Congressman Billybob
And they came to us because they were in big trouble in New Hampshire. They were about to lose right there and they needed some first aid. They needed some bandaging. What they needed was a paramedic. So they came to us and we did it and that's what they wanted to do. When I told Tim Russert that I was persona-non-grata at the White House, he said, "Why?" I said, "The Gennifer Flowers interview." He said, "You got him the nomination." I said, "I know that." As far as I know from the conversations I've had, Bernie Nussbaum knew that, Gergen knows that, Lloyd Cutler certainly knows it 'cause Lloyd had a hand in his coming on that night. You know it was strong medicine the way I edited it but he was a very sick candidate. He needed very strong medicine, and I'm not in the business of doctoring candidates but he got up out of a sick bed that night and walked to the nomination and as I said to Mandy, "You know if I'd edited it your way, you know where you'd be today? You'd still be up in New Hampshire looking for the nomination." He became the candidate that night.This is apparently on video tape somewhere. Now, here's what George Stephanopoulos said about that incident in his memoir, All Too Human:
Twice during the interview, [CBS executive producer] Don Hewitt called a break and emerged from the control room. He told the Clintons how he'd made John Kennedy president by producing the debates in 1960 and said he could do the same for them. Like a director coaxing his leading couple, he crouched down in front of the couch and whispered, "Just say yes or no. Yes or no, and we'll move on to other things."And, it turns out, Hewitt apparently knew they were lying the whole time - this from an interview with Brian Lamb on Booknotes: Hewitt recounted how he first encountered Carville during the famous 60 Minutes interview with Bill and Hillary aired after the 1992 Super Bowl:
"James Carville, to show you how down the middle I am, I have never heard James Carville, on this side, or Robert Novak on that side, say anything I agree with. So you know where I am. Neither one of them has ever said one word that I agreed with. "Carville. Carville comes, we’re doing an obscure Governor named Bill Clinton from Arkansas and his wife Hillary who nobody had ever heard of, at the Ritz hotel in Boston because he wants time to explain Gennifer Flowers. Which, he came there to set the record straight, and he set the record crooked. And we’re in that room about an hour, and I knew he was lying and she knew he was lying, and Steve Kroft knew they were lying, and in the middle of it, this Carville, this funny looking duck arrives, and he plunks himself down in the control room, like a groupie following a couple of rock stars, and he starts nattering to himself and actually sobbing, ‘Oh I love them, I love those people, I love them so much, I love them,’ and I said, ‘will somebody shut this guy up, or get him the hell out of here?’ I tried to get a cop to throw him out. I think he reported me to Hillary. I think I’ve been on report ever since. I am persona non-grata with Hillary Clinton, as all 60 Minutes is, and quasi persona non-grata with Bill Clinton."The only difference is that this time they got caught.