As I said, “indirectly.”
Look, you have to view a Press Secretary sort of the way you view a defense attorney. His job isn’t to get across the objective truth, but to articulate the administration’s position an any given issue. He shouldn’t lie, but the truth he tells is always going to be spun so as to make his boss look good (or less bad). If your assumption is that Bush = evil/bad so anyone working for him is evil/bad, fine. But that’s an opinion, not a fact.
Lets be serious here. When was there ever a Press Secretary who said: Yeah, the president said “X”, but he’s full of shit and really thinks “Y”. -or- The president’s position is “X”, but let me tell, you “X” just ain’t gonna work!
Why is there such thing as a WH press secretary anyway? Why can’t the president be his own press secretary?
That would be too time-consuming, wouldn’t it? Also, if the official position stinks, and the press smells it, you can just let them kill the messenger and deliver a different line later on, as if the original idea was the mistake of some underling shooting his mouth off. I always figured the Press Secretary was kind of like a Secret Service agent, a human shield who’ll take a bullet for you if necessary.
He could, but why would he? What’s the advantage to the president of not having a press secretary?
It’ll be nice to hear someone else say “we can’t comment on an ongoing investigation”. Or maybe they’ll stop with that line, but that would really open themselves up for attack.
I really hated that strategy. What’s the point of standing up and taking questions if you refuse to answer them for some made-up reason?
Only that it looks better than refusing to answer them for no stated reason at all.
I think we’re all well aware of that. The question is somewhat related to the quandry of the defense atorney. How can they do it, defend that lying murderer? Does defending a serial killer who he suspects really is a serial killer make a lawyer a bad guy? I’d say no, and the reasons are pretty obviously necessary for a fair judicial system. The Press Secretary has, perhaps, a less noble mandate.
I see a press secretary in these times as a political hack, a toady. And McClellan is the poster boy.
He was Gov. Bush’s press secretary. When Bush made Pres., Scottyboy was made assistant. That should tell you he was the second string.
He is steeped in Texas politics, and would do whatever it takes to serve his master.
Culpable? Only if you think Charles Manson’s minions were culpable.
Oh, wait! That was about criminal behavior. My bad.
As opposed to when?
Simpsons joke, adapted from Earl Warren being a Supreme Court Chief Justice and a stripper. Best not to worry about it.
I was allowing for press secretaries 50+ years ago being a different breed. I haven’t searched for the first ones. I guess I have to go do this now. Thanks a load.
But that’s just the thing, he wasn’t by any means slick or well prepared. He would stammer and circle like the President himself. Now that isn’t evidence of him being unintelligent, but given the President’s own problems with speaking, I simply cannot fathom why they hired McClellan in the first place.
At least Ari Fleischer had half a coat of polish and sounded better than a nervous third grader behind the podium.
Did anyone else see the circle-jerk on the White House lawn between Scotty and Dubya today? Scotty got all choked up while Bush made some lame joke about getting together in Texas to swap stories about their time together in the White House. The whole thing made me kind of queasy.
Wow. You get queasy very easily.
So, after listening to a number of Whitehouse analysts from across the political spectrum today, it seems that most of the reporters like Scotty, think he’s basically honest but not terribly competent, and that the WH pretty much threw him to the wolves every day. Seems about right to me.
I don’t see that new spokesperson is going to make all that much difference. The WH’s problem is the message, not the messenger.
I always thought that Joe Lockhart, who served late in Clinton’s tenure, looked like he wanted to bust somebody in the jaw, like, ALL the time.
Keep an eye out for a smear campaign. If the Bush apologists start peddling rumors about McClellan’s “incompetence” or “unreliability” next week, then a tell-all book is in the pipeline.
35 years ago.
Ron Zeigler.
'Nuff said?
Bugs Moran’s hitmen could make the same argument.
I had the same thought, so found in Wiki that (if Wiki is correct):
There’s a list of all WH Press Secretaries at the Wiki article.