Governing under the influence; Washington alcoholics: their aides protect them, the media shields them

Washington Monthly, Jan, 1988 by Steven Waldman

"How do you know he was intoxicated?" Shanahan recalls them cabling from New York.

"Because I stood next to him and his breath nearly knocked me off my feet," she said.

"How do you know he didn't just have bad breath?" they asked.

"Because a few times he was so rambunctious two guys had to carry him off the floor," she said.

"How do you know he wasn't just overtaken by a sudden fever?"

Shanahan lost the argument, which she describes as one of the biggest fights of her career. The reference never appeared in print. Other reporters wrote simply that Long was in "high spirits."

Journalistic mores probably have changed enough that if this incident were to happen today, at least some newspapers would write about it. But there are still reasons thorough coverage of drinking may not occur. For example, as the Rivers case shows, the reporters who are most likely to know if a congressman drinks too much are the ones who can least afford to alienate him. Hometown reporters in Washington or beat reporters covering a certain area will be reluctant to cut off their news lifelines. More often journalists are simply warded off by the sheer ambiguity of the cases. Unlike adultery or drug consumption, which pose yes or no questions--did he do it or not?--problem drinking is more difficult to judge.

The dominant rule among journalists has always been: if you can't prove it affects job performance, don't write about it. And since that's almost impossible to do, very little is written. But there are signs of change. For example, Texas papers did report on the drinking of "Goodtime Charlie" Wilson. Unfortunately, they usually referred to it euphemistically as "partying," only a modest step away from the coverage of the senator in "high spirits." After Wilson quit drinking, the press started to ask the right questions. The Lufkin News, for example, quoted Wilson's administrative assistant, Charlie Schnabel, as saying that abstinence has "given [Wilson] more time to think and work on the mornings after." The drinking had "created what I call a dependability gap," Schnabel said. "People began to think he could no longer be depended on."

The big test case for how journalists will cover drinking in the post-Gary Hart era is that of Senator Daniel P. Moynihan. Here the press is groping a bit, but is headed in the right direction. Several publications have weitten that Moynihan might have an alcohol problem. In an article last year by David Remnick, The Washington Post took an important step toward a new coverage of drinking. Remnick quoted by name a source who gave one estimate of how much Moynihan drinks, an amount that some might consider a lot. The source: Moynihan himself. "I go home and have two or three drinks with my wife," Moynihan said, "and split a bottle of claret." When Remnick asked if drinking was "for him a problem in any way, Moynihan is quiet for awhile, then says slowly, 'No. I hope not. Here I am 59 years old . . . without a day's break since 1965 or 1964. A steady life--one wife, three kids, three mortgages.'"