Word: briefingate
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There was no evidence that the papers had been deliberately solicited by anyone in the Reagan campaign, although Barrett had surmised in his book that "a mole" had been planted in the Carter White House. Carter aides doubted the possibility that a White House secretary, hoping to curry favor with...
The affair immediately put new pressure on a few key Reagan advisers. Stockman's candid observations about the Administration's juggling of budget statistics, quoted in the Atlantic in December 1981, had nearly cost him his job. Now he not only admitted talking to Barrett about the "pilfered...
...papers were acquired. Columbia History Professor Henry Graff put the episode in perspective by noting, "This is not something that has struck a lot of people in the solar plexus." A Columbia colleague, Political Scientist Alan F. Westin, criticized the tendency of many journalists thoughtlessly to dub the affair "briefingate" or "debategate. Said he: "I find myself just bored to tears by someone sticking 'gate' after every little foible." His point was well taken: the briefing book dispute did not remotely resemble a Watergate-class scandal. -By Ed Magnuson...
Politicians and their lieutenants know better than anyone that amid the feverish intensity of an important campaign ethical lapses can occur. "Morals in Washington, DC" says Carter Administration Attorney General Griffin Bell "are different from morals in the rest of the country." Bell and other once and future Washingtonians do...
Colorado Senator Gary Hart, McGovern's 1972 campaign director and now a candidate for the Democratic nomination, was the most unequivocal. "Without hesitation and unopened, the briefing book or any materials from a rival's campaigri that came into our hands would be returned, Hart asserted. "I have...