Today’s Times has a hit piece on Lanny Davis (Lobbyist’s Client List Puts Him on the Defensive) , the lawyer turned lobbyist who helped defend Bill Clinton during the latter’s impeachment. The article is reprinted in the Day, and, I imagine, in papers throughout the country.
Now I have no brief for Davis or the squalid clients he represents. But he is one of hundreds, if not thousands, of Washington lobbyists that represent reprehensible people or corporations. So, why Davis and only Davis?
Despite the article’s title, which implies that Davis is being attacked on multiple fronts, there is nothing concrete in the text that proves that he is “suddenly scrambling to defend himself” from anyone but the Times. Whose agenda are they pushing?
The only person quoted by name (besides an administration official who takes issue with Davis’ position on behalf of an African dictator) is Meredith McGehee, a lobbyist for the California WIC Association, who was trying to prevent one of Davis’ clients from adding certain additives to baby formula. No doubt she is doing good work, but in Washington that is usually a reason to ignore someone. In any event, on that particular issue, as the article concedes, the jury appears to be out as to whether Davis’ client is right or wrong.
Besides that one quote, we have this:
Many lobbying firms have clients with checkered records. Indeed, those are the people who need help the most in Washington. But many activists — and even some government officials — said the list of clients in Mr. Davis’s firm stood out.
Besides McGehee, and the government official to whom I alluded, the activists go unnamed, as do the other government officials. And again, since when do the views of “activists” mean anything to the Times? Half a million of them can show up in Washington in support of progressive causes without rating a mention. Additionally, the article fails to establish that, in fact, Davis’ client list does stand out. The fact that “some people” are making that statement (if, in fact, the allegation is being made on the widespread basis the Times implies) does not make it so. Who knows how many Washington lobbyists are feeling aggrieved today, their pride wounded by the claim that Davis’ client list is more vile than their own.
The article is oddly reminiscent of the hit piece on Blumenthal, in which the Times alleged that Blumenthal had constructed a personal narrative with his Vietnam service at the center. One senses some presence lurking in the background. In the case of Blumenthal we immediately knew who it was, since Linda’s folks, the amateurs that they were, immediately took credit. Presumably whoever has it in for Davis will remain behind the scenes. At least in the Blumenthal case there was a context: he was running for the Senate. Davis has not been in the news, and the issue of baby formula additives has not been front and center. There is no context to this article. Yesterday Davis plied his sordid trade in relative anonymity, today we find that he is under attack from multiple unnamed sources and that he has been forced to “defend himself”.
Davis calls himself a Democrat, and perhaps that’s his unforgivable sin. If this article is followed up by similar pieces about Republican lobbyists one might draw a different conclusion, but perhaps the Times would take the position that it is entirely natural, and therefore not newsworthy, that Republicans advocate for reprehensible positions.
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