TV Review : ‘Naked Washington’ Thesis Hangs by Thread

The thesis goes something like this: The press loved JFK and even LBJ before Vietnam; but after that debacle and Watergate, the press and the White House have been on a crash collision course paved with distrust, disillusion and deception.

If reality were thesis, then “Naked Washington,” on A&E;’s “Investigative Reports” tonight, would make sense. But it isn’t, and it doesn’t.

The central problem is that this report, care of BBC-TV producer Colleen Toomey, tells a historical narrative, tracking from the sweet, naive days of Camelot to the new, nasty grind of Whitewater and (as some wags have already dubbed it) Zippergate. And history tells a more complicated story of White House/media relations than this report would have it.

The press did feel duped by LBJ on Vietnam (a clip here shows an obviously perturbed and snippy Morley Safer in the jungle, basically telling LBJ where to get off). But the White House press corps wasn’t so permanently altered that it collectively swooped down on Richard Nixon after the Watergate break-in. In fact, much of the Fourth Estate thought that the Washington Post’s dogged coverage of the burglary was misguided.

Oddly, the names and faces of both Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter are missing here, and it could be argued that the press didn’t bring their administrations to task nearly as much as they should have.

But “Naked Washington’s” thesis truly collapses when considering Ronald Reagan. If it’s true that the post-Watergate press would no longer tolerate White House duping, then how to explain the Reagan White House’s brilliant media manipulations, and that the White House press pack never uncovered Iran-Contra for themselves? Is the pack’s own self-disgust at being fooled again the reason that it is going after Clinton? Or has Clinton brought it on himself? “Naked Washington” doesn’t answer any of these questions, but it surely begs them.

* “Naked Washington” airs at 6 and 10 tonight on A&E.;