Bill Moyers Journal

by Bill Moyers

  That’s why you say that for Obama, liberalism is blackness?

  Yes.

  I don’t get that.

  Because liberalism is what he has to offer blacks, saying, “See, I still believe in challenging.” He talks in the rhetoric of the civil rights movement and protests, and often does a pretty good imitation of Dr. King. He’s putting on his challenging mask in order to capture the affection of black America, but he has to touch that very lightly or white America will say, “We like you precisely because you don’t do that. You don’t challenge.” And so he has to touch it very lightly. I’ve had whites come up to me and say, “I don’t know if you ever have any contact with Obama, but I saw him in the paper the other day with Al Sharpton. He shouldn’t do that.” They didn’t consciously know why they were saying that.

  Sharpton is a challenger.

  Barack Obama is the anti–Al Sharpton. Al Sharpton is probably his best ally among whites.

  Because when they see Sharpton, they think Obama is a great relief.

  He relieves the anxiety of being white. That’s what Obama does, and that’s why he gets so much affection.

  I know so many white politicians who have made their way by accommodation—to corporate contributions, to wealth, to the constituency.

  It’s the very nature of politics, which may be why Obama is such a good politician.

  And you say he’s not a revolutionary. He’s not a reformer.

  Well, look at his background. He felt he didn’t belong. He had to accommodate on the black side, yet he knew very well how to, in a sense, manipulate whites. He knew them better than he knew blacks in many ways. That became a kind of talent, this bargaining became a talent.

  He does have a talent for politics.

  And he understands white people. When he was a teenager, he realized that one thing whites love is a black who’s not angry. So he knew that when he was a kid.

  You write that the black identity Obama longs for means that “you must join a politics that keeps alive the idea of white obligation to blacks.” You think that’s Obama’s mission, to keep alive the white obligation to blacks?

  I think that that’s what he tells blacks. I think that when he speaks as he did in Selma, as he did in Harlem not too long ago, he puts on the challenger’s mask.

  When he spoke at Selma, he used that inflection of the southern dialect that you don’t hear in the rest of his speeches.

  Barack Obama is John F. Kennedy. Sometimes he’s Martin Luther King. Sometimes he’s Stokely Carmichael in 1968. He has these different masks that are tailored to the audience that he’s in front of. And he does it with such facility that you cannot help but wonder, who’s the real voice?

  Ten years from now, how do you see race relations in this country? Are we going to deepen the American dream?

  I think so. I think that these paradigms I’m talking about exhaust themselves. We just get tired of them. Masking is something that comes inevitably to minority groups, who use it to survive. It was a survival mechanism in slavery and segregation, and we’re still using it. We’re still entering the mainstream using it. We will get tired of that. Our children will and their children will be even more tired of it, will understand, I think, that the challenge of the collective is to produce individuals.

  I understand that. I’m tired of asking black people questions about race. I’ d like to know what you think about Schwarzeneg ger. I’d like to know what you think about economics. I’d like to know what you think about money and politics.

  And I want to talk about those things, too.

  But aren’t we being naive in a culture that is still racially divided—that race is always on the table, but it’s also under the table?

  Yes. It still plagues us. I don’t care what Obama’s politics end up being, liberal or conservative. I would love nothing more than to see him break through and into “This is my experience. These are my values. I know these work because they worked in my life. They are responsible for me being here where I am today.”

  ROBERT KAISER

  Within hours of his arrest, charged with fraudulently separating investors from billions of their dollars, the grandiose Texas banker Robert Allen Stanford received an electronic valentine that read, “I love you and believe in you,” and urged Stanford to be in touch “if you want my ear/voice.” It was signed “Pete”—as in Representative Pete Sessions, a fellow Texan who is also chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Never intended for public consumption, the email, like the proverbial grain of sand, reveals a universe—in this case, the cosmos of corruption that has replaced representative democracy.

  Sessions was one of dozens of politicians onto whose outstretched palms Stanford slathered his largesse. “Sir Allen”—he was knighted by the governorgeneral of Antigua, the center of his offshore banking enterprise—bankrolled junkets for them to his private fiefdom on the Caribbean island, where his personal chef served up lobster and caviar while they enjoyed the bonhomie of faithful retainers in the presence of financial royalty.

  Never mind that as early as 1999 the State Department reported that Stanford had created “one of the most attractive financial centers in the Caribbean for money launderers.” Here was an equal-opportunity inducer whose generosity made sure politicians didn’t ask embarrassing questions. His money flowed to George W. Bush’s inaugural committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, key members of the Senate Banking Committee, and to the Republican leader in the House of Representatives, Tom DeLay, who flew the friendly skies sixteen times in a Stanford jet, including—I am not making this up—a trip to Houston for DeLay’s arraignment on his own money-laundering charges. In addition to campaign contributions, Stanford also spent at least $5 million on a small army of lobbyists in Washington whose mission was to ensure that no legislative and regulatory measures would expose his offshore hijinks. (As I write this, Stanford has been judged mentally incompetent to stand trial in federal court.)

  Coincidentally, the Stanford story broke as I was reading Robert G. Kaiser’s book So Damn Much Money for a second time. A native Washingtonian, no one understands better how money works its will in the labyrinth of government and politics than Kaiser. Over the past forty-five years he has held just about every position on The Washington Post’s masthead, from foreign correspondent in Saigon and Moscow to national editor and managing editor. This, his seventh book, documents how the lobby industry “has helped moneyed interests protect their status and privileges, undermined government regulation ... and turned our elected officials into chronic money-chasers.”

  All, as Representative Pete Sessions might put it, for love.

  —Bill Moyers

  Where did you get the title—So Damn Much Money?

  From Bob Strauss—Robert Strauss, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, who started out as a fixer in Dallas, Texas, and ended up as a fixer in Washington. A remarkable character. I went to Strauss, and said, “Explain to me why the lobbying business has boomed so, in the thirty-five years that you’ve been in it.” He thought about it for a minute, and he said, “You know, there’s just so damn much money in it.”

  He got his share of it, didn’t he?

  Sure. You know from your own reporting over the years that money has become so important in politics now. The cost of a campaign has gotten so high, and the compulsion on the part of incumbents to get reelected, to raise that money, is the single biggest gift the lobbyists get. The lobbyists see that the politicians need that money. They know how to help them raise it. And they know how to exploit the gratitude that comes after they’ve raised it.

  Let’s take one of the subjects you write about—“sweeteners.” You say that after the House defeated the huge bailout bill for banks in the fall of 2008 it was saved by “sweeteners.”

  “Sweeteners” is a wonderful Washington term. It means a provision that helps somebody in a congressman’s or a senator’s constituency. In this case, as you rememb
er, the House voted down the bailout bill the first time. The stock market plummeted as it was happening. They had to go back to the drawing board, and with sweeteners, they got the break they needed. They came back and passed the bailout, Bill, thanks to those sweeteners.

  And when you say a break, you’re talking about $100 million to stock car racetracks, $192 million to the Puerto Rican rum industry, $478 million for moviemakers who shoot their films in the USA. And you say that did the trick?

  Yes. You have referred to the bailout as the lobbyist enrichment act, and it is that, in a way. When the government spends so much money, we have to be ready to see the potential recipients of that money troop to town and look for their share.

  Your book throws a lot of light on how and why, over the last thirty, forty years, policies in Washington have favored the rich over the poor.

  Yes. One of my favorite statistics is that since the 1970s, working-class incomes in this country have been stagnant. In that same period we’ve seen skyrocketing incomes at the top. And this is part of the story. It’s not a secret. There’s a terrific quote about it from Bob Dole, former U.S. senator and Republican candidate for president, where he reminds everyone that poor people don’t contribute to campaigns. So much of the story of the last thirty years is right in that phrase. We’ve watched the cost of these elections climb every two years, like clockwork. In 2008 it cost $25 million to run for the Senate in North Carolina.

  They have to get that money somewhere, and it comes from corporations, lobbies, wealthy individuals, as we see with Sir Allen Stanford.

  Exactly.

  You build your book around a fellow named Gerald Cassidy, once a liberal Democrat, who back in 1972 worked for Senator George McGovern, the Democratic candidate for president. For a spell, Cassidy was the single biggest lobbyist in Washington. At one time he even hired the notorious Jack Abramoff. Cassidy once did legal aid work for poor people. How did he grow up to become this lobbying superstar?

  He’s a classic American type to me. I call him the Jay Gatsby of modern Washington. He’s a self-invented man. And just as you say, he went to work for migrant workers in Florida as a young lawyer. He still today would call himself a liberal Democrat. He gives more money to Democrats, by far, than Republicans. And he thinks of himself as doing good work when he can. But more important to him was to get rich. And, boy, he’s gotten really rich. He’s worth more than $100 million, partly because he’s a good investor, but mostly because he’s a great lobbyist and a very shrewd businessman. The Cassidy story is wonderfully illustrative of how Washington became a venue, in my time and your time, for the great American pastime, which is not baseball, but making money.

  And his first clients were not “greedy” but—

  Colleges and universities. Another wonderful story, really. Cassidy and his original partner invented the modern earmark. One of their first clients was Jean Mayer, the president of Tufts University and a famous nutritionist. These two guys in the lobbying firm had worked with Mayer on nutrition issues when McGovern chaired a hunger committee in the Senate. They were friends. Mayer says, “I got an idea, come and talk to me. My congressman here wants to help Tufts University.” Well, his congressman was Tip O’Neill, then the majority leader.

  Who in time became Speaker of the House.

  With O’Neill’s help, they figured out how to get $26 million for Tufts to build a center on human nutrition research.

  Not a bad thing.

  Not a bad thing in and of itself. I argue that this was the first modern earmark. Then they got a veterinary school for Tufts. Then a medical library for Tufts. Boston College, across town, heard about this and hired Cassidy. Then Boston University wanted to get on board. John Silber, the new president of BU, hired Cassidy. And suddenly this little lobbying firm had a big new business—academic earmarks.

  Getting money designated for specific university projects?

  Exactly. And as you say, what’s wrong with that? Well, what’s wrong is that, yes, Tufts wanted to build a nutrition research center. But nobody asked if Princeton had a better idea, or if the University of Texas had a better idea. The fix was in for Tufts. That’s the essence of the earmark system. The congressman gets the credit, because the fix is in. The lobbyist gets the money, because he got the fix in. It’s a wonderful circle, but it doesn’t create a fair, competitive, open system.

  And Cassidy became so successful doing this for universities that corporations begin to say, “Hey, look what that guy is doing. He could do that for us.”

  Yes.

  What was his expertise?

  The system. How it worked. How the appropriations system works. It’s a very technical system. You have to pass two bills, traditionally. You have to pass an authorization bill, to authorize spending on such and such. And then you have to pass the appropriation to pay for such-and-such. It’s a tricky, complex system. It takes a couple years, often, to get one of these earmarks through. Cassidy’s method was to master the technicalities, literally to teach members of Congress how to do it.

  So many congressional staff graduate from working for members of Congress to working for the lobbyists downtown.

  That’s one of the biggest changes in Washington in my time. There was a famous case in the late ’70s. You may remember Jim O’Hara. Good congressman from Michigan, liberal Democrat. Ran for the Senate and lost. Came back to town. He had five or six children and no job. So he went to work for one of the biggest lobbying firms in town. And I remember this vividly; it was said to be a scandal—“Jim O’Hara’s become a lobbyist! Gee, that doesn’t look very good.”

  Well, that was then. Today we’ve got 185 or more former members of the House and Senate registered as lobbyists. It’s absolutely routine, happens all the time. And nobody’s eyebrows go up the way yours just did. It’s all legal.

  And the results?

  It creates a system of self-dealing, cashing in your experience and your contacts from public service for your and your client’s private gains, which bothers me as a citizen. It wasn’t meant to be that way.

  I was amazed by the extent to which Cassidy talked to you for your book and told you so many secrets.

  I think he was encouraged by his associate Jody Powell. Powell was Jimmy Carter’s White House press secretary, whom Cassidy hired years ago to set up a public relations firm within his lobbying operation. Jody advised Cassidy, “This Kaiser guy is so determined to do this, he’s going to do it whether we cooperate with him or not. I can’t promise how good it’ll be. But I know one thing, it’ll be worse if we don’t cooperate than if we do.” Jody’s told me that’s what he told Cassidy, and I’m sure that was the key thing.

  So Cassidy decided to talk. Once he decided to talk, he got into it. And you’ve seen this over the years. People in Washington who think that they’re big players, important people, but have never had much attention—I’m sure most of your viewers have never heard of Gerald Cassidy—well, Cassidy liked the idea, clearly, of getting this attention from a reporter from The Washington Post. He liked telling his story. He’s very proud, understandably, of his accomplishments. He came from a really painful, booze-sodden Irish childhood in Brooklyn. He was the first member of his family to go to college, the first to go to law school. He’s done extremely well, accumulated all this money. He didn’t mind the world knowing how well he’d done. And talking to me was the way to make that known.

  And how well he has done! You have some photographs in your book that are quite revealing. His home is 165 acres—

  On the Eastern Shore of Maryland. It’s quite remarkable.

  An $8 million estate.

  There’s a photograph in there of him turkey hunting with his friend Jody Powell. He made Powell rich, too.

  And there’s the photograph of Jack Abramoff. There’s a moment in your book when Cassidy goes to Abramoff and hires him.

  Cassidy’s firm, as I said, was number one on the lobbying revenue table, the macho way these guys have measured
themselves for many years. And just at the moment that Abramoff was fired in 2003 by his previous Florida law firm, the new revenue table was published showing that Cassidy had fallen into second place. I’m sure that at that moment he thought, “I’ve got to do something to get back in first place. This guy Abramoff is obviously a hell of a rainmaker. He brings in a lot of money. I’m going to see if I can make contact with him.” They were completely different. Abramoff is a right-wing Republican. Cassidy is a liberal Democrat. They had no acquaintances in common to speak of, no past in common to speak of.

  What did they have in common?

  The appetite for big bucks. It was a natural marriage. They made a deal quickly, and Cassidy drove right through flashing red lights. It was really a silly mistake he made. But he was called on it—it’s a wonderful Washington story—by someone he called his old friend, Senator Dan Inouye of Hawaii, also a Democrat. In my reporting, I asked Inouye repeatedly, “Is Cassidy your friend?” He would never say the word friend. He’d say, “Well, I’ve known him for a long time. We’ve worked together on a lot of things.” Bill, believe me, in the Washington context, they were friends. Cassidy had even hired Inouye’s closest aide for many years—a guy called Henry Giugni—to be a vice president of Cassidy & Associates. This is another gimmick in town for getting the attention of members of Congress you want to influence: you hire their aides. Henry Giugni helped make Cassidy even richer by bringing in a lot of new clients. Inouye was a member of the Indian Affairs Committee, which was investigating Abramoff. When he realized what was coming down, Inouye called Cassidy to tell him how bad it was going to be, and he told Cassidy, “You got to get rid of this guy [Abramoff] right now.” And Cassidy did.

  Another example of Washington operators refusing to pass judgment on each other until one of them breaks the law. What accounts for it?

  The falling away of taboos, the changing standards in Washington. The “everybody does it” syndrome. All this has made moral judgments really difficult in our nation’s capital. People shy away from saying, “That’s just wrong.”