Mark Leibovich Discusses "This Town" On "FOX News Sunday"
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CHRIS WALLACE, "FOX NEWS SUNDAY HOST: You're pretty tough on what you call this town, Washington, D.C. Let's put up some of the quotes. You talk about people who had come to Washington to do good and stay here to do well. Their membership in what you call the club becomes paramount and self-defining. They become part of the system that rewards more than anything self- perpetuation. And then there is this. You still hear the term public service thrown around, but often with irony and full knowledge that self-service is now the real insider play.
Is it really that rotten here in Washington?
MARK LEIBOVICH, NEW YORK TIMES: I would say that it has gotten to be quite a carnival here in Washington, to a degree to which the people outside of Washington don't understand. You mentioned obviously it's a hot book in Washington, because people love to talk and read about themselves. But I do think that there is a level of outrage and frankly a level of sort of surprise that I have gotten from outside of town that's been very, very frankly gratifying.
WALLACE: And what is it that they don't understand about this place?
LEIBOVICH: I think what they don't understand is the fullness of the carnival. First of all, the self-service/public service distinction is really important. There is so much money in government now, there's so much money around government, that it is very, very easy to do well instead of doing good. And supposedly, this city was built on public service.
WALLACE: Your book begins at the memorial service for our beloved colleague, Tim Russert, in 2008. And you describe how at a moment when they are supposed to be mourning, that the politicians and the lobbyists and the reporters are jockeying for position in, as you say, a gold rush that is finance by us, by taxpayers.
LEIBOVICH: That was a striking scene for us. Tim Russert, obviously a giant. I was sitting there, I was a guest. I was struck by how everyone was just throwing business cards around, everyone was working it. It was about them. And I think that that made the larger point, both sort of placing us in history, but also in the kind of character we are talking about.
WALLACE: Back in 2008, Barack Obama famously ran promising to change the culture of Washington. To what degree have he and the team around him fallen subject to the rules of this town?
LEIBOVICH: Well, I think, look, I think it's pretty self- evident. There is an anecdote in the book in which Robert Gibbs, sort of in a soul searching meeting, says -- former White House press secretary -- says did we change Washington or did Washington change us? And I think if you look at how many people around President Obama, the president who was supposedly going to close the revolving door, have gone out and sort of dove into this permanent feudal class, as Tom Coburn calls it, it's been pretty self-evident.
WALLACE: You also talk about Valerie Jarrett, one of the president's top advisers, and when David Axelrod gets Secret Service protection because in fact somebody who shot up the Holocaust Museum actually had information about him, so he gets Secret Service protection, and Valerie Jarrett wanted her Secret Service detail?
LEIBOVICH: Apparently. I mean, a lot of people inside the White House suspected that after David Axelrod got a Secret Service detail, Valerie Jarrett insisted on it. I think she would say that the president himself makes the call. But it's something that a lot of people inside the White House or people who had worked in the White House are still talking about.
WALLACE: You puncture some of the blown-up egos in this town, and I'll just take one, for example, Steve Schmidt, the former Republican consultant who ran the McCain 2008 campaign, advised him to pick Sarah Palin, and then made a career out of bashing Sarah Palin. You say, quote, "it was another instance of the media swooning over Republicans with self-flagellating tendencies, especially when they defy conservative orthodoxy and move left."
LEIBOVICH: I think that that's true. I think if you look at the case of John McCain in 2000, I mean, he was such a media darling. The mainstream media loved him. He was an example of a maverick Republican. If you look at the example of, say, Joe Lieberman, who was a Democrat who bucks his party and, you know, does -- assumes a more conservative posture, he becomes the turncoat. So I think that there are examples of that in every direction.
WALLACE: Finally, what is the reaction to your book then? Are people more upset about what you say about them? You say some pretty mean and quite frankly some pretty funny things, or are they more flattered just at the fact that they are in the book, and that however bad it is to be in the book, it would be worse not to be in it?
LEIBOVICH: It's been a combination. I mean, so much of this has reinforced the whole premise of the book, but ultimately, I mean, the criticism from inside Washington has been in the vein of how dare he, how dare someone who lives here, someone in the club, talk ill and talk critically about the rest of the club. And to which I say if that makes people uncomfortable, then I think Washington journalism needs more discomfort, and I welcome it.
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