Adam Clymer has gained instant celebrity after being insulted by George W. Bush, says Damian Whitworth
Before he turned up at Naperville North High School in Illinois earlier this week, Adam Clymer was a respected, veteran political correspondent, well known to readers of The New York Times.
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Then George W. Bush made a crude aside to his running mate and suddenly Mr Clymer was the world’s most famous “major league asshole”.
The smiling Republican presidential candidate had pointed out Mr Clymer in the crowd as if he was an old friend, in the way that politicians do to make good shots for the camera. But the view of the reporter that he expressed to Dick Cheney was far from friendly.
Picked up by a microphone Mr Bush had not known was on, the comment ignited debate about the candidate’s temperament, his relationship with the media and with Mr Clymer in particular. Oh, and about whether or not his verdict was correct: is Mr Clymer a major league asshole?
The first agonising question for the US media was how to deal with the word itself. The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and USA Today printed it, The New York Times said only it was “an obscenity”, and then later changed that to “vulgarity”. The New York Post quoted Mr Bush as saying Mr Clymer was a “major-league a......” The Daily News front-page headline was: “That Guy’s An +$No&+!” Inside, though, he was an “a..hole”.
Then comparisons were made with similar gaffes made by Mr Bush’s father. In 1984 George Bush was captured by a microphone saying that he had “tried to kick a little ass” when he debated his vice-presidential opponent Geraldine Ferraro. On another occasion TV technicians recorded him calling the presenter Dan Rather “a bastard”. None of these quite rose to the level of Ronald Reagan’s joke that he had outlawed the Soviet Union and the “bombing starts in five minutes”. Nevertheless, the comments showed Mr Bush Snr in a new light.
His son’s outburst, on the other hand, may serve to reinforce the frat-boy side of his image he is trying to shed. He went on in his speech to call for “plain-spoken Americans” in the White House. But Mr Bush’s problem is that people fear he may already be too plain-spoken. When he was working on his father’s 1988 campaign he was renowned for yelling at the press.
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“The Bushes have a fractious relationship with reporters because they have a bedrock belief in their own goodness. So they get deeply offended when reporters challenge their deeds,” said the New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd.
Mr Clymer had certainly challenged Mr Bush’s deeds. On the day of the insult he had written an article on political scientists who had used mathematical calculations to predict that Al Gore would defeat Mr Bush. Earlier he had painted an unhappy picture of Mr Bush’s healthcare record in Texas. In an analysis of a Bush campaign advertisement about prescription drugs last week he said that its central claim had “zero” accuracy.
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Analysis of his analysis, by the online magazine Slate, concluded that he was “heavily biased” against Mr Bush. The New York Times, however, stood by Mr Clymer. “His work is both fair and accurate,” said the paper’s Editor, Joseph Lelyveld. “The Times has never heard from the Bush campaign about Adam. If they have a complaint, they should convey it to us and we will review it as we do all serious complaints about our coverage.”
Mr Clymer, who wrote a favourable biography of Ted Kennedy, is certainly hard on Mr Bush but his editors insist that he is fair. Over the years, however, he has undoubtedly made enemies.
That is usually how it is for a tough reporter. But many believe he is just too heavy-handed. His sole comment on the furore was that he was “disappointed in the Governor’s language”, but the Washington press has been quick to recall his own excitable outbursts.
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The Washington Times dug up a complaint report from US Capitol Police from a few years ago which stated that he had behaved in a “loud, profane and abusive manner” with four of its officers. It added that “his using profanity in a crowded area was unnecessary”.
Of course Mr Clymer was not running for President. Still, that hasn’t stopped the press crawling over his antics. The Washington Times reported that a broadcaster recalled Mr Clymer going “totally bonkers with a Secret Service agent” on a trip with President Ford, becoming “completely unglued... shouting, swearing. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
In The Boys on the Bus, Tim Crouse’s account of the 1972 general election campaign, Mr Clymer is said to have “bitched incessantly about everything”.
The Washington Post gossip column quoted one wag as saying that “Bush probably picked up 3,000 votes in the Washington press corps” by attacking Clymer. Then it quickly found a string of people to praise him.
However personally Mr Bush views the tussle with Mr Clymer - while he regretted that the comment had reached a public audience he did not apologise to the reporter - there are indications that his campaign sees it as part of a wider struggle.
When asked if he thought The New York Times was ill-disposed towards Mr Bush, his spokesman Ari Fleischer said wearily: “The New York Times is The New York Times.” This tallies with a commentary in The Wall Street Journal online this week which claimed that the US media is “reliably anti-Republican”.
Meanwhile, the combative Mr Clymer was last seen pursuing Mr Cheney. When Mr Bush had disparaged Mr Clymer with the A-word, his supremely loyal vice-presidential candidate had chimed in with: “Oh, yeah, he is. Big time.” He may live to regret that.