"Primary Colors"
Joe Klein a.k.a Anonymous
Random House
April 3, 1998
Web posted at: 3:50 p.m. EST (2050 GMT)
(CNN) -- It hit book store shelves with a thud heard all over Capitol Hill. And the kicker was, the
author was Anonymous. "Primary Colors" is an unblinking and clever look at a womanizing,
doughnut-eating Southerner seeking the presidency, come hell or high water.
"Newsweek" columnist Joe Klein finally emerged as the author and drew some ricocheting
verbal fire. But whatever criticism he received, he more than made up for it in book sales. The
novel is one of the most popular political books ever.
The similarities between the book and Clinton Administration are hard to ignore, and a film
based on the book captures some of the surface qualities of the current White House.
Here's the first chapter of Klein's "Primary Colors." Judge for yourself.
CHAPTER ONE
He was a big fellow, looking seriously pale on the streets of Harlem in deep summer. I am small
and not so dark, not very threatening to Caucasians; I do not strut my stuff.
We shook hands. My inability to recall that particular moment more precisely is disappointing:
the handshake is the threshold act, the beginning of politics. I've seen him do it two million times
now, but I couldn't tell you how he does it, the right-handed part of it--the strength, quality,
duration of it, the rudiments of pressing the flesh. I can, however, tell you a whole lot about what
he does with his other hand. He is a genius with it. He might put it on your elbow, or up by your
biceps: these are basic, reflexive moves. He is interested in you. He is honored to meet you. If he
gets any higher up your shoulder--if he, say, drapes his left arm over your back, it is somehow
less intimate, more casual. He'll share a laugh or a secret then--a light secret, not a real one-flattering you with the illusion of conspiracy. If he doesn't know you all that well and you've just
told him something "important," something earnest or emotional, he will lock in and honor you
with a two-hander, his left hand overwhelming your wrist and forearm. He'll flash that famous
misty look of his. And he will mean it.
Anyway, as I recall it, he gave me a left-hand-just-above-the-elbow plus a vaguely curious "ah,
so you're the guy I've been hearing about" look, and a follow-me nod. I didn't have the time, or
presence of mind, to send any message back at him. Slow emotional reflexes, I guess. His were
lightning. He was six meaningful handshakes down the row before I caught up. And then I fell
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in, a step or two behind, classic staff position, as if I'd been doing it all my life. (I had, but not for
anyone so good.)
We were sweeping up into the library, the librarian in tow, and now he had his big ears on. She
was explaining her program and he was in heavy listening mode, the most aggressive listening
the world has ever known: aerobic listening. It is an intense, disconcerting phenomenon--as if he
were hearing quicker than you can get the words out, as if he were sucking the information out of
you. When he gives full ear--a rare enough event; he's usually ingesting from two or three
sources--his listening becomes the central fact of the conversation. He was doing this now, with
the librarian, and she was staggering under it. She missed a step; he reached out, steadied her.
She was middle-aged, pushing fifty, hair dyed auburn to blot the gray, unexceptional except for
her legs, which were shocking, a gift from God. Had he noticed the legs when she almost went
down on the stair? I couldn't tell. Howard Ferguson III had insinuated himself next to me, as we
nudged up the crowded staircase, his hand squeezing my elbow--Lord, these were touchy
fellows--saying: "Glad you changed your mind. Jack's really excited you could do this."
"What are we doing?" I asked. Howard had called and invited me to meet Governor Jack
Stanton, who might or might not be running for president. The governor was stopping in New
York on his way to do some early, explanatory wandering through New Hampshire. The
invitation came with an intriguing address--in Harlem, of all places. (There was no money in
Harlem and this was the serious money-bagging stage of the campaign, especially for an obscure
Southern governor.) It also came with shameless flattery. "You're legendary," Howard had said
in a dusty midwestern voice, cagey and playful. "He wants to lure you out of retirement."
Retirement: I had fled Washington after six years with Congressman William Larkin. It had been
my first job out of school--and I was a victim of his upward mobility, from member to whip to
majority leader. Too much. I hadn't been ready for power; I'd kind of enjoyed the back benches.
It was too soon for me to be someone, the majority leader's guy, the guy you had to get with if
you wanted something in or out of this or that. And so, on my thirtieth birthday, an epiphany:
"I'm sorry, sir--I need a break," I told the congressman.
"Don't you believe in what we're doing?" he asked.
You mean, counting heads? Lemme outta here. I was going out with a woman named March
then; she was great-looking, but she worked for Nader and came equipped with a lack of irony
guaranteed to survive the most rigorous crash testing. I found myself having fantasies of working
my way through the months: April, May, June. . . . I don't remember what I told her. I told her
something. "Henry, isn't this a little young for a midlife crisis?" she asked.
No. I called Philip Noyce at Columbia. I'd known him all my life. He was a colleague of
Father's--back when, back before Father left Mother and began his World's Most Obscure
Universities Tour. In the event, Philip got me a gig. I taught legislative process. As midlife crises
go, it had been a busman's holiday.
Now I thought I might be ready to resume . . . things.
3
Anyway, I was curious. What was Jack Stanton doing up in Harlem when he should have been
down on Wall Street trying to impress the big spenders? Was he trying to impress me? I doubted
it. More likely, he had invited me along for racial cover. I was, I realized, the only black face in
his entourage. Howard Ferguson certainly was about as far as you could get from dark. I noticed
a discrete bauble of perspiration moving diagonally down the side of his forehead into his weird
Elvis sideburn, as if his sweat were rationed: he was so dry, so thin-lipped austere--and his eyes
burned so hard--one imagined that whatever juice he had inside was precious; if he didn't stay
lubricated, he might catch fire. Howard was legendary himself, sort of: vestigial, a prairie ghost.
He was born to a line of arsonists. His great-grandfather Firefly Ferguson had set the wheat
fields ablaze and run for governor from a jail cell. Howard wore Firefly's parched, sandy face,
thinning hair parted in the middle--and a pink flowered Liberty tie: I do not take this life, these
lawyer clothes seriously, it said. His role in the Stanton operation was elusive--months later I'd
still be trying to figure it out. He was a man who never tipped his hand, who never expressed an
opinion in a meeting, and yet gave off the sense that he had very powerful convictions, too
powerful to be hinted among strangers. He had known the governor forever, since the antiwar
days. "You ever been to an adult literacy program?" he asked, then chuckled. "Jack eats this shit
up. Says it's like going to church."
So it was. It was a better room than the usual government-issue Formica and cinder block. There
were none of the relentlessly cheery posters of books and owls. It was a dark, solemn place--a
WPA library. The bookcases were oak and went most of the way up the walls; there was a mural
above, a Bentonian, popular-front vision of biplanes buzzing the Statue of Liberty, locomotives
rushing through wheat fields, glorious, muscular laborers going to work--a Howard Ferguson
dreamscape. (They didn't need hortatory read books propaganda back then; there were other
struggles.) The class was seated around a large, round oak table. They were what the WPA
muralist had in mind: a saintly proletariat.
The librarian, condescending to them in the reflexive, unconsciously insulting manner of public
servants everywhere, introduced the visitor: "Governor Jack Stanton, who has been a great friend
of continuing education, and is now running for . . ." She tossed a flirtatious look his way.
"Cover," he said.
"Do you want to say a few--"
"No, no--y'all go on ahead," he purred. "Don't mind me."
He took a seat away from the table, deftly respecting the integrity of the class. I sat diagonally
across the room from him; I could watch him watching them. Howard stood behind me, leaning
against a bookcase. They introduced themselves. They were waitresses, dishwashers and janitors,
most in their twenties and thirties, people with night jobs. Each read a little; the women had an
easier time of it than the men, who really struggled. And then they said something about their
lives. It was very moving. The last to go was Dewayne Smith, who weighed three hundred
pounds easy and was a short-order chef. "They just kept passin' me up, y'know?" he said.
"Couldn't read a lick, had a . . . learning disbility." He looked over to the librarian to make sure
he had said it right.
4
"Dewayne's dyslexic," she said.
"They just kept a passin' me up--third grade, fourth grade--and I'm like too proud, y'know? It was
like no one noticed anyways. I sit in the back, I ain't a mouthy broth--person, I don't cause no
trouble, I stick to my own self. So I go on through, all the ways through. I graduate elementary
school. They send me to Ben Franklin, general studies. They coulda sent me to the Bronx Zoo.
No one ever tell me nothin'. No one ever say, 'Dewayne, you can't read--what you gonna do with
your sorry ass?' Scuse me." He looked over at the governor, who smiled, urging him on.
"This was twenty years ago," the librarian interjected. "We're better about catching those things
now"--as if that canceled out such monumental callousness, the numb stupidity of the system.
"Anyway, graduation come. My momma come. She take the day off from the laundry where she
work, puts on her church dress. She don't have a clue nothin's wrong; me neither. I been skatin'
through? So we're there and Dr. Dalemberti is callin' out the names and what we did, like
'Sharonna Harris, honors,' or 'Tyrone Kirby, Regents diploma,' and everyone's gotta just stand
there on the stage, while they come up one by one. So they get to my name--goin' alphabetical,
y'know--and Dr. Dalemberti says, so everyone hear it, 'Dewayne Smith receive a certificate of
attendance.' You can hear people buzzin', coupla folks laughin' a little, and I gotta go walk up
there, and get this . . . it look just like a diploma, y'know? Same kind of paper--funny, how I'm
thinking people won't notice 'cause it's the same kind of paper. But that don't work: everyone
know the truth now. And I'm thinkin': Sucker. These folks expect you a fool, they got rid of
everyone else can't read, they drop out. And my reward for stickin' around is--I gotta stand there,
burnin', and I'm tryin' not to look at anyone, tryin' not to look too stupid, y'know? But feelin'
stupid as a rock. The girl come up after me gigglin' a little, still laughin' 'bout me, y'know? She
nervous cause she gotta stand next to the idiot. Like it's catchin' or somethin'. And I see Momma
out there with her hat on and her purse in her lap. She wearin' her white church gloves. She got
her glasses on, and tears comin' down from behind her glasses, like someone hurt her bad, like
someone die."
I kind of lost it then. I tried to gulp down the sob, but Dewayne had caught me somewhere
deeper, and earlier, than politics. Damn. I shuddered, tears leaked out the side of my eye. And:
Do you know how it happens at a moment like that, when you are embarrassed like that, you will
look directly--reflexively--at the very person you don't want to see you? I looked over at Jack
Stanton. His face was beet-red, his blue eyes glistening and tears were rolling down his cheeks.
The first thought was--relief: relief and amazement, and a sudden, sharp, quite surprising
affinity. This was followed, quickly, by a caveat: Weakness? Ed Muskie in the snow in New
Hampshire? But that evaporated, because Stanton had launched himself into motion, rubbing his
cheeks off with the back of his hands--everyone knew now that he had lost it--standing up,
standing over the table, hands on the shoulders of two of the students, leaning over the table
toward Dewayne and saying, "I am so very, very deeply grateful that you'd share that with us,
Dewayne." It wasn't nearly so bad as the words sound now. He had the courage of his emotions.
"And I think it is time we made it impossible--I mean impossible--for anyone to get lost in the
system like you did. We have to learn to cherish our young people. But most of all, I want to
thank you for believing, for having faith--faith that you can overcome the odds and learn and
5
succeed." It was getting a little thick, and he seemed to sense it. He got off the soapbox, kicked
back, circled the table over to where Dewayne was; I had him in profile now. "Takes some
courage, too. How many y'all tell your friends and family where you're going when you come
here?" There were smiles.
"Let me tell you a story," he said. "It's about my uncle Charlie. This happened just after I was
born, so I only got it from my momma--but I know it's true. Charlie came home from the war a
hero. He had been on Iwo Jima--you know, where they raised the flag? And he had taken out
several machine-gun nests of Japs . . . Japanese soldiers, who had a squad of his buddies pinned
down. First one with a grenade. Second one by himself, with his rifle and bayonet and bare
hands. They found him with a knife in his gut and his hands around an enemy soldier's throat. He
had two bullets in him, too."
Dewayne said, "Shit."
"Yeah, that's right," Stanton said, moving clockwise around the table now, like a big cat. "They
gave him the Medal of Honor. President Truman did. And then he came home to our little town,
Grace Junction. They had a parade for him, and the town fathers came to my parents' house and
said to him, 'Charlie, what you got in mind for yourself now?' Charlie said he didn't know. Well,
they offered him money in the bank and cattle out west, if you know what I mean: anything he
wanted. The mayor said Charlie could have a full scholarship to the state university. The banker
said he could understand if Charlie didn't want to go back to school after all he'd been through,
so he was offering him a management job, big future, at the bank. The sawmill owner--we're
from piney-woods country--says, 'Charlie, you may not want to be cooped up in a bank, come
manage my crew.' And you know what? Damned if Charlie didn't turn them all down."
Stanton stopped. He waited. One of the women said, "So what he do?"
"Nothin'. He just lay down on the couch, smoked his Luckies, let himself go. . . . No one could
get him off that couch."
"Oh, I got it," said a wiry Hispanic with a pencil-thin mustache. "He got his head fu-- ah, mess
up. He got one of them post-dramatic things, right?"
"Nope," Stanton said, very calmly. "It was just that, well . . . He couldn't read."
Heads snapped, someone said What?, someone whistled, someone said, "No shit."
"He couldn't read, and he was embarrassed, and he didn't want to tell anyone," Stanton said. "He
had the courage to win the Congressional Medal of Honor, but he didn't have the strength to do
what each of you has done, what--each--of--you--is doing--right--here. He didn't have the
courage to admit he needed help, and to find it. So I want you to know that I understand, I
appreciate what you are doing here, I honor your commitment. And when people ask me, 'Jack
Stanton, why are you always spending so much money and so much time and so much effort on
adult literacy programs?' I tell them: Because it gives me a chance to see real courage. It inspires
me to be stronger. I am so grateful you've let me visit with you today."
6
I have seen better speakers and heard better speeches, but I don't think I'd ever heard--at least,
not till that moment--a speaker who measured his audience so well and connected so precisely. It
was an impressive bit of politics. And they were all over him then, clapping his back, shaking his
hand, hugging him. He didn't back off, keep his space, the way most pols would; he leaned into
them, and seemed to get as much satisfaction from touching them, draping his big arm over their
shoulders, as they got from him. He had this beatific, slightly goofy look on. And then Dewayne
said, "Wait a minute." The room fell silent. "What about Charlie?"
"Well, it took a while," Stanton said, more conversationally. They were all friends now. "He
started hanging 'round the high school when I got up there. He, uh--" Stanton was embarrassed.
He was making a decision. He went ahead with it--"Well, I was the manager of the varsity
baseball team and Charlie liked to sit with me on the bench, helping out--and that grew into
helping out around the gymnasium, and finally they offered him a job when Mr. Krause died."
"Who Mr. Krause? What job he got?"
"Oh, he was the school janitor."
"No shit."
He stayed with them for a time, answering questions, signing autographs. The library lady
pitched Stanton about the need for more money--there was a long waiting list of people who
wanted to get into that program but had to be turned away. Then they all followed him back
downstairs, and out to the car. Howard Ferguson and I trailed the crowd. Howard squeezed my
arm gently, just above the elbow, kind of chuckled--a strangled guffaw--and shrugged, as if to
say: What can I say?
"How do you know him?" I asked, having to ask something.
"Oh, a long time," he said.
The governor was down on the sidewalk now, chugging through another round of meaningful
handshakes. Ferguson and I stood over by the car. "So what do you think?" Howard asked.
I said something enthusiastic, but I really was wondering: Is he expecting me to say something
like "Where do I sign up?" Didn't they want to sit down and say, Here's what we're doing and
here's what we'd like you to do and what do you think about this issue, or that person, and how
do you think someone should run for president of the United States these days?
Stanton came over. Looked at me. So? "Well, that was something," I said.
"I can't believe we can't rustle up enough dough to make this available to anyone who wants it,"
he said. (What was this going to be--a policy discussion?) "Why didn't you guys fund it better?"
Because my former boss was a weenie. But do you just say that straight off? If you badmouth the
old boss, what does that tell the prospective new boss about your loyalty? "Well, it was late, we
7
got trapped in a formula fight," I said and gobbledygooked on about rules and amendments and
assorted horseshit, but he didn't listen very long. In fact, he turned away halfway through a
sentence--no pretense about just shutting me down--and asked Ferguson, "Where?"
"Times editorial board," Howard said laconically. "You're only about a half hour late right now."
Stanton suddenly was red in the face--and I mean the mood had changed with blinding speed:
from sunshine to tornado in a blink. "You call them?" he demanded, eyes squinting down. If the
answer was no, I was afraid Stanton would deck him.
"Of course," Howard said. "Told them traffic."
Stanton lightened as suddenly as he'd darkened. Clouds scudding on a windy day. "I love New
York," he said, back to aw-shucks-I'm-just-a-poor-country-governor. "Easiest place in the world
to be late."
(C) 1996 Machiavelliana, Inc.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 0-679-44859-4
Anonymous No More
Published in Books & Culture on November 1, 1996
By Michael Cromartie
http://eppc.org/publications/anonymous-no-more/
Michael Cromartie talks with anonymous-no-more author Joe Klein about his fictional political
tale, Primary Colors.
Early in 1996, Random House published Primary Colors, a novel about the 1992 Democratic
primaries, though featuring a fictionalized set of characters. The author was “Anonymous.”
Readers loved it (the book soon moved to the top of the bestseller list); critics praised it to the
skies. Michael Lewis, writing in the New York Times Book Review (Jan. 28, 1996), observed
that
8
“Primary Colors” is an odd book. But maybe the oddest thing about it is how good it is. In spite
of its sins it is far and away the best thing I have read about the 1992 campaign; it breaks all the
rules and lives to tell about it. The author’s portrait of Mr. Clinton is astonishingly powerful. I
doubt that anyone who reads the book will ever again think of the President in quite the same
way. I’m not quite sure why this should be, except there is a wonderful honesty about it, a refusal
to give in to the conventional interpretation of people and events that cripples so much that is
written about politics.
Speculation about the author’s identity was intense. Among the many names proposed, one that
surfaced repeatedly was Joe Klein, longtime columnist and senior editor at Newsweek magazine.
Klein denied that he was Anonymous, and rumors continued to swirl until the Washington Post
broke the story, offering compelling evidence that Klein was indeed the author of Primary
Colors.
What followed was a firestorm of commentary, heavily critical of Klein (and of Newsweek
editor Maynard Parker, for helping to preserve the secret). By lying about his authorship of the
novel, it was said, Klein had damaged the credibility of journalists everywhere and further
eroded public confidence in the media. Some critics found irony in the exposure of Klein’s
deception. Was this the same Joe Klein who wrote a widely quoted piece about President
Clinton’s character flaws (“The Politics of Promiscuity,” Newsweek, May 9, 1994)? Why, the
man is himself a bare-faced liar!
Dissenters–including Leon Wieseltier in the New Republic, William F. Buckley, Jr., in National
Review, and Richard John Neuhaus in First Things–noted that Klein’s “deceit” followed
inexorably from the choice to assume anonymity. Did he not have that right? Now you can
decide.
In August, Michael Cromartie of the Ethics and Public Policy Center met with Klein in New
York and asked what he had learned from his roller-coaster ride as Anonymous.
What motivated you to write Primary Colors, and why was it a novel?
I don’t know what motivated me to write the book, and it was a novel because it was a novel. It
was a fictional situation that came to my mind and just exploded out of me. I guess when I
thought back on it, because it was such a shocking event–I mean the creative act of doing this–I
realized that I’d been covering American politics for 25 years and that I hadn’t seen anything that
quite captured the intensity, the craziness, the velocity, and the humor of it. The ’92 campaign
was, I thought, some kind of watershed. There was a level of complexity to it that journalism
couldn’t reach. I didn’t know whether fiction could either, and I certainly didn’t know if I could
do it. But once I started doing it, the book just took off on its own. I found that I was learning a
lot about myself and about people through these characters.
Some real, some imagined?
No, they’re all imagined. There are some who bear a closer resemblance to real people than
others, but the first scene in the book is the only thing that ever actually happened in life. I went
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to an adult reading program in Harlem with Bill Clinton at one point. But in the scene, as it
appears in the book, within a matter of pages Jack Stanton separates himself in my mind from
Bill Clinton very clearly. Suddenly he starts talking about his Uncle Charlie, who may or may
not have won the Congressional Medal of Honor; we never really find out for sure. Bill Clinton
didn’t have an Uncle Charlie. Anonymous’s feelings about Jack Stanton are very different from
my feelings about Bill Clinton, and Henry Burton’s feelings about Jack Stanton are different
from mine and Anonymous’s.
So for those who sit around and speculate about who’s who and what’s what . . .
It’s a useless enterprise.
Because they’re a combination of all kinds of observations you’ve made in covering politics
for a long time and on how certain people operate in the political world.
Right. People say, “What you did to so-and-so is unfair.” In my mind, so-and-so ain’t so-and-so.
Did the process of developing these fictional characters give you any better insight into the
role character should play in politics?
Just that character is an incredibly complicated concept. This is something I’ve believed
throughout my ten-year tenure as a political columnist, that we only define character negatively
in journalism. There are positive and negative aspects to character. Many of the standards that
we hold these people to are just incredibly unfair and incredibly stupid. As a journalist, I took the
side of the quarry as opposed to the pack in every character issue battle we’ve had over the past
ten years. I sided with John Tower, I sided with Barney Frank, I sided with Clarence Thomas, I
sided with Bill Clinton on Gennifer Flowers, Whitewater, and a number of other things.
Because?
Because I believe that the phenomenon of the witch hunts is more important than any of the
misdemeanors. A hundred years from now people are going to look back on this period the way
we look on the Salem witch trials. And now having lived through a circumstance like this
myself, I’m even more adamant about this. The one exception I ever made to that rule, you had a
part in: the conference on Character and Political Leadership that you held at the Ethics and
Public Policy Center, which I took part in. It led me to the conclusion, which I still hold, that the
lack of discipline in Bill Clinton’s private life had carried over to a lack of discipline in his
public life.
Which led to your much discussed article on “The Politics of Promiscuity.”
Yes. Promiscuity in the dictionary definition is all about discipline. Sex comes way down in the
definition–below appetite, by the way. In any case, character is a complicated thing. In many
ways I think we should be looking for people who have done questionable things to be leading
us.
10
In Primary Colors I quote Bill Bennett: “Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.” I
think if you look back in religious history and in legend you find that the great leaders are the
ones who have been through the tough times, have seen temptation, and have succumbed to
temptation. They’re the ones you can trust.
After all the praise that Anonymous received for writing Primary Colors, were you
surprised at the criticism you received when your identity was revealed? It got positive
reviews all over the place before.
No, I was not surprised at the criticism that I received. I had a sense that the mob was after me. It
stopped being a game for me when it really became a manhunt. It was a very complicated group
of decisions that I had to make surrounding this.
Could you have envisioned, when you first decided to make the book anonymous, some of
the conundrums it was going to put you in?
No, but some of the conundrums that people think are conundrums are not conundrums. I have
absolutely no guilt, no question, no doubt at all in my mind that I had an absolute right to privacy
in this case, and that it had nothing to do with my journalistic credibility or integrity. Not a
thing–apples and freight trains.
The conundrums were almost entirely personal and they had to do with friends and the nature of
friendship. I noticed this very early on. I won’t name this person, but one of my very, very
closest friends, someone to whom I’ve told just about everything, called me just before the book
appeared and said, “Have you read this book that everybody is saying you wrote?” I said,
“You’ve read it?” And this person said, “Yes.” I said, “Tell me about it.” I managed to get
through the entire conversation without ever doing a direct lie, at which point I called my agent
and said, “I can’t bear this; I cannot handle this.” The reason I was able to get through that
conversation so easily was that this person assumed that I would never ever not tell if I had done
it. That quality of credence that I had built up among my friends over the years was sorely called
into question by this deception. That was the toughest part about it.
But it was necessary. People who have reviewed the book have since said to me, “If I had known
it was you, I never could have reviewed it that way.” I wanted the book to have a clean read, to
be judged on its own merits without any baggage.
In all of the criticism you received about hiding your identity, were there any occasions
where you felt something valid was said, where you said, “Ouch, that hurt”?
There were people who had criticisms where I said, “Ouch,” but I didn’t buy their criticisms. I
respected them as people. There were friends who said, “You lied to me.” That hurt, and I’ve
spent many hours talking it through with friends. But the kind of public criticism I got? The
notion that journalism would be hurt by this is totally absurd. To my mind, and in keeping with
what I was saying to you before about the phenomenon of the witch hunt, journalism is hurt far
more by the spectacle of journalists making a big deal over this than it is by anything I’ve done.
11
Take someone I respect, Ken Auletta, who writes press criticism for the New Yorker. He called
me a liar, said what I’d done was bad for journalism. So I called him up and said, “OK, let’s talk
about it.” We did, and I described the following circumstance–something that had actually
happened. Two days after the contract for the book was signed by my agent, a reporter from the
New York Times called me up and said, “Hey, what about this novel everybody says you wrote?”
I said “What novel?” A nondenial denial. Then she said, “Random House just signed a contract
for this novel about the 1992 presidential campaign that was anonymously written, and people
say it was either you or Michael Kelly or Sidney Blumenthal.” I said “Well, have you talked with
them?” She said, “Yes, they both said no. What about you?” (By the way, at this point only four
chapters were written.) I said, “I work five days a week for Newsweek. I work weekends for cbs.
How could I have ever found the time to do this?” Another nondenial denial. She didn’t give up,
though. She said, “Yes or no?” And I said, trembling, “No.”
How in the world would she know about the book two days after the contract was signed?
It’s just journalism–this is the world of publishing. It was hot. So for the next hour, Ken Auletta
and I played psychodrama where I was the reporter and he was Joe. He said, “Well, you could
have said something else.” I said, “Try it, try anything.” In every last instance the New York
Times would have reported, “Michael Kelly said no, Sid Blumenthal said no, and Joe Klein said
the lox at Zabar’s is wonderful.” It would have been some kind of evasion. There was finally no
way to dodge the yes-or-no question.
How will this experience help you in the future in the way you cover politics?
Well, I think it’s going to intensify the way I’ve been feeling throughout, which is that we have
to let these people be human beings. By the current standards, there is no way that Winston
Churchill could become president of the United States. This is a man who the first thing he did
every morning was pour himself a scotch. Franklin Roosevelt poured himself a pitcher of
martinis every night, cheated at poker, and cheated on his wife. They were flawed men, but they
were also great men, and their peccadilloes didn’t render them unfit for leadership.
At one point I went in to Andrew Hayward, who had just taken over as president of CBS, and
offered him my resignation. We had a very pleasant conversation, and he asked me what I had
learned over the past week, having been through a press conference and all the rest. I said,
“You’re the first person my age to run one of these things, and you’ve got a big problem here
because we–collectively we–are like a 14-year-old boy who has just discovered sex, and we want
to do it as frequently and as indiscriminately as we want. It feels fabulous, it feels wonderful.
And it’s entirely irresponsible. What your job should be–believe me, I’m in no position to give
you advice about this right now–but I think that your job should be getting us past pubescence.”
That’s the way I feel about journalism today. We are entirely indiscriminate in our use of this
magnificent piece of equipment that we have. The intensity of the spotlight is distorting, both on
the upside and the downside.
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I found myself in that press conference saying things that I truly didn’t believe, just out of
defensiveness. When I’ve talked to other public figures about it, they say it happens to them a
lot.
Why is it that so many politicians who run for the presidency talk about their own religious
faith? Clinton quotes Scripture; Carter quoted Scripture; Reagan had a religiosity about
his presidency; they all feel obligated occasionally to meet with Billy Graham. What does
this say about our leaders or about our politics?
It’s not about our leaders. They do what they do because we demand it of them. We ask for the
appearance of piety. The current trend is for people like Newt to go and build houses as part of
the Habitat for Humanity program, or Clinton to rebuild a church. As transparent as that is, I
think it’s a step in the right direction.
I like to see politicians show their piety through exertion, through sweat equity, through physical
labor. And even if you think they’re phonies-there are going to be a lot of phonies building
houses over the next decade, I predict–you’re still getting a church or a house out of it.
Primary Colors: fiction takes second place to
fact
This 1998 tale of a sexually voracious presidential candidate was overtaken by real-life events
involving a certain Monica Lewinsky


Alex von Tunzelmann
theguardian.com, Wednesday 29 May 2013 09.20 EDT
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Second fiddle … Emma Thompson, John Travolta and Billy Bob Thornton in Primary Colors.
Photograph: Allstar/Cinetext/BBC
Director: Mike Nichols
Entertainment grade: B–
History grade: D
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Primary Colors
Production year: 1998
Country: USA
Cert (UK): 15
Runtime: 143 mins
Directors: Mike Nichols
Cast: Adrian Lester, Billy Bob Thornton, Emma Thompson, John Travolta, Kathy Bates
More on this film
In 1996, an anonymous author (later revealed to be Joe Klein) published Primary Colors, a
roman à clef inspired by the events of Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign in 1992.
People
The novel of Primary Colors begins with a disclaimer: "this is a work of fiction … None of these
events ever happened." Well, all right, but it's not difficult to make out the parallels between
winsome, sexually voracious Governor Jack Stanton (John Travolta) and Bill Clinton; nor
between his ambitious, long-suffering wife, Susan (Emma Thompson), and Hillary Clinton. The
hair and make-up departments have enhanced the impression, though Travolta's greyed-out
eyebrows – and his raspy, Clintonesque southern accent – sometimes veer towards pastiche.
Politics
Our hero, Henry Burton (Adrian Lester), is the grandson of a civil rights leader who is drawn
into Stanton's presidential campaign. His role equates more or less to that of George
Stephanopoulos in real life. "Your grandfather was a great man," Susan says to him when he
arrives with her husband, who has just missed a golden opportunity to secure the votes of some
fly-fishing enthusiasts. "Jack Stanton could also be a great man, if he weren't such a faithless,
thoughtless, disorganised, undisciplined shit."
Personalities
Burton sets up headquarters in a town enchantingly named Mammoth Falls. Stanton's team
includes adviser Richard Jemmons (Billy Bob Thornton), who swiftly exposes himself to a
female campaign worker. When Burton remonstrates with him, he tries to pull rank. "I'm
probably blacker than you," he drawls. "I got some slave in me. I can feel it." Reviewers
generally supposed Jemmons to be inspired by Clinton strategist James Carville, though the real
Carville is nowhere near as gruesome. If you're interested in something closer to the truth of
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these characters, the 1993 Oscar-nominated documentary The War Room followed the actual
relationship between Stephanopoulos and Carville on the Clinton campaign trail.
Scandal
Like Clinton, Stanton faces allegations about his activities during the Vietnam war – in Clinton's
case, avoiding the draft. Then one Cashmere McLeod releases tapes of sexually suggestive
conversations between herself and the governor. During Clinton's campaign, Gennifer Flowers
came forward with similar accusations. Susan Stanton calls in "dust buster" Libby Holden
(Kathy Bates) to help protect her husband's image. "Our Jackie's done some pretty stupid things
in his life," Holden growls. "He's poked his pecker in some sorry trash bins." It has been
suggested that her character was inspired by elements of Vince Foster and Betsey Wright,
Clinton's chief of staff. The latter memorably described the frequent sex scandals buffeting her
boss as "bimbo eruptions".
Morality
After the McLeod bimbo eruption subsides, the film departs from its approximate history of the
1992 primaries. In its final act, Stanton challenges a candidate of seemingly unbeatable
perfection, Fred Picker (Larry Hagman), for the nomination. When he finds out that Picker's own
past includes mountains of cocaine and dabblings in homosexuality, he must decide whether to
abandon his scruples and "go negative" on the campaign. This didn't happen to Clinton. Of
course, there is no shortage of politicians hiding colourful pasts in real life. Even so, the Picker
scenario feels decidedly more contrived than the parts of the movie that are vaguely based on
reality.
Release
Demonstrating yet again that truth is stranger than fiction, this film came out when a far bigger
scandal was consuming Clinton. The 1998 allegations of a sexual relationship with Monica
Lewinsky would result in an investigation of Clinton's personal life and impeachment
proceedings. By the standards of 1998 Clinton scandals, 1992's bimbo eruptions and a spot of
alleged draft-dodging looked tame.
Verdict
Despite good reviews and some fine performances, Primary Colors didn't set the box office
alight – perhaps because the history to which it was trying to allude was overtaken by events.