(AP)
Ron Suskind, the journalist and author of new book that depicts a male-dominated White House under President Barack Obama, is defending his account after the president's aides moved this week to dispute his claims.
Suskind--who used more than 700 hours of interviews with top administration officials, both former and current--to produce "Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington and the Education of a President"--took the unusual step of allowing a Washington Post reporter to listen to a recording of an interview with former White House communications director Anita Dunn. Dunn had given Suskind one of the sharpest quotes about the White House work environment, and Suskind played the recording back to prove that he had quoted her accurately.
"This place would be in court for a hostile workplace," Dunn is quoted as saying in Suskind's book. "Because it actually fit all of the classic legal requirements for a genuinely hostile workplace to women."
Dunn told the Washington Post on Friday that quote was taken out of context.
On Monday, Suskind allowed a Post reporter to review a recorded excerpt of the original April telephone interview:
In that conversation, Dunn is heard telling Suskind about a conversation she had with Jarrett.
"I remember once I told Valerie that, I said if it weren't for the president, this place would be in court for a hostile workplace," Dunn is heard telling Suskind. "Because it actually fit all of the classic legal requirements for a genuinely hostile workplace to women."
The apparent debunking of Dunn's denial follows backpedaling by Christina Romer, the former head of the Council of Economic Advisers. Romer told Suskind that, after then-economics adviser Lawrence Summers had excluded her from a meeting, she "felt like a piece of meat."
"I can't imagine that I ever said this," Romer, former chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers, told the Post last week. "I was told before I went to Washington that there has always been a lot of testosterone in the West Wing. What was different in the Obama administration is that there were so many women in important positions and, when problems arose, the president worked hard to fix them. I felt respected, included and useful to the team."
Other senior administration officials seemed to confirm the tensions among the sexes portrayed by Suskind.
"There were some issues early on with women feeling as though they hadn't figured out what their role was going to be on the senior team at the White House," senior adviser Valerie Jarrett told the Post in an interview Monday. "Most of the women hadn't worked on the campaign, and so they didn't have a personal relationship with the president."
Suskind is in the midst of a media blitz for the book, which was published Tuesday. (In an ill-timed but apparently unrelated departure, White House communications director Jen Psaki announced Tuesday she is leaving the administration to take on a senior role at a communications and research firm.)
He appeared on the "Today" show on Tuesday morning.
"Everyone is under a lot of pressure; it's a political season," Suskind told Ann Curry. "The fact of the matter is, all of them said everything; we have extensive notes and tapes for this book."
He added: "Everything in this book is as solid as a brick."
You can watch the "Today" appearance below:
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