WASHINGTON, 25 August — Thursday night was supposed to be Gary Condit’s big break. For months he had been stonewalling to the world about his relationship with missing intern Chandra Levy, and he finally had a chance to clear the air. How did he do? By all accounts very badly.
Yesterday morning, the local Washington press was having a hey-day, and, they say, he has no one to blame but himself.
“Condit Didn’t Break His Silence So Much as Bend It,” wrote the Washington Post.
“Condit Evades Direct Answers About Chandra,” said the Washington Times.
Rep. Condit broke his long public silence Thursday night, admitting to ABC’s Connie Chung he had a five-month “relationship” with missing former intern Chandra Levy, but denying that he had any role in her disappearance.
The 53-year-old-married man answered very few questions directly, and disputed the accounts of nearly everyone else involved in the case, including Miss Levy’s parents, her aunt, the Washington D.C. police chief, and other women who said they had affairs with him.
Refusing to answer the question as to whether he had a sexual relationship with Levy, a question that Chung doggedly asked him throughout the 30-minute interview, Condit just said they were “very close” but that he wasn’t in love with her.
“I’ve been married 34 years. I have not been a perfect man. I have made mistakes in my life,” he said. “But out of respect for my family, out of a specific request by the Levy family, it is best that I not get into the details of the relationship.”
And he kept “robotically” repeating a line from a letter to his constituents released earlier in the day: That he had been married 34 years and that “have not been a perfect man.” (On the Fox News Channel, Bill O’Reilly referred to Condit’s letter “as the biggest bunch of garbage in the world.”)
During one of several references to his 34-year marriage, Condit once referred to his wife as “that woman.” This was a big red flag for anyone with a memory, as it instantly brought to mind President Clinton and his infamous denial about ever having had sexual relations with another “that woman,” Monica Lewinsky. “That was one of the most shameless lies in US political history, but maybe it paved the way for other politicians to lie in years to come, at least about their sexual misadventures,” wrote Tom Shales in the Washington Post.
The network interview is said to be part of a media blitz to start Condit’s bid for re-election.
The move fell flat, said Bruce Cain, a University of California, Berkeley, political scientist, who thinks Condit was “horrible” in the interview. “I just got irritated watching the thing. I thought he came across as incredible, insensitive, evasive, uncooperative.”
In Condit’s district, Merced bar owner Mike Maloney watched Condit on TV with his patrons. He called Condit “overprepared and a bit too slick.”
Wendy Crabb, 29, an executive assistant from Modesto who has voted for Condit, said she was “embarrassed and appalled by his lack of admittance and his shying away from the questions.”
Another former supporter, John Mensonides, said, “I was hoping to see some humility and some candor and instead we saw evasiveness and arrogance.”
Not all reaction was negative. About 60 supporters held a rally in Merced, 40 miles south of Ceres.
“I thought he cleared up some misinformation, I thought he was honest,” said Sandra Lucas, Democratic chairwoman in Stanislaus County, which is in his district. She said she thought Chung “pressed the affair thing to the point of boredom.”
During the interview Condit insisted he has fully cooperated with D.C. police in their investigation and has done nothing to impede their probe.
“No one is Washington has been more cooperative than myself,” the congressman told Chung.
She countered that police do not agree. “The police even say that you impeded the investigation. They do not believe that you have fully cooperated.”
Terrance W. Gainer, Washington’s deputy police chief, disputed Condit’s assertion of complete cooperation with investigators. “It took us three interviews and a lot of effort to get as far as we got,” he said.
Condit said he is “puzzled” and “confused” as to why the D.C. police chief, Charles Ramsey, has said such things about him.
Chung reminded him that the D.C. police said Condit did not acknowledge having been intimate with Levy until his third of four interviews with them.
“In the first interview, I revealed every bit of the details about Chandra Levy. I answered every question that law enforcement asked me. In the second interview, I did the same thing.”
“Truthfully?” Ms. Chung asked.
After some hesitation, Condit replied, “I answered every question truthfully.”
Condit said he also was confused about a phone call he had with Chandra Levy’s mother, Susan, who said she confronted Condit over the telephone and specifically asked him if he had an affair with her daughter.
Condit denied that part of the conversation took place. “My job was to console and do what I could to be helpful. But I never lied to Mrs. Levy at all. I’m sorry if she misunderstood the conversation,” Condit said. But the attorney for the Levys, Billy Martin, said Condit is the one who doesn’t get it. Appearing on ABC’s “Nightline” after the interview, he challenged Condit’s account.
“I don’t think he was candid,” Martin said. “I don’t think he has been forthcoming, either tonight or in any of the interview with the authorities. He is hiding, and I wish he would answer the question.”
Aside from calling his wife “that woman,” another important blunder in the interview was regarding his relationship with Anne Marie Smith, a flight attendant who said she had a 10-month affair with the congressman. She claims that Condit and his aides repeatedly tried to persuade her not to speak to investigators, and urged her to sign a false affidavit.
Condit denied asking Smith to sign a false affidavit — a copy of which Chung showed the congressman, saying it was from Condit’s lawyer to Smith’s lawyer. Condit denied the evidence.
“Are you saying she (Smith) completely fabricated this?” Chung asked.
“She taken advantage of this tragedy,” Condit said of Smith, who talked to authorities only after a friend sold an account of the relationship with the congressman to a tabloid. “She didn’t know Chandra Levy. So she gets to have her moment of publicity, of financial gain. And I’m puzzled by that,” Condit said.
In an interview with the Merced Sun-Star conducted after the ABC taping, Condit said it might have been a mistake not to have spoken out earlier.
“In hindsight, maybe I should’ve,” he said. “Maybe people wouldn’t have been so critical of me. But I did everything that I thought I was supposed to do as an American citizen.”
