Games in the Rose Garden

Things got a bit thorny in the White House Rose Garden the other day. At the conclusion of a ceremony with educators, White House television correspondents began shouting questions at the President as he retreated toward his West Wing offices. The educators did not like this, and one, John Vassak, tongue-lashed the reporters for upsetting the mood of the event. “You’re taking away from the joy of the whole occasion for us,” Vassak said.

Sam Donaldson of ABC retorted: “He’s a grown man, and he can take care of himself.” Donaldson added, “We’re doing our job here as reporters, asking questions.” Donaldson and others had engaged in a degrading chorus of caterwauling to get in another question to the President. The correspondents’ heated defense of their actions to the schoolmasters included a short lecture on First Amendment rights.

All this was unfortunate--and unnecessary. It is understandable that the school officials were upset, although the White House press corps did watch silently, as is the custom, until the end of the ceremony and began their schoolboy shouts only after Reagan declared: “Class dismissed!”

This sort of thing would not have to occur if the President made himself available to correspondents on a regular basis to discuss issues of the day, as Presidents since Franklin D. Roosevelt have done--all but Ronald Reagan. Reagan’s only regular White House press conference in nearly a year was held last March. Further, Reagan encourages the shouted questions from long distance by responding to them. On the day in question, for instance, when asked whether his nomination of Robert H. Bork would be rejected, Reagan responded, “Over my dead body!”

That four-word comment, of course, became headline news. In fact, even a frown, a wink or a shrug from the President on one important issue or another may be reported on a priority basis. This is all that the White House press has to work with by way of direct answers from the President himself, and, given those conditions, it cannot pass up a Rose Garden opportunity to get one more answer.

The President could discourage the practice by refusing to say anything and by not playing games with body English. Much better yet, he could begin to hold the long-promised regular press conferences. Trading barbs in the East Room of the White House would be far better than thorns in the Rose Garden.