance, and the sense he conveyed that he and his colleagues were too smart to be taken in by Washington. I remembered that I had felt the same way when I came to Washington to work under John Kennedy in 1961. One reason for this article is to warn other similarly innocent and overconfident newcomers of the things I hadn't known and later wished I had known when I started out in this city.

There are some other members of the Clinton team for whom excessive innocence is clearly not the problem. But even seasoned veterans of the Washington scene usually know only the trade secrets of life in the branch in which they serve. Mutual ignorance of one another's world is often embarrassingly obvious, as when an executive branch witness testifies before Congress. So this article is intended to help the congressman understand the questions he should ask the executive branch, to give the witness an understanding of the pressures on the congressman, and to make each side aware of the games the other is playing.

Lastly, this is intended to help the permanent outsider--the Mr. Smith who never comes to Washington--understand that most of what our government appears to do is make-believe carried on for the benefit of those in office. The present system is designed to protect those within it, not to serve those outside. I hope this article will make the Mr. Smiths want to change it. Even if Bill Clinton has the best intentions in the world, he is going to need the strong support of the people to bring about genuine change.

Although this piece may sound cynical to many, I sincerely believe that the system can be changed. For anybody of my generation, it's necessary only to think back to the early months of our involvement in World War II to realize how dramatically government's performance can improve. Our triumph at Midway in 1942, one of the greatest naval victories in the history of the world, came just six months after the disaster at Pearl Harbor, a tragedy that demonstrated how abysmally inefficient and oblivious to reality government at its worst can be.

Unfortunately, in recent years our system has too often functioned as it did at Pearl Harbor. I want to see more Midways in the wars against hunger, disease, ignorance, injustice and war itself, as well as in the military battles we may be unable to avoid. And I know the Midways will happen only if we learn the lessons of the Pearl Harbors.

Media botch

The first key to understanding Washington is "make-believe." Washington is like the Winter Palace under Nicholas and Alexandra, where earnest discussion about the lot of the poor went on continually but was seldom accompanied by effective action. In Washington, bureaucrats confer, the president proclaims, and Congress legislates, but the effect on reality is usually negligible if evident at all. The nation's problems don't disappear, and all the activity that is supposedly dedicated to their solution turns out to be make-believe.

All too often the press, instead of exposing this make-believe, is part of the show. It dutifully covers the apparent action--the announcement of programs, the enactment of legislation--rather than finding out how the programs are executed and the legislation is implemented or what the government is not doing about crucial problems.

Suppose, for example, a mine safety bill is being considered by Congress. There is little possibility that the press, even C-Span, will cover the committee hearings. What will probably happen is there will be little or no coverage until the bill's passage is near, when there might be a story briefly summarizing the positions of the bill's advocates and opponents and appraising the likelihood of passage. When the bill is passed, a reporter may appear on the evening news, standing on the steps of the Capitol and solemnly intoning, "Today, Congress passed the Mine Safety Act of 1992." But all this denotes is the appearance of action. Nothing has yet happened in the mines. And it is almost certain that no reporter will go down into the mines to find out if anything ever does. Thus, the reality of what happened, whether the bill made the mines more or less safe, will not be investigated or reported--until there is a major mine disaster somewhere in Appalachia. Readers who doubt this scenario might consider what happened when the savings and loans were deregulated during the eighties. Can they recall any of the national press visiting individual S&Ls to find out what was going on?

There is no better example of journalism as part of the show than the press conference. The appearance is adversarial--tough reporters asking tough questions. The reality is far different. "We tried to identify people to ask softball questions," writes Ronald Reagan's press aide, Larry Speakes, in his book Speaking Out. And Reagan, instead of giving spontaneous answers to those questions, was prepped by his staff to reply in the way least likely to give political offense.

Until 1992, when the recession could no longer be ignored, George Bush was very successful at keeping the topics raised at his press conferences confined to foreign policy--a subject he felt far more comfortable with than domestic issues. According to a study conducted by The Washington Manthly's James Bennet, fully two thirds of the questions asked at presidential press conferences between January 1989 and September 1991 were about foreign affairs. Amazingly, this tally excluded conferences devoted to the Gulf war where questions about foreign policy would have been expected to dominate. During the same period, Bush answered only four questions about AIDS and only two questions about the dozens of bank failures.

One reason press conferences are so tame is the "beat" system, under which reporters are assigned regularly to the White House, Congress, the Pentagon, the State Department, and other agencies. Preoccupied with keeping up with the daily flow of news provided by officials, and anxious not to offend these sources lest he be cut out of the stories given to his competitors, the average beat reporter seldom has the time or inclination to delve into what's really going on behind the scenes.

Every high official has a press secretary or public information officer, who, in turn, often has his own platoon--and sometimes army---of assistants. All these people constantly feed reporters the news they want them to get. They issue a press release almost every day to make sure reporters are aware of whatever their bosses have said or done that can be made to look good. And they coddle reporters in a warm cocoon of perquisites.

The White House even arranges for reporters' families to tag along on presidential trips--at one third to one half the cost of ordinary fares--to places like Santa Barbara and Kennebunkport. The reporters' part of the bargain is to participate in the make-believe that real news is being made in these places rather than just routine statements between rounds of golf.

During the Gulf war, reporters were housed in luxury hotels like the five-star Dharan International, where the poolside area near the TV cameras was called "Little Hollywood." (Those blue domes you saw in the background were not mosques but cabanas.) Some tried to break out of their pleasant prison but most were willing to settle into the comfortable routine of being spoon-fed at daily briefings.

Beaten reporters

People who have reached the top levels of government have usually attained their positions at least partly through their skill in handling journalists. They know how to make themselves look good and they also know how to divert attention from the less flattering stories. Reporters who become dependent on those officials, as...