profiting after leaving office is an evergreen custom here, Barnett has operated in a market that barely existed thirty years ago. With the exception of a few outliers (Barnett got Reagan’s budget director, David Stockman, a reported $2.4 million advance in 1985), the money was not here then, the electronic circus was not in place, and political operatives like Karl Rove did not possess the celebrity appeal that has allowed them to leverage their “brands” into big multiplatform media deals. The rise of cable news gave everyone a face.
On the same night I encountered Andrea Mitchell at the Biden–Palin debate in St. Louis, I ran into Barnett. He had been hanging out in the media filing center—the kind of center-of-the-action place he loved. Enthusiastic as ever, Bob was always talking about his latest big deals and updating acquaintances on his roster of premium clients. One of his bigger parlays back then was the mega book, speaking, Fox News,
Newsweek
, and
Wall Street Journal
package he had negotiated for Rove after he left the White House. Rove had just been in Philadelphia for a “debate” with former Senator Max Cleland, the Democrat who lost an arm and two legs in Vietnam, and also his Senate seat in Georgia (in 2002) after his Republican opponent ran an ad featuring likenesses of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, while attacking Cleland for not supporting President Bush’s Homeland Security bill. Cleland mostly blamed Rove for this. Debating Rove was like “going up against the devil himself,” he said. “It’s a source of income for me,” Cleland told me of the joint appearance, which was sponsored by an insurance trade group. Cleland, whose own book deal was also negotiated by Barnett, was paid $15,000 for his night’s work in Philadelphia; Rove made $40,000.
Barnett is the prototype of a person who made Washington work for him. He has also been the recipient of some of the most sustained and positive press coverage in the city, often benefiting from the hyperbolic testimony of his clients (or their surrogates). Hillary Clinton is always game to pay public testimony to Barnett, who negotiated an $8 million advance for her memoir,
Living History
, and more than $10 million for her husband’s memoir,
My Life
—and even brokered a deal for Hillary to anthologize a bunch of kids’ letters to the first pets, Socks the cat and Buddy the dog. Hillary’s spokesman Philippe Reines once told the
Baltimore Sun
,“If God were writing the Bible again, he would surely call Bob Barnett.”
While Bob is effective at his job, he has also made a lot of money for many of the top journalists at outlets where a lot of this good press appears. “To list Barnett as a signifier of Washington connectedness is like calling the sun a symbol of heat,” hyperbolized David Montgomery of the
Washington Post
in a 2010 profile. The piece appeared under the leadership of then editor Marcus Brauchli, for whom Barnett had negotiated a $3.4 million package on the way out the door of his previous job at the
Wall Street Journal
. There is no indication that Brauchli steered Montgomery to write in any particular direction. Still, it’s never rare for journalists—of which Barnett estimates he represents 375—to find themselves too close to the Barnett sun.
Barnett is also a signifier of Washington’s special tolerance for conflict of interest, if not by the legal/ethical definition, then certainly by the “raises fundamental questions” definition. The term comes up a lot around Barnett, even from his clients and friends. It’s often said with some measure of a shrug (“Only in Washington”) and in fact admiration—as if to say, “Well, Bob’s the big game in town for this, so of course he’ll have a connection to both sides—and he has made me a lot of money, so it’s all good.” I’ve had many political figures and news colleagues over the years who have said they were, at the very least, uncomfortable that
On the same night I encountered Andrea Mitchell at the Biden–Palin debate in St. Louis, I ran into Barnett. He had been hanging out in the media filing center—the kind of center-of-the-action place he loved. Enthusiastic as ever, Bob was always talking about his latest big deals and updating acquaintances on his roster of premium clients. One of his bigger parlays back then was the mega book, speaking, Fox News,
Newsweek
, and
Wall Street Journal
package he had negotiated for Rove after he left the White House. Rove had just been in Philadelphia for a “debate” with former Senator Max Cleland, the Democrat who lost an arm and two legs in Vietnam, and also his Senate seat in Georgia (in 2002) after his Republican opponent ran an ad featuring likenesses of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, while attacking Cleland for not supporting President Bush’s Homeland Security bill. Cleland mostly blamed Rove for this. Debating Rove was like “going up against the devil himself,” he said. “It’s a source of income for me,” Cleland told me of the joint appearance, which was sponsored by an insurance trade group. Cleland, whose own book deal was also negotiated by Barnett, was paid $15,000 for his night’s work in Philadelphia; Rove made $40,000.
Barnett is the prototype of a person who made Washington work for him. He has also been the recipient of some of the most sustained and positive press coverage in the city, often benefiting from the hyperbolic testimony of his clients (or their surrogates). Hillary Clinton is always game to pay public testimony to Barnett, who negotiated an $8 million advance for her memoir,
Living History
, and more than $10 million for her husband’s memoir,
My Life
—and even brokered a deal for Hillary to anthologize a bunch of kids’ letters to the first pets, Socks the cat and Buddy the dog. Hillary’s spokesman Philippe Reines once told the
Baltimore Sun
,“If God were writing the Bible again, he would surely call Bob Barnett.”
While Bob is effective at his job, he has also made a lot of money for many of the top journalists at outlets where a lot of this good press appears. “To list Barnett as a signifier of Washington connectedness is like calling the sun a symbol of heat,” hyperbolized David Montgomery of the
Washington Post
in a 2010 profile. The piece appeared under the leadership of then editor Marcus Brauchli, for whom Barnett had negotiated a $3.4 million package on the way out the door of his previous job at the
Wall Street Journal
. There is no indication that Brauchli steered Montgomery to write in any particular direction. Still, it’s never rare for journalists—of which Barnett estimates he represents 375—to find themselves too close to the Barnett sun.
Barnett is also a signifier of Washington’s special tolerance for conflict of interest, if not by the legal/ethical definition, then certainly by the “raises fundamental questions” definition. The term comes up a lot around Barnett, even from his clients and friends. It’s often said with some measure of a shrug (“Only in Washington”) and in fact admiration—as if to say, “Well, Bob’s the big game in town for this, so of course he’ll have a connection to both sides—and he has made me a lot of money, so it’s all good.” I’ve had many political figures and news colleagues over the years who have said they were, at the very least, uncomfortable that
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