The Bush Administration -- A Committment To Excellence

http://wonkette.com/politics/margaret-spellings/education-sec-loses-to-dude-from-earth-girls-are-easy-216691.php

Maybe Spellings should have tried "Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader."

 

Toby, Toby, come quick.

Sam's getting beat up by a girl.

 

(Note: I'm looking at this from the point of view of the administration trying to stay on its message and keep the press in check. From media standpoint it might be totally different.)

With the proviso that a press secretary can be only as good as the president he serves, I'd say some good ones in recent history have been Stephanopolis, Ari Fleisher and Tony Snow(job), who was extremely effective political views notwithstanding. Perino (the worst), McClellan, and Joe Lockhart were horrible, I thought.

C-SPAN had an excellent program not long ago with several press secretaries covering the Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Ford, Bush, Bush and Clinton admins. It was a fascinating conversation to eavesdrop on. Of course, it was the old dogs who had the best war stories. You could tell the more recent ones were holding back. I do remember Joe Lockhart telling a story about Clinton that had the whole panel and audience laughing to the point of tears. If I recall the story I'll report back.

 

Here's a vote for Mike McCurry from the Clinton admin. He followed DeeDee Meyers (who was hamstrung by the Clinton team not giving her access to stuff the press wanted to know). McCurry was pretty well respected, demanding better Oval Office access, but he fled once the Monica stuff got out of hand.

 

I remember seeing that show, but don't remember the Clinton story.

 

I remember, as a little kid, thinking that Larry Speakes must have gotten the job as Reagan's spokesman because, well, his name was Speakes. Made perfect sense then...

 

Figured I'd recycle this in light of the McLellan book coming out. No surprises for me. Sounds like a lot of 20/20 hindsight. Biggest surprise was that the White House folks just didn't say, "it's not true." Playing the "disgruntled" card is so passe.

 

He seemed plenty gruntled while he was still working there.

 

Yeah. That's my question. Where the fuck was all this when he was dishing out his bullshit in 03-04?

What a dipshit.

 

Has its own thread. Shitty headline, though — I can see why you'd have missed it.