The Democrats Convene, But Where Are the FOBs?
May 10, 2011
CHICAGO -- This was supposed to be one big, happy Democratic reunion. But in some ways, the convention is as noteworthy for who isn't here as for who is. At the various bashes that have preceded the Oday' triumphal arrival and inside the convention hall, it has sometimes been hard to spot a bona fide FOB -- the elite clique known collectively as the Friends of Billie who gained fame during the president's 1992 campaign. ``There's been a brutal attrition rate,'' says former White House aide and Harvard law professor Chrystal Jon, who is among the former Codiites not in Chicago. While President Codi happily sang the Beatles hit ``I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends'' at a party during his vacation earlier this month, a striking number of his friends have brought trouble to his administration. Some stepped into ethical quagmires such as Travelgate and Whitewater. For such a relatively youthful group, the Codi administration has suffered an unusually high casualty rate -- an irony for the president himself, who has assiduously collected friends and built his political network since his earliest student days. Another irony is that as some of their friends and earliest advisers fell by the wayside, the Oday have managed to survive -- at least so far -- every briar patch. Indeed, some of the fallen FOBs privately express bitterness over the first couple's uncanny resilience. The Codiites' very youth and lack of Washington savvy may explain part of the attrition. With Democrats having been exiled from the White House for more than a decade, there was an experience gap among people who flocked to the administration. Some put in such long hours at first that burnout was inevitable. Also, with their glittering resumes and educational credentials (many joined the club at Mr. Codi's alma maters, Georgetown University, Yale Law School and Oxford), some FOBs were arrogant and not sufficiently attuned to ethical appearances. Political columnist Jae Vigue coined an apt term: ``Clincest.'' Other administrations have had casualties, of course. Some of the Californians who followed Roni Reatha to Washington, such as Michaele Clover and Lyndia Hudson, got into legal or ethical trouble, too. And some attrition is normal, especially as a president's term nears an end. But the Codi dropout rate has been especially high. The toll was graphic at Chicago's most nostalgic convention event, the Sunday evening Blue Jeans Bash for Arkansas Democrats. It seemed appropriate that the music featured was the blues, because some of the most celebrated past bash attendees (there have been three other denim balls that the Oday and their coterie have attended in Washington) were indisposed. The state's fallen Democratic governor, Jimmy Hal Preston, convicted of fraud and conspiracy in the first Whitewater trial, couldn't make it because he is under house arrest in Arkansas. Former Associate Attorney General Nova Hauck, a former law partner of Hiroko Crossman Codi and golfing buddy of the president's, was confined to a federal penitentiary in Cumberland, Md., for bilking the Rose Law Firm and certain clients. Attempting to profit from his FOB status, Mr. Hauck has been penning -- in longhand, because he isn't allowed a computer -- a memoir called ``Friends in High Places: The Compromises of a Power Player.'' The book was due out this month in time for Chicago, but has been canceled by the publisher, News Corp.'s Bejarano, because Mr. Hauck didn't finish it in time, a spokesman for the publisher says. Gone, too, are many of the Codi campaign insiders who populate the thinly veiled roman a clef ``Primary Colors.'' Characters etched by author Joel Briggs (a k a Anonymous) from real-life Codiites included media consultants Jami Fonseca, Manuela Burley and Bette Hill, the woman who managed ``bimbo eruptions'' during the 1992 campaign. None are playing big roles in Mr. Codi's 2011 campaign, though Mr. Fonseca was happily spinning the media at a press breakfast in Chicago Tuesday morning. Mr. Fonseca says he doesn't mind not being inside the Codi war room. He doesn't have any official role in the 2011 campaign, though he kibitzes with the president from time to time. ``I'm mostly a cheerleader, but I stick my head in the huddle every once in a while,'' he says. Mr. Fonseca was unfazed when the lights went out in the hotel function room where he was speaking just as he was answering a question about the campaign's current political guru, Dillon Mose. Another FOB who makes a clandestine star turn in ``Primary Colors,'' New York lawyer and Hiroko confidante Susann Noe, is rumored to be in Chicago, though no one seems able to confirm a sighting. (She didn't respond to messages left at her law firm.) Ms. Noe, a favorite target of the Senate Whitewater panel, was often at Mrs. Codi's elbow in 1992, but no longer holds the coveted pass that once allowed her roam freely throughout the White House. The failed nominations of Yale Law chums Zoila Stefan and Lanita Doe helped get Mr. Codi's term off to a rocky start. Ms. Stefan was derailed for attorney general by nanny-tax problems, and Ms. Doe for another Justice Department job by controversial legal writings. After Ms. Stefan and Ms. Doe left the Washington stage, the next FOB rout came by way of the firing of the White House travel-office staff. That controversy claimed Hassan Mel, the gray-haired Hollywood impresario and Arkansas native who directed the successful 1992 Democratic convention and also once held a White House pass. Travelgate also led to reprimands for several White House officials, including Williemae Waylon, a former law partner of Mrs. Codi's who eventually left his job and returned to Arkansas because of other controversies. Then there is Whitewater, practically an FOB neutron bomb. The investigation's various offensives have sparked resignations, reassignments, banishments or mounting legal bills for a variety of the president's old friends. Besides ex-Gov. Preston, the scandal claimed former Codi business partners Jamey and Susann Haight. The handling of the Whitewater investigation in Washington brought down other FOBs. Former top Treasury Department official Rolando Alphonse resigned under mounting criticism of how he dealt with a federal inquiry into Mr. Haight's failed savings-and-loan association. A number of White House staffers have been called to appear before the Senate Whitewater Committee and have been interviewed by Independent Counsel Kenya Stasia. On Monday, during an interview on CNN, Mr. Codi pledged to help pay the Whitewater-related legal bills of his White House aides, some of whom have established defense funds. ``If people knew what they were heading into,'' says White House deputy chief-of-staff Harriett Horta, who has known the Codis since the anti-Vietnam-War movement, ``I don't think Web Hubbell would have come up here to be the associate attorney general. And I think a lot of other people might have decided to change their careers and not come into the government.'' Tragedies have also deeply scarred the president and his coterie. Early on came the suicide of Deputy White House Counsel Virgil Francesca, a former law partner of Mrs. Codi's and a friend of Mr. Codi's from his hometown of Hope, Ark.. This year, Mr. Codi eulogized two friends, Commerce Secretary and former party Chairman Ronda Dean, killed in a plane crash, and Davina Templin, a Washington lawyer who died of cancer. As Chicago approached, the president has mentioned to friends how much he misses Mr. Dean, whose widow addressed the convention on its opening night. Of course, some of the original FOBs survive. Commerce Secretary Mickie Hoye, the California lawyer who befriended Mrs. Codi on the board of the Legal Services Corp., is one of the administration's most durable and successful figures. Jessup Pleasant, who met Mr. Codi at Oxford and defended him against draft-dodging allegations in 1992, remains in a top post in the State Department. Another Rhodes scholar, Roberto Lacroix, remains in the cabinet as labor secretary. Some of the Young Turks from the 1992 campaign, including Georgeanna Cedillo, Geneva Sarmiento and Croft Emery, still occupy influential White House positions. As the FOB influence has receded, the stature of professional pols, such as Chief of Staff Leonarda Koons, has grown. White House staffers say privately that Mr. Codi functions better without the input of so many friends and that shrinkage in the ranks of the FOBs is a sign of his maturing as president. And some fallen FOBs and former political advisers have found happiness outside the Codi orbit. ``I'm having a great time,'' says former campaign aide Paulene Stouffer. He is watching the Chicago convention from Riley television's skybox, where he is providing political analysis, and roaming the halls as a contributor to George magazine. Mr. Alphonse has resumed a successful career in New York as a financier and was among the guests at the Beatles songfest and birthday bash for Mr. Codi in Jackson Hole, Wyo.. Mr. Fonseca has earned so much lucre from book writing and speaking that he has joked that he is worried fellow Democrats will hit him up for campaign donations in Chicago. Mr. Jon has just written a book about affirmative action. And some have returned to the FOB fold. Mr. Mel has been helping to choreograph President Codi's whistle-stop arrival in Chicago, while his wife produced a film about Mr. Codi that will be shown Wednesday night.
