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Overview
For more than four decades, polarized politics in America has been driven by a vicious scandal machine comprised of partisan politicians, extremists on the left and right, and a sensationalist media energized by bringing public officials down. In this sorely needed book Lanny Davis, who has been in the belly of the beast as Special Counsel to the Clinton White House, explains--starting with historical scandals like Alexander Hamilton's extramarital affairs and moving on to the unsurpassable Watergate and beyond--how we reached this sorry state. Davis tells us how this poisonous atmosphere is damaging not just politics but American society as a whole. Davis also offers hope by revealing how a coalition of centrist politicians focusing on core policies that appeal to the frustrated electorate marooned in the middle can pull us back from the brink.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781466892804 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | St. Martin's Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 03/24/2015 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 304 |
| File size: | 565 KB |
About the Author
Lanny Davis served as Special Counsel to President Bill Clinton from 1996-98. He is a regular on major media and author of Truth to Tell. He lives in Potomac, Maryland.
Read an Excerpt
Scandal
How "Gotcha" Politics is Destroying America
By Lanny Davis
Palgrave Macmillan
Copyright © 2006 Lanny J. DavisAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4668-9280-4
CHAPTER 1
REVOLUTIONARY VENOM, ITS PROGENY, AND THE GENTLEMEN'S AGREEMENT FROM HARDING TO KENNEDY
A powerful national political leader, one of the most famous in American history, has an extramarital affair that his political opposition finds out about. He successfully organizes a cover-up that lasts over four years, but his political enemies don't forget. Leaders of the opposition use lower level operatives, so-called elves, whose network for passing along rumors and documents spreads the poison and sets the trap for future disclosure. Then, when the powerful national political leader is at his zenith of power, the gory details are disclosed under the false charge of financial corruption, not sexual misconduct. Instead of retreating to a dark closet, the leader "publishes it all, himself" in detail and — risking the wrath of his wife — admits to the sex but denies the corruption charge. In the end, his loyal wife seems angrier at the vast conspiracy against him by hate-filled political enemies than at his infidelity. Meanwhile, the leader of the opposition, to whom the elves were totally loyal, claims to have been above the fray, although he secretly visits the chief elf at the time of publication and congratulates him. But, just five years later, this same opposition leader finds himself the object of his own sexual scandal — published by the very same chief elf who is now angry with him and has switched parties.
If I told you this story took place during the first 15 years of the founding of our republic, you probably would think I am making this up. But I am not. As Yogi Berra has said: "It's déjà vu all over again." Many people look back at the Revolutionary Era with understandable idealism and romanticism. The overwhelming public impression is that our Founding Fathers had the highest moral standards and were able to maintain civility and mutual respect toward political opponents — in sharp contrast to today's vitriolic scandal culture. Our country in its youth avoided harsh personal attacks and demonizing the political opposition, right? A closer examination of our Founding Fathers reveals that some of them not only had undisciplined libidos that drove them to reckless sexual misconduct but also that many were bitter partisans. They were all too willing to use media leaks, personal attacks, and character assassination — including spreading the rumors of those sexual affairs — not just to defeat but to destroy their political opponents.
To understand how the scandal culture has taken such hold of the country, it is important to remember that our experience with scandals and gotcha politics has a long and notorious history. As a result, we are going to go back to the beginning to see how our Founding Fathers and those who followed dealt with scandal. We will see what insights this can give us into historic precedents for today's scandal culture and what to do when you are a politician in its crosshairs.
* * *
By 1792, the last year of President George Washington's first term, there was already a deeply bitter partisan split in American politics. Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton led one side, and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson led the other. At that time, seen by friends and allies as the real power behind George Washington, Alexander Hamilton was not only the far more powerful of the two. He also represented a clearly articulated philosophy of government that evoked passions, pro and con, in what could be described as the first true Blue State versus Red State split in America along mostly regional and ideological lines.
Hamilton stood for a strong central government. He was the primary author of the "Federalist Papers," which eloquently argued in favor of adopting the new U.S. Constitution to replace the Articles of Confederation. At the heart of the Federalist Papers and the argument for adopting the new Constitution was the need for a strong "federal" government. This was in opposition to the system under the Articles, in which a loose confederation of independent state governments could not create political, much less economic, unity to grow and prosper as a nation. But early into the first Washington Administration, it was clear that there was a large group of early Americans, centered in the South and rural areas, which feared too much central power in the "federal government." They believed that concentrating such power could lead to a return to a British-style monarchy. They came to call themselves "Jeffersonians," named after their leader, Thomas Jefferson, and later "Republicans" (though not to be confused with the current Republican Party, which formed much later). Jefferson, famous for drafting the Declaration of Independence, hailed from the state of Virginia, whose critical role in the founding of the Republic led its native sons to resent any rival power, such as a strong national government, that might infringe on its "sovereign" state rights. Jefferson also spoke idealistically of the need to keep America an agriculture-based culture. He feared that the concentration of merchant, commercial, and moneyed interests in a central government would endanger individual freedom more than anything else.
Washington sided with Hamilton for the most part on this argument, and the catalyst for the de facto formation of political parties is usually credited to the lead up and establishment of the first National Bank by the Federalist-controlled Congress in 1791–92. As Ron Chernow writes in his biography of Hamilton: "The sudden emergence of parties set a slashing tone for politics in the 1790s." Slashing tone indeed. It was in the context of this turbulence and bitter partisanship of 1792 —"the rise of political parties, the newspaper wars, the furious intramural fights with Jefferson"— that Hamilton should have been on the lookout for threats to his reputation; but he was not. It was during the summer of 1791 that he began an affair with a married woman, Maria Reynolds. He continued to carry on this affair with her and paid hush money to her husband, James Reynolds, and, as a result, became the first victim of the first American political sex scandal five years later.
More than this, it could be argued that this is also the first example of "gotcha" politics in American history. In October 1792, Hamilton planted the first seed about Jefferson's affair with his slave Sally Hemings. Five years later, in the summer of 1797, a fanatical Republican partisan and supporter of Thomas Jefferson publicly disclosed Hamilton's affair with Mrs. Reynolds, having received the information from an underground network of "elves" (an expression used almost exactly 200 years later to describe the secret network of lawyers who bridged the Paula Jones plaintiffs' lawyers and Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr's prosecutors in the Clinton Monica Lewinsky case). This surreptitious network of Jeffersonian messengers thrived in the muck of rumor and leaks, with the objective of destroying Alexander Hamilton personally.
And then another five years later, in 1802, charges about Jefferson's affair with his slave and the fathering of her children were first published, fittingly, in an article written by the same man who had outed Hamilton, James Thomson Callender. He was now angry with Jefferson and wanted to get even — so he switched sides and became a Federalist. Notably, Hamilton actually tried to discourage political exploitation of the Jefferson–Hemings charges, but his fellow Federalist partisans had no such reticence. And so, the pattern of partisan gotcha politics and the movement toward the politics of personal destruction in America had its birth.
The contrasting ways in which both Hamilton and Jefferson chose to deal with the publication of these sex scandal allegations also point to two different pathways of handling a scandal crisis once it breaks out by getting the truth out yourself —"tell it all, tell it early" versus "deny, deny, deny"— a strategic split that, to say the least, can be seen in subsequent scandals throughout U.S. history up to the present day.
HAMILTON'S SEXUAL COMPULSIONS
Hamilton's nightmare all began in the summer of 1791. Hamilton was at the zenith of his power. He was George Washington's most trusted adviser, not only on all things economic, which one would expect as Secretary of the Treasury, but also on foreign affairs and most domestic policies as well (and served as his chief, and apparently only, speechwriter). That summer Hamilton was working feverishly on his landmark Report on Manufacturers, a vast tract setting out his economic and fiscal polices as well as an accounting that he had promised Congress by year-end. He was fighting — and winning — his battle to win the heart and mind of President George Washington over Jefferson and Madison, and was making progress on his goals of assuming Revolutionary debts and establishing a national system of taxation, commerce, and fiscal policy controlled by the first national bank.
Perhaps it was this string of successes, among other reasons, that led him to his gross misjudgment. As we have seen in many other examples throughout U.S. history, times of peril for many great public men is when they are at their peak, and hubris sets in. And with hubris often comes a sense that the rules of appropriate behavior do not apply to them — or at least, that they are too clever to get caught. And so it was with Hamilton that summer. As he described many years later, his first encounter with the 23-year-old Maria Reynolds, then married to James Reynolds, was when she appeared on his doorstep in Philadelphia, a maiden in distress who pleaded her case. Her husband treated her very poorly, she said, and had left her for another woman, sending her to the poor house. But the meeting came at an "inopportune moment" (i.e., his wife was home), so Hamilton, never missing an opportunity to show his chivalry, decided to visit Mrs. Reynolds at her home later that evening, presumably without mentioning the need to help the poor maiden to his wife, Eliza. To describe what happened next, it seems best to let Hamilton speak for himself:
In the evening, I put a bank bill in my pocket and went to the house. I inquired for Mrs. Reynolds and was shown upstairs, at the head of which she met me and conducted me into a bedroom. I took out of my pocket and gave it to her. Some conversation ensued from which it was quickly apparent that other than pecuniary consolation would be acceptable.
Let us read the end of that last sentence one more time. The legendary author of the Federalist Papers, true to his skills as a writer, just came up with a euphemism for doing it that will, in all likelihood, never be exceeded by any future American leader.
To be fair to Alexander Hamilton, Mrs. Reynolds was not exactly an innocent overwhelmed by the charms of one of America's most famous and powerful political leaders. A Philadelphia merchant who knew her during her marriage to Reynolds wrote that she had told him that her husband "had frequently enjoined and insisted that she insinuate herself on certain high and influential characters — endeavor to make assignations with them and actually prostitute herself to gall money from them." Hamilton eventually discovered that Mr. Reynolds, the husband, was actually aware of his wife's involvement with Hamilton — indeed, had encouraged it. It seems Mr. Reynolds wished some form of compensation in return for sharing the wonders of his beautiful, young wife with the Treasury Secretary. In addition, at least according to Maria, Mr. Reynolds had dabbled in speculating in government securities, while using inside information provided to him from a high-level Treasury Department official, William Duer, who was also an acquaintance of Hamilton's.
The political danger inherent in this combination of sexual misconduct and potential government corruption should have been obvious to such a brilliant man, especially one who was so prideful of protecting his public reputation that it later led to his death during a duel with Aaron Burr. Why Hamilton did not understand this danger and avoid undertaking such a reckless risk, which left him vulnerable to blackmail, remains a complete mystery to this day. Well, maybe not such a complete mystery. World history is replete with instances in which brilliant and powerful men find their mind and prudent judgment overtaken by a certain part of their anatomy, for reasons that even they themselves cannot explain. Hamilton actually rationalized continuing the relationship because he believed Maria was genuinely in love with him. Hamilton suffered, wrote Hamilton biographer Ron Chernow, from a sexual "addiction," was in the grip of a "dark sexual compulsion. ... [He] seemed to need two different types of love: love of the faithful, domestic kind, and love of the more forbidden, exotic variety." Another Hamilton biographer wrote: "Nor was the affair a passing, if torrid, sexual dalliance between two lonely people. ... Sexual ardor is a powerful force, especially in a man of great physical energy and strong creative drives." Hamilton seems to have convinced himself to avoid being cruel to poor Maria by forcing her to quit him cold turkey. Or, as Chernow surmised, was it he who had the true addiction, covering up his need for her under the pretense of weaning her off of his love or at least of his infatuation? Another contemporary Hamilton biographer, however, bluntly rejected the notion of a real romantic relationship going on here. "A plain statement of the facts is that Mrs. Reynolds was a whore, her husband was a pimp, and both were blackmailers." And as to Hamilton — pretty simple: "He was a john and a gull."
HUSH MONEY
Meanwhile, the wounded husband overcame his spousal pride and focused on more material objectives. On December 15, 1791, at the very moment when Hamilton was finishing up his Report on Manufacturers, Mr. Reynolds demanded $1,000 from Hamilton (which in 2005 dollars would be the equivalent in rough calculations of over $1 million). It was demanded as and understood to be nothing more or less than hush money. And Hamilton paid it. After doing so, he seemed to resolve to end the affair once and for all. Yet he continued on with Maria and continued to pay hush money for several more months in 1792. In fact, Hamilton continued to make payments through the spring of 1793, and, finally, after James Reynolds demanded another $300 that Hamilton resisted, he made his last payment on June 2 for $50.
THE INEVITABLE LEAK
As when most hush money finally ends, the story eventually seeped out, bit by bit. The key player in the leak was Jacob Clingman, a friend of James Reynolds and another lowlife archetype who had served as a clerk to the former respected Speaker of the House, Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania. Clingman was a strong supporter of Jefferson and another Hamilton hater. One afternoon in February or March 1792, Clingman visited the Reynolds household and discovered Hamilton leaving. Several days later, while he was with the Reynolds, there was a knock on the door and it was Hamilton again. Sputtering, Hamilton allegedly explained that he was delivering a message that he had been "ordered" to give to Mr. Reynolds.
Clingman, who traveled in Republican anti-Hamilton circles, had long been privy to the Republican-generated rumors that Hamilton had speculated in government securities using inside information obtained as Treasury Secretary. So this scene, and subsequent conversations with James Reynolds describing the ongoing payments made by Hamilton, reinforced Clingman's prior impressions that Hamilton was, in fact, partnering with Reynolds in a scheme to manipulate government securities using insider information.
When Clingman and Reynolds found themselves in jail in December 1792 for an unrelated criminal charge, and despite the fact that Hamilton helped arrange their release, Clingman was apparently ready to play "gotcha." He went to his old boss, the former Speaker Frederick Muhlenberg, and accused Hamilton of involvement in a scheme to manipulate government securities, with the payments to Reynolds for that purpose. As proof, Clingman gave Muhlenberg a batch of unsigned notes from Hamilton to Maria Reynolds, in Hamilton's handwriting. Muhlenberg sought out advice from his two Republican political colleagues, Representatives Abraham B. Venable and James Monroe (a close friend of Jefferson's and America's future fifth president).
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Scandal by Lanny Davis. Copyright © 2006 Lanny J. Davis. Excerpted by permission of Palgrave Macmillan.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Introduction * Part I: It Didn't Begin with Watergate * Revolutionary Venom, Its Progeny and The Gentlemen's Agreement from Harding to Kennedy * The 1960s: Seeds of the Culture Wars * Part II: Watergate Legacies * The Post-Watergate Media Revolution * The Scandal Cauldron: The 1980s * To Be "Borked" or "Gingriched" * Part III: The 1990s Scandal Machine Implosion * Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton: Bookends to the Worst of the Scandal Culture * The Clinton "Scandals:" Much Smoke, Little Fire * Death of the Independent Counsel Statute * The Boomerang Effect: Gingrich and Livingston * Part IV: The Revolt of the Center * Hypocrisies on the Left and Right * The New Center * Purple Nation and the Grand Coalition Government