I’m listening to Wait, Wait! Don’t Tell Me!, and their celebrity guest is Dana Perino, the White House press secretary. They’ve made her laugh and feel more comfortable, as they know she’s had a tough week.
First, her boss was unwavering in his position, even when it was eroding out from under him like the sands of time at high tide. Someone told him last summer they had “news for him” regarding Iran, and he accepted the news that there was news with gravity, but didn’t actually inquire as to what the new news was. Because he’s not that kind of “need to know” kind of guy, if the news is not actually something he wants to know, right?
So the morning of his big national press conference, the NIE about Iran came out, with the not-very-new-news at all that Iran halted their nuclear weapons program way back in 2003. Our mountain-biking President backpedaled resolutely. His press secretary battled her way through the rest of the week with her arch-nemesis, Helen Thomas.
Even FOX News says the debacle has damaged the credibility (such as it is) of the Administration, although they managed to dig up some grumbling about some rabid anti-Bushites who’ve managed to survive this long in the State Department. Translation: there are still a few people with a sense of right and wrong there.
Oh, and the phone number Bush gave out for the mortgage-relief help line was wrong, and led to the personal phone number of a husband-and-wife ministry team. So not only is the program set up so that only a very small minority of people can benefit from it, but it starts out as a talk-show joke. This announcement was the original reason for the press announcement, I think – it was designed to show how Bush was acting decisively to head off the looming subprime mortgage rate crisis. But oops. Another mess to clean up on Aisle 1600, Dana!
Ms. Perino laughed off her week from Hell with the WWDTM crew, and survived her stint. As the show is taped on Thursdays, she was still in the midst of her battles with the (gleeful, gaffe-maddened) press corps, but managed to sound like a very nice, friendly person for her radio appearance. She declined to use her “White House voice” after noting that her husband asked her not to use it around their own home, though.
