Novel Explores Morality in Politics

Bill Eichenberger - The Columbus Dispatch

The Rules of the Game, a suspense novel by Leonard Downie, begins in the midst of a presidential race with 70-year-old candidate Monroe Capehart and his surprise pick of a running mate, the sexy and vivacious Susan Cameron.

The author, recently retired as executive editor of The Washington Post, conceived the scenario six years ago, long before John McCain won the Republican Party nomination and shocked the political world by choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate.

"I didn't know John would win the Republican nomination, and I'd never even heard of Sarah Palin," Downie said recently by phone.

"So it was eerie when all that happened and so closely mirrored what I have in the book."

"I wanted to include a woman president. If we weren't ready for a woman to be elected president, I figured, what was the most likely scenario to get a woman into the Oval Office? And that was an elderly male candidate who dies early in his first term and the female VP who replaces him."

Q: You did investigative reporting at the Post before you became executive editor. Which is harder -- being an investigative reporter or being a novelist?

A: It's actually harder to be an investigative journalist because you have to go out and find all the facts rather than make them up.

Investigative reporting is important and rewarding, but it's also quite lonely. You're working day in and day out, generally with people who don't like what you're doing. And you're going where nobody else has gone. It's tough and daunting.

Q: Critics have praised your novel for its verisimilitude.

A: I wanted it to be realistic, to show how Washington works from the inside out, warts and all. All the positive and negative aspects are in there. All the places in the novel are real except for a couple of instances.

I'm dealing with real issues, with the influence of money on politics, of the situation with lobbyists and political operatives, of the might of the defense industry.

Q: Why the title?

A: My intention here was to help people see that everyone in Washington faces moral choices every day and how they approach those choices. Of course, we all face moral choices, from deciding whether or not to speed on your way in to work or to talk on your cell phone while driving.

But in the power corridors of Washington, the stakes are high and people with good intentions break the rules to achieve what they see as a just result. And, conversely, people with the worst of intentions might choose to follow the rules.

Q: The Rules of the Game is a paean to journalism, isn't it?

A: What I call "accountability journalism" -- making sure that the powerful are held accountable for their actions -- plays an absolutely vital role in our democracy.

And I include in that phrase not just investigative reporting but also aggressive beat reporting -- holding our courts accountable, our corporations accountable, even the ownership of our sports teams accountable.

Q: Accountability journalism is in jeopardy, right?

A: Yes. We have to figure out how we're going to pay for it -- because the current economic model is a failure.

Q: Were you surprised at how quickly the model unraveled?

A: It fell apart much more quickly than anyone could have anticipated. The Internet has been such a rapid change agent. I don't think anyone could have guessed five or six years ago that we would be where we are today.

There are so many ideas out there right now about how to save journalism -- from forming endowments to shifting investigative journalism to universities; from government funding or some other kind of support, such as an antitrust exemption.

We're seeing Internet-only startups in some cities. . . . We're seeing other papers deliver only two or three times a week and publish online the rest of the time.

It's an exciting time because, as daunting as the future is, journalism isn't going to go away. It is going to take different forms.

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