Abusive Capitol Hill Aides: A Story Lost in Innuendo

There is a certain kind of newspaper headline that is so purposely flat and dull, so obviously out of place above the fold on the front page, that you know you’re in for a juicy story.

That was the case in the Washington Post last Sunday: “Ex-Dyson Aides Recall Unorthodox Demands.” Recalling unorthodox demands? This is news? And then the subhead: “Complaints About All-Male ‘Round Table’ Add to Spending Questions.” The operative term, of course, is “all-male,” a phrase sometimes used to describe homosexual activity. And “round table” has a nice, suggestive ring to it as well.

Just reading the headline and noting the placement of the story, attentive readers start licking their chops. This is going to be one smarmy tale.

And, of course, it was. The Post article told of a Capitol Hill office environment in which Tom Pappas, the top aide to Rep. Roy Dyson (D-Md.), required staffers to attend special social events, to refrain from dating and to devote themselves to their jobs day and night. “Invitations for drinks and dinner,” said the article, “virtually became job requirements.”

Throughout the piece, there is the unmistakable innuendo that even more was going on here. One male staffer was asked to do a striptease. A picture shows a dozen handsome young men in tuxedos at a party Dyson threw in Annapolis, Md. Pappas has his arm around one of them.

Anyone who read the Post story and did not come away thinking that the office atmosphere had a distinct homosexual atmosphere would have had to have been pretty stupid. Even the Post’s paragraph of denial read like a smirk: “Those interviewed said they did not believe that the pressure to socialize with Pappas and others on the staff went beyond the dinners and events that Pappas organized.”

Sure! Wink, wink.

If there was no sex going on here, then what was the story doing on the front page?

Which was exactly the point. The Post either had no evidence that staffers were being pressured for sexual favors, or it had the evidence but couldn’t bring itself to say so. The readers were, at best, left confused. And Pappas was, of course, left dead.

His suicide the day the story appeared seemed to confirm the Post’s article. The man responsible for what the Post called a “troubling pattern of conduct” in Dyson’s office was troubled himself.

The Post’s article brings up an important issue for the press--how far to go in reporting on the personal lives and sexual proclivities of public officials. Actually, what was wrong with the article was that it did not tackle the question head-on. It implied a lot but said almost nothing. It pleased the libel lawyers but it performed no service (other than titillation) for the readers.

The sex lives of government officials--and that includes elected ones, appointed ones and key aides--should be fair game if those practices affect public policy. If newspapers have the goods, they should print them.

The irony in this case is that the Post piece raises an even more important issue--but it’s an issue that the sexual innuendo in the story tends to obscure, not illuminate. That issue is the often-wretched working conditions of congressional employees.

Pappas was a grotesque example of a fairly common Capitol Hill phenomenon--the chief of staff or administrative aide who supplants the member of Congress as the head of the office. The member, who spends his or her time campaigning or legislating, doesn’t pay any attention. The autocratic aide drives the staffers. They work long hours, forfeit their social lives, perform demeaning chores like walking the senator’s dog and are sometimes the object of sexual harassment (usually of the hetero variety).

On Capitol Hill, where a macho culture prevails and where there’s no effective legal recourse against abusive employers anyway (Congress exempts itself from the fair labor and anti-discrimination laws it requires private industry to observe), the deal is: Put up or quit. And, remember, if you quit, there’s a long line of kids ready to take your place.

These aides are the people who, more and more, are responsible for making national policy and they work in an environment that is often cruel and unhealthy--physically and mentally. It’s important for Americans to know what that environment is like, because it has a significant effect on the laws of the land.

That was the story that the Post managed to smother--although not consciously--with its winking, jab-in-the-ribs article. At Dyson’s meeting with the press, on the Wednesday after his friend (and I mean friend) killed himself, the first questions that reporters screamed out at the congressmen were: “Was Pappas a homosexual?” “Are you a homosexual?”

Well, you couldn’t blame the reporters for asking. After all, they had read the Post story. And they had missed the point, too.