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Edited on Tue Nov-15-05 03:35 PM by calimary
once - with none other than Ronald Reagan.
I was working at an LA station that was part of a small but significant radio network - as in - it had other stations in all the best markets, so it got a lot of bang for the buck. It also had a longtime "vice president" cocktail-party-circuit shmoozer type guy who set up this junket for all of us. The general managers, news directors (myself for one) and public affairs directors were all invited, so off we went. We made the rounds of Capitol Hill, doing the meet-n-greet with our various senate and house reps. But the crown jewel of the tour was a private "press conference" with Reagan, set up by this longtime "vice president" company shmoozer.
I think I've told this story here before, so forgive me if you find it repetitive. But it's important here to enlarge upon the main point.
So there we were, having filed into this little "audience with the pope" room, where Reagan was to give us about 15 minutes. I decided since I'd probably never have another opportunity like this one, being in L.A. all the time, I'd try to get my question in with the MAYBE half-dozen questions our group would be allowed to ask. I grabbed a seat along the center aisle, a couple of rows back, going up the steps, so, in effect, I was actually eyeball-to-eyeball with whomever was standing at the podium down front. This was strategic, so he couldn't help but see me if my hand went up. And sure enough, out he comes, makes a few opening blathers about the economy and other meaningless pablum, and then says he'll take our questions. And my hand shot up. As I'd hoped, he did see me first and he did call on me.
I wanted to ask him about a then-highly controversial schmuck in his cabinet - the Interior Secretary man-weasel james watt, whose every pronouncement and action had stirred up a firestorm of criticism. I wanted to know why we'd never heard anything about him from Reagan (who at the time had yet to make any comments about this 6th-century jerk he had working for him) and, considering the polls and other public opinion gauges that showed people just did not like james watt, why he continued to stand by this man. Reagan answered a completely meaningless few sentences of predictable drivel, but the point was, this was the first time he ever went on record about his embattled Secretary of the Interior (who later had to resign because he was such a world-class thoughtless asshole). So, I had my soundbites, but I had a lot more. Like a cold sweat.
The protocol demanded that we stand up to address the president when called upon. So I did. First of all, I was terribly intimidated facing him one-on-one like that, in front of all those other people. Then, he turned on that "Reagan charm." His head tilted, and he started bobbling it a little the way he always did in that folksy-old-uncle-sitting-by-the-fireside-telling-family-yarns-to-the-little-kids style of his. There was that little crooked smile and the aw-shucks demeanor, and the way he'd sort of bob and shake his head as he spoke, all crinkle-eyed and benign.
It was ASTONISHING. I tell you, sure as I'm sitting here writing this, I have NEVER felt anything like that. I felt as though somebody had switched a HUGE vacuum cleaner on HIGH, and stuck the hose straight into my face. I swear to you, with that "charm" working on me, full-tilt like that, I physically felt as though I needed to brace myself against the back of the chair in front of me, to avoid being sucked down into the drain by him. It was an actual, physical, tangible force. Magnetic like nothing I've ever felt before. I remember feeling as though I really needed to resist, HARD, while the vacuum remained on, otherwise I really would get sucked in. I had to make quite a deliberate effort to fight it off. By the time I sat back down again and he'd moved onto the next questioner, I was literally exhausted. Just DRAINED. I was out of breath, and all sweaty, like I'd just run several blocks.
I will NEVER forget that as long as I live. I could NOT believe the power he had, and it's not something I willingly gave over to him, either, because I was NOT a Reagan fan by ANY means, and prided myself on being resistant to his various "charms." I'd just never faced him up close.
So, I can see how woodward could, and clearly WAS, completely taken in by this. The flattery of that close access, and the close contact, sitting there at bush's elbow in the holy-of-holies, taking notes on stuff that nobody else was hearing or was close enough to hear - george is speaking JUST TO MEEEEEE!!!! Sigh... - and I tell you, sure as I'm sitting here, if you are NOT of a mind to resist it, deliberately and actively, you can and, as we can see from woodward's case, DO get sucked straight down in. I suspect that, up close, bush probably has some of that same aw-shucks "charm." He's said to have tremendous charisma in person, from what I've read. And especially if you go in with what you think is an "open mind" rather than a quest to poke holes or get to the bottom of something, or advance YOUR OWN AGENDA and not just "innocently" try to discover what theirs is (like we didn't already KNOW!), as woodward evidently did, you're sucker-punched. You've lost before you even speak your first word.
And I think they knew that when they allowed him in there.
Besides, who better to "take under your wing" and "reprogram" than one of the very icons of the Watergate truth-seekers. They completely neutralized bob woodward when they did that.
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