Reagan`s Scandal: The Press Wallows In Watergate

December 03, 1986|By Stephen Chapman.

Under the pressure of a widening scandal, some people in the White House have reverted sickeningly to the pathological, self-defeating patterns of behavior that once turned a third-rate burglary at the Watergate hotel into a national crisis. I refer not to officials of the Reagan administration but to the press corps.

Once the news was out that the profits from the Iran arms deal had been funneled to the Nicaraguan rebels, it took the news media no more than a millisecond to conjure up Gordon Liddy, John Dean and the rest of the Nixon gang. ``What did he know and when did he know it?`` once again became the capital`s most popular question.

Washington Post columnist David Broder lamented that this administration`s misbehavior came ``only 12 years after the hard-earned lesson of Watergate.`` His Post colleague, William Raspberry, offered the novel proposition that the revelations were ``reminiscent of nothing so much as the Watergate scandal`` and predicted, ``The reaction of the press is likely to be similar as well.``

Likely? That`s like saying the sky is likely to be dark tonight. Raspberry must not have seen Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese`s press conference on his discovery of the contra connection, where reporters bayed like hounds who have treed a raccoon.

Of all the crimes committed by President Richard Nixon and his aides, none compares to the damage they wrought on American journalism. It brought out the prosecutor latent--and in some cases not so latent--in many reporters. The search for scandal is now synonymous with the pursuit of news. And just as boxing promoters semiannually promote the latest ``fight of the century,``

reporters can never stumble onto evidence of official wrongdoing without spying another Watergate.

Why do reporters so love a scandal? Well, why do dogs gnaw on bones?

Because it satisfies some primal craving that is deep and irrepressible.

Not that many journalists try to repress it. Scandals fit too well the peculiar needs of their genre. The news media love the sort of confrontations that produce winners and losers, which is why they cover sports and elections so obsessively. Even better are conflicts in which there are clearly marked heroes and villains, which provide the most valued element of any news story: melodrama.

The presidential scandal is the perfect event. Like the latest episode of ``Dynasty,`` it relies on the public`s familiarity with some well-known principals, while introducing mysterious new characters in brief but important roles. Like the National Football League season, it is guaranteed to produce plenty of victors and vanquished, with the survival of the administration serving as the ultimate stakes, the functional equivalent of the Super Bowl.

Even better, the good guys and the bad guys may be conclusively identified--by a federal jury--and appropriately punished or rewarded. Best of all, if everything goes just right, as it did in Watergate, the true heroes will be the journalists, to whom a grateful nation will pay homage.

Contrast this with the more typical matters that preoccupy the government: the budget deficit, arms control, Middle East policy, mass transit. Issues like these may be the most important facing the country, but as news they suffer from several defects. They are complicated, with study needed for understanding. They are frustrating, because they require unpleasant choices among worthy purposes. They are ambiguous, with plenty of room for disagreement. And they are perpetual, continually demanding attention and seldom yielding durable solutions.

In short, they utterly lack romance. Nobody ever made a movie about two Washington Post reporters analyzing tax reform. Newspapers and networks cover these mundane stories because they have no choice--this is the primary business of government--while endlessly straining to force them into the preferred mold. Who won at Reykjavik, Reagan or Gorbachev? How can we balance the budget while the Pentagon is paying $700 for toilet seats?

There is no doubt that misdeeds have been committed by people in the Reagan administration, and the press is rightly determined to uncover them. But some sense of proportion is in order. Few scandals warrant comparison with Watergate, and this one has a long way to go before it qualifies for that distinction. Far from destroying Reagan`s presidency, it may amount to nothing more than a historical footnote. And it wouldn`t be surprising if the institution that comes out looking worst in the end is not the government but the press.