NY Times · Oct 29, 2017
The Battle-Scarred West Wing Veteran Scripting the N.F.L.’s Anthem Message
Joe Lockhart with N.F.L. Commissioner Roger Goodell before the Patriots played the Chiefs in September.In the late 1990s, when the Clinton White House was under siege amid revelations of the president’s affair with Monica Lewinsky and efforts by Congress to impeach him, it fell on Joe Lockhart, then the White House spokesman, day after day to defend his boss.
But unlike many of his predecessors, he did not just take his marching orders. In countless meetings with the president and his advisers, Lockhart helped shape the message he would convey, and he aggressively pressed it to reporters.
