Why There Won't Be Another Jack Valenti

Jack Valenti cast a shadow across the decades. The Kennedy-Johnson aide was on the grim flight from Dallas in 1963 that carried the late president's coffin and where Lyndon Johnson was famously sworn in standing next to Jackie, still wearing her bloodsoaked attire. After Camelot, he was a Johnson intimate able to make himself to the boss and one of the best at enduring his tirades. Then came Valenti's greatest claim to fame--his decades running the Motion Picture Association of America's Washington lobby. Most lobbyists serve anonymous industries, little known executives and obscure interests. Valenti was the man to see in Washington for the like of Kirk Douglas and Warren Beatty, Lew Wasserman and Bob Evans. The glamour of the industry made him a big deal in Washington. To this day, one of the most coveted invites in town is to a screening at the MPAA's offices on Eye Street with it's lush private theatre and an attending dinner in its elegant dining room and reception area. It's as good as it gets here. And it was even more fun in Valenti's day because the studios, then independent and not just divisions of congolerates like News Corporation and Time-Warner and General Electric, parent of NBC Universal, deferred to Jack because of his experience and juice. As time went on, his power diminished because the studios set up their own lobbies as part of their multinational shops. Disney, Time-Warner, GE--they all have big lobbies here and so while the MPAA still does important work it's never going to be quite the same. It's still the best lobbying job in town and the competition to get it when Valenti retired was fierce. Former Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman, a friend, manage to negotiate Tom DeLay's K-Street Project and get the gig despite being a Clinton veteran. And he still gets to go to the Oscars and jet around the globe pursuing issues like intellectual copyright protection and trade deals. And the dinners and movies, hosted by him and his college sweetheart and wife Rhoda, are still the best tickets in town. The job is a big deal but not as big a deal. No MPAA president will ever quite have Valenti's clout. And so we lose not only another tie to the Kennedy-Johnson years but to an earlier era in Washington lobbying as well.