Governor's story spills from rumor rooted in anger

MORGAN

By LUCY MORGAN

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 19, 2001

Sitting in the back of a state airplane -- a King Air seized years ago from one of my favorite drug smugglers -- I handed Gov. Jeb Bush a file.

For weeks the governor had been refusing to say anything for publication about the rumors flying around Tallahassee.

The rumors began to circulate during last year's presidential election recount. Initially, the governor was romantically linked to Secretary of State Katherine Harris by out-of-town reporters who had been talking to angry Democrats.

We laughed. The governor and Harris are not friends. He supported her opponent in the last election.

Then, as Bush moved to make it easier to fire state employees with the help of Cynthia Henderson, secretary at the Department of Management Services, she became part of the daily rumor.

Reporters all over the capital chased these rumors. Each time we encountered a dead end.

One day anonymous callers were saying Columba Bush, the governor's wife, had moved out of the mansion. That tip came the same day I had been at the mansion for a legislative meeting and talked to her. In fact, she had been gracious enough to take me into the family quarters for a meeting with Sugar, the family's Siamese cat.

So I did a little research on the rumors, and completed it the day before I joined the governor on the trip to West Palm Beach and DeLand for the signing of the state's historic election bill.

My research began with an e-mail from a lawyer who is suing the state. Take a look at Democrats.com, he suggested. Search for Henderson and you'll find an interesting item.

I dialed up the Web site and searched. There was a nasty little notice suggesting that Bush and Henderson were having an affair. The item said Henderson was the only agency head with an office in the governor's suite at the Capitol.

It also said Vanity Fair and the supermarket tabloid Globe were about to publish this gossip.

I go to the Capitol almost every day. I know who has offices where. I knew Henderson did not have an office in the governor's suite. In fact her office is 6 miles away from the Capitol.

So I checked on the Web site and found it was registered to David Lytel in Syracuse, N.Y. I called him to ask a few questions. He described it as a place created so Democrats could spread stories not being published in the mainstream media. The liberal answer to the right-wing Web sites that published so much trash about President Bill Clinton, he said.

Lytel referred me to his colleague, Robert Fertik, author of the piece on Bush. When I challenged the accuracy of the bit about the office, Fertik immediately deemed it a "work in process" and removed it from the Web. He said he was still working on it with "credible sources" in Tallahassee.

I set out to see who Lytel and Fertik were. Published stories said both had been working against the Bushes during the Florida recount.

Both were longtime Democrats. Lytel helped with the White House Web site under Clinton.

For the first time I could say exactly where the rumor was coming from: Some very angry Democrats who don't like President George W. Bush or his younger brother. It was like finding a fingerprint.

Their Web site is filled with rhetoric urging Democrats to continue protesting the election and accusing the Bush brothers of stealing it. (It should be noted that the Web site is not affiliated with the state or national party and Florida Democrats say they had nothing to do with it.)

For the flight to South Florida with the governor and legislative leaders, I packed a file containing copies of the published reports on Lytel and Fertik, a copy of the stuff posted at Democrats.com and the details on who registered the Web site.

As we descended toward Tallahassee on our return from a day devoted to signing the new election bill, I handed the file to the governor and suggested he might want to talk about it now. He sighed and shook his head and suggested it would be very hurtful to his wife if anything were published. He didn't want to dignify the rumor with a comment.

I didn't need his permission to write, but wondered if the printed page might make him decide to talk for the record.

A day later his staff replied. The governor had accepted the fact that the rumors were reaching a critical mass and would be the subject of a news story.

After another background conversation with the governor, I wrote a column, becoming the first newspaper reporter to write explicitly about Bush, Henderson and the rumors.

Bush would have preferred no publicity at all, but it was clear his political enemies were not going to stop. We would prefer to write only fact and not report rumors, but when we found such a clear trail to those who were spreading the story, we agreed it was news. I would have preferred an on-the-record conversation with the governor, but I'll take what I can get.

The rest of the story is, as they say, history. On the day the story was published, Bush aides announced he would take questions at his next news conference.

And that is how the governor happened to stand up last Monday and say he's been faithful to his wife of 27 years.

We thought you'd like to know how this came to pass.

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