Nothing is going to happen, but, wow, is it going to be something. Nothing is happening now, and it sure is interesting. It is also highly significant. And, by the way, when our protagonist is doing nothing, he does it very poorly. This points to substantive shortcomings in the man.

The preceding paragraph pretty well sums up the news reports of mid-to-late August on Bill Clinton's Martha's Vineyard vacation, ten days in which the accompanying reporters (glued to the president by force of editorial habit, lacking the independence or good sense to take vacations of their own) filed stories like mad.

Their productivity was no small feat, for there was no substantive news, and relatively little to be gleaned even about Clinton's trivial pursuits. When he left for occasional jogs, golf games, and parties, the press pool would try to pursue him in a chase car, but often in vain. ("We ended up at the summer pad of Post Company Chairwoman Graham, but we never saw the place or the president. . . . We were sent to the darkened tennis courts to wait." -- Pool report, August 20). Generally, the pool stood by at the end of a dirt road, waiting. The Washington Post's Ruth Marcus led off one pool report: "Picking up the existential theme of the last . . . report -- the pointlessness of it all -- your pool can dutifully report this: Nothing happened by 3 P.M. No jog. No golf. No sighting."

Finding meaning and value in a world of pointlessness is indeed one of the big challenges facing modern man. Luckily, few outside the clergy are better equipped to meet the existential challenge than are news reporters, who have unique assets when it comes to justifying their existence (and expense accounts).

To begin with, there is a journalistic law of supply and demand that works in their favor: when events and facts of substance disappear, events and facts that are lacking in substance automatically become more valuable and meaningful; when the amount of even nonsubstantive information diminishes, then anything about the news subjects becomes more valuable and meaningful and hence worth reporting -- from what the Clintons ate to what books they bought. Thus, NBC correspondent Pete Williams held forth on the book titles on a CNBC discussion with Mary Matalin and Jane Wallace. And the president's remark after hitting a golf ball -- "Whoa, mama, stay up!" -- was reported so prominently that it may end up in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. The quote ran in The Washington Post on August 23, The New York Times on August 24, The Washington Post again on August 26. The Boston Globe and The Hartford Courant were late with the story on August 28. (USA Today was early, but its August 23 account had Clinton yelling only, "Whoa, mama!" -- raising doubts about whether he wanted the ball to stop or keep going.)

With facts so much in demand, the reporters assigned to the Clinton pool had an especially heavy burden when they were actually within view of the president. They carried it dutifully. In a pool report filed August 21, for instance, the pool correspondent informed colleagues: "Clinton apparently was bitten by a mosquito on his right temple while playing golf."

The trappings and structure of news presentation make it relatively easy to project trivial events as something more. Media outlets dressed up the vacation in all the editorial accoutrements of a summit meeting or political convention -- advance stories, daily updates, news analyses, even "character" reporting.

First came the curtain raisers, touting what was in store, however vaguely understood that was. The Boston Globe ran an advance story on August 19 filled with speculation about the itinerary and striking a note of mystery: "[Neither] islanders nor White House staffers could say with certainty yesterday what the Clintons will do or where they will go." USA Today promised readers it was to be a populist vacation among "the people . . . amid the hundreds of tourists spilling from ferry boats." CBS forecast an elitist retreat among the glitterati. The network borrowed a leaf from German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, taking to the clouds in a kind of Triumph of the Bill: it broadcast panoramic aerial footage of the isle, including Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's estate and a car in the driveway. Correspondent Eric Engberg speculated that the car might mean someone was at home, "perhaps preparing for the much-rumored possible Onassis-Clinton meeting."

Then came the big spot stories. These used slick writing to cover gaps in content. On August 25, the Los Angeles Times led off: "Listen carefully: the silence you hear from this Atlantic island is the sound of the president of the United States at play." We then got the sounds of silence for another 1,138 words. (A president who shouts at his golf balls is not exactly silent, but this, presumably, was an occasion for poetic license.) A yacht outing with the Kennedys drew protracted, color-packed, at times breathless accounts ("It was a scene fit for Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Jackie O and the Prez! On a yacht! At Martha's Vineyard!" -- St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 25), despite lack of access. The pool boat was kept "at least a mile away at all times and [we] could see nothing," according to an August 24 pool report. Three Coast Guard vessels enforced the news embargo.

Then came the news analysis. There was no news to analyze, of course, but these pieces were nonetheless packaged as food for thought, employing scholars and think-tankers to give weight to various observations, some blazingly obvious, others half-baked. On the August 24 CBS Evening News, correspondent Engberg argued that vacations are important because presidents need to relax like anyone else. He trotted out talking head Laurence Radway (billed as a presidential scholar) to back this controversial thesis. Radway said: ". . . It's good to see him -- I'm -- I'm -- -- I rejoice to see him relax here." Enlightenment at last. The New Orleans Times-Picayune (August 24) also tackled the question of why Clinton's vacation was important. It cited a professor to argue that, when a president takes a break, it can become tricky, as when a crisis breaks out: Should the president remain on vacation, conveying the impression of being out of touch or should he rush back to Washington, perhaps magnifying the crisis? Of course, there was no crisis during Clinton's vacation, but why pick nits?

Perhaps the most virulent cliche of presidential vacation news analysis was restated by the Los Angeles Times on August 25: "[How] he chooses to relax can tell us much about the man." The news media made much of this one. In mid-August, before Clinton had hit the Vineyard, when he made rest stops in Vail, Colorado, and Fayetteville, Arkansas, the word was that he did not know how to relax. He was "vacation-impaired," as The Washington Post's Marcus put it. USA Today reported on August 17: "The betting is Clinton may cut out before August 29, when he's expected to return to the White House." (Read literally, this sentence says Clinton is not expected to return when he is expected to return.) Then, during the Vineyard stay, reporters reversed field, judging Clinton to be fully capable of repose. CBS's Engberg chided: "He's so intent on relaxation he's barely mingled with everyday voters . . ." (August 24).

The public was also served a menu of "character" reporting -- pieces strongly implying that the way Clinton vacationed, of all things, revealed flaws in the man and his record. One technique was to latch on to some facet of the vacation and use it as symbol of a past blunder or Clinton vulnerability. There were snide references to how he was staying at the home of Robert McNamara, who orchestrated the Vietnam War that "Mr. Clinton would later work so hard to avoid" (New York Times, August 26). If Clinton had not chosen that particular house, The Boston Globe reported, "an author of psychological novels would have had to invent it." What psychological insights the choice of house is supposed to have revealed were left unexplained. The Washington Post revealed on August 26 that Clinton "keeps a good deal more than the regulation fourteen clubs in his [golf] bag. . . . Some might say it's the perfect Clinton metaphor -- why choose among clubs if you don't have to? Why not NAFTA and health care and reinventing government?"

I'm a little surprised reporters missed the opening to go even further: "There were flowers near the fairway, a reminder of Gennifer Flowers. . . . The sun rose in the east, from the general direction of Russia, where Clinton once paid a controversial visit. . . ."

Clinton's personal vacation style also came in for harsh scrutiny. The Washington Post's Marcus wrote on August 26: "Every golfer is a middle-aged, thick-middled man outfitted in the manner that golfers inexplicably favor -- shirts that accentuate the chunkiness of prosperity and preppy pastel pants cut large, with the belt hanging a little below the paunch. Today he is wearing an all-lavender get-up so doofy-looking, so White Guy, that you just know Chelsea took one disgusted teenage glance and rolled her eyes. 'Oh, Daddy, you're not wearing that.'" In just two sentences, I count four put-downs of his girth, five of his taste.

This was nothing compared to a vicious August 22 editorial in The New York Times, "Clinton Among the Swells":

Fact is, the man from L'il Abner's home state is headed smack into the belly of the beast he pledged to control: the Washington establishment. . . . Comes now what could be a psychic message from Mr. Bush's successor, which is that Mr. Clinton may be just as mystified as some of his constituents are as to who he is . . . [His] quest for summertime digs has been a study in uncertainty. . . . [This] year the Clintons high-tailed it to Benton County, Arkansas, headquarters of the Walmart empire and home to maybe thirty other millionaires. Then, after what seemed a ritual visit, Populist Bill pulls up stakes and heads for the most elitist haunt this side of Vail, Colorado. . . . There is, of course, the town called Hope. But Hope is not really a summer place and it's also a tad remote from the things that keep Mr. Clinton humming.

The editorial is a good example of how Clinton has faced a much rougher ride from the news media than certain predecessors. Consider another Times editorial about a self-styled populist, who vacationed at his multimillion-dollar ranch: "Ronald Reagan is taking a month off, and he's not calling his vacation by any other name. As one of his aides says, "We make no apologies about it." Nor should they. There is nothing wrong with goofing off for a while. . . . Nothing at all. Thank you, Mr. President, for the reminder" (August 10, 1981). On President Bush's first summer vacation, the treatment was generally affectionate, even from the often cutting Maureen Dowd. And the reporting on John F. Kennedy at the Cape in 1961 often read like White House propaganda. ("'UNCLE JACK' KENNEDY LEADS CANDY TREKS . . . [A] lithe, familiar-looking man of forty-four . . . leads a little band of youngsters to the Hyannis Port News Shop for their daily ration of sweets. . . . The man is John F. Kennedy, who tries to lay aside the presidential burden on summer weekends and live like any other daddy or Uncle Jack . . ." -- New York Times, August 14, 1961).

Many factors contributed to the harsher treatment of Clinton. He had a far rougher relationship with the press during his campaign than did the other three men, and mutual hostility lingers. His poll ratings have been lower than the other three presidents in their first year in office, and that makes him a more tempting target. Beyond that, there appears to be a snobbish presumption in some of the reporting that Clinton has risen, almost Jed Clampett-like, above his station. Jody Powell, the former Carter White House spokesman, is among those who see a disdain for white southerners in some of the coverage. He's right, judging by the language that slips out: ". . . so White Guy . . . Clinton's game is Bubba golf . . . L'il Abner." As Powell points out, equally condescending comments about a political leader from a minority group would have got the perpetrators into big trouble.

To look on the bright side, at least one good vacation piece emerged from the summer frenzy. On the August 23 CBS Evening News, Connie Chung reported: "President Clinton is off the radar screen again today, continuing his vacation on Martha's Vineyard. According to a White House spokesman, the president's schedule today consisted mainly of, quote, 'vegging out.'" End of story. With the holiday season approaching, one can hope that Chung's account will serve as a model for coverage of the White House Christmas break.

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