At a rare White House press conference last Wednesday, President Clinton, reminiscing about the late John F. Kennedy Jr., recalled a tour of the presidential residence he'd once given his younger friend. It must have been a bittersweet moment for Kennedy. All the more so, according to Clinton, since "John Kennedy had actually not been back to the White House since his father was killed, until I became president."
It was typical of Clinton to turn this into an anecdote as much about himself ("until I became president") as about Kennedy. Self-aggrandizing claims like these are very much our president's habit. And like many such claims, it turned out to be a false-hood -- crafted no doubt on the spur of the moment to reflect flatteringly on Clinton's imagined superiority to his graceless predecessors.
In fact, on February 3, 1971, President Richard Nixon hosted Jacqueline Onassis and President Kennedy's two children, Caroline and John, at dinner at the White House. Shortly thereafter, 10-year-old John wrote Nixon a note: "I can never thank you more for showing us the White House." This 28-year-old incident is no secret. Three years ago, Kennedy talked about it with Christopher Matthews on CNBC's Hardball. Two years ago, Matthews told the story in his book about Jack Kennedy and Dick Nixon. What's more, JFK Jr. also visited the White House for a 1981 ceremony during which President Reagan honored his late uncle, Robert F. Kennedy.
As is, alas, also typical with Bill Clinton, his petty, bragging false-hood is nowhere near as interesting as his behavior after the falsehood is exposed. In this case, with a lack of class astonishing even for this president, Clinton sent his spokesmen out to say that if he got his facts mixed up, it was only because he was repeating what JFK Jr. had said to him. Talk about non-falsifiable.
Postscript: When did the Associated Press start doing free spin for the White House? Sonya Ross's initial AP stories duly repeated as fact Clinton's misty-eyed claim to be the first president to invite John Kennedy Jr. back to the White House. Once his prior visit to the Nixon White House had been reported elsewhere, AP amended its dispatch -- not to report Clinton's whopper, however, but to help the White House press office obscure it.
The new improved AP story read: "It was during Clinton's first term, in 1994, that Kennedy visited the White House for the first time as an adult, when Kennedy was serving on an advisory committee on schools, Clinton said" [emphasis added]. But Clinton said no such thing; this paraphrase was a lawyerly evasion, courtesy of AP.
It got worse. Even this new version failed to account for JFK Jr.'s visit, as an adult, to the Reagan White House in 1981. Thus, the final (unbylined) AP dispatch on the subject: "It was during Clinton's first term, in 1994, that Kennedy visited the White House inner sanctum for the first time as an adult, Clinton said." No he didn't say it that way, either.
Had Clinton phrased it as AP did for him, it would indeed have been true, in a very Clintonian sort of way. Maybe AP should just start drafting the president's remarks for him.